Ashley trying to flog the Barcodes....

[yanno]

Perhaps he's realized King Kev isn't the messiah, and Dennis Wise isn't a Director of Football....

"Sources had confirmed that Mike Ashley, Newcastle United's owner, recently made an indirect approach to Dubai Investment Capital, inquiring if it might be interested in buying the club for £300m."
Etc etc
http://football.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/0,,2257907,00.html

I only hope Ashley doesn't manage to flog the Barcodes to some sovereign wealth fund and then join forces with Kemsley to try to buy us - as was rumoured a few months ago.

 

[Bonjour]

How much did he pay for them?

 

[yanno]

How much did he pay for them?

It's in the article:

"Ashley bought Newcastle for £130m and assumed debts originally estimated at £65m but now said to have been nearer the £100m mark.
"It is believed Newcastle has cost Mike Ashley between £210m and £220m which is why DIC clearly laughed when £300m was mentioned," said a leading financial analyst yesterday."

Ashley allegedly didn't even have the Barcodes' accounts professionally checked before purchase, which is why he ended up inheriting an extra £35 million or so of debt. And now he's trying to fob the lot off onto a Sovereign Wealth Fund - ie one of the few entities in our fooked-up global financial markets that actually have genuine (rather than fictional) capital.

Ashley probably won't succeed in selling to DIC, because both Liverpool and Man Utd were bought with these "complex debt instruments" that have totally screwed the capital markets. And they're far more attractive to foreign buyers. So, just like Citibank, Manure and the Scousers will probably go begging to the likes of DIC very soon, and end up being owned by some oil-rich sheikhs with their chattel slaves...

I shall be laughing from the sidelines...

 

[Bonjour]

Cheeky bugger.

 

[ever]

hope he stays there for the long run and brings them down

 

[DJS]

He seens to have done a pretty crud job of running them!

I can't believe anyone would sack Big Sam so soon as I reckon he'd have turned them round and replaced them with Keegan whose tactics are in the stone age!

Methinks Ashley is reaping what he sowed!

 

[millhouse]

Wouldn't you?

 

[BoringOldFan]

How big a bunch of mugs does Ashley think Dubai Inv. Corp are? £300 million for NUFC? They'll be worth half that in a year. How can he ask that when for a couple of £100m more they can get a top four CL club? It's not like they're strapped for cash or anything!

 

[yanno]

How big a bunch of mugs does Ashley think Dubai Inv. Corp are? £300 million for NUFC? They'll be worth half that in a year. How can he ask that when for a couple of £100m more they can get a top four CL club? It's not like they're strapped for cash or anything!

Plus, as I suggested above, the Dubai money is REAL money. And there's very little of that floating around the global economy at the moment given the shenanigans of the big banks and hedge funds.

Ashley's core sportswear business has allegedly never been subject to proper financial scrutiny, and rather like Branson, he's always moving money from business to business via a complex network of companies.

Selling the Barcodes to DCI would turn his smoke and mirrors finances into real hard cash. But I'm sure DCI have excellent accountants: they'd make sure they went through Newcastle's books with a fine toothcomb before buying anything, and I suspect they'd discover that the Barcodes' real market value is actually less than Ashley paid for it.