Monday, June 11, 2007

Takeover deal up in the air

Reports emerged this morning suggesting that a full, formal bid for the club by Thaksin Shinawatra was imminent and that weeks of uncertainty was shortly to come to an end.

However, news this afternoon shot those reports out of the water, and at a very best scenario it now leaves the club hoping Shinawatra can somehow re-structure his takeover deal, whilst a worse case scenario sees us back to square one with a board keen to sell, no manager in place and having lost two of the better players in recent seasons.

All of this of course stems from the news that his assets and numerous bank accounts in Thailand have been frozen today. The Times reported:

Thaksin Shinawatra, the former Prime Minister of Thailand,
had his assets frozen today just as he was closing in on a deal to buy
Manchester City.
An anti-graft committee, investigating Mr Thaksin in
Bangkok, say they have sufficient evidence of corruption to freeze his bank
accounts.
Mr Thaksin, who was removed from power in a bloodless coup last
year, was undergoing due diligence inquiries and thought to be on the verge of
making an official bid for the Premiership club. His aides refused to accept
that the deal would be aborted.
“The committee found evidence that Thaksin
during his time as prime minister committed corruption and illegal acts as well
as being unusually rich.”


Following this announcement, Shinawatra's lawyers announced that “Of course this is going to affect the Manchester City bid, but it is not off. Some things may have to be restructured.” All of which led the club to issue the following statement:

“The board notes the information emanating out of Thailand
today in respect of Dr Shinawatra and the freezing of his assets.“The board and
its advisers are in discussion with Dr Shinawatra’s advisers to confirm the
implications of these developments in respect of their client’s interest in
potentially making an offer for the company.“These discussions and those between
the company and other interested parties may or may not lead to an offer being
made for the company.”


Shinawatra can appeal against the decision, but this is believed to take anywhere upto 60 days to go through - which will of course take us upto the start of the season, leaving us in a situation that is beyond thinking but may become a reality if the board have burnt bridges with other potential investors (Ray Ranson) to try and seduce Shinawatra.

Is the Shinawatra deal dead in the water? It seems likely that it now is, as in effect he will have to submit a brand new and re-structured proposal to the board to buy the club. The worrying prospect is of course his interest in the club was merely a flirtation to drum up publicity and PR to attempt to avoid the very decision which has now been handed down today.

Once again we appear to be in a bit of a mess from top to bottom and as we head towards pre-season, there is little appearing on the horizon to foster much optimism.

vote it up!

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.channel4.com/sport/football_italia/jun12i.html


Watch some decent football.

Anonymous said...

"Once again we appear to be in a bit of a mess from top to bottom"

How easily that trips off the tongue, but it's not a phrase in general use at the moment by many City fans. Mass demonstrations in favour of Shinawatra's return to power have triggered this knee-jerk reaction from the Thai Junta, but that doesn't help us.

Maybe if the current shareholders hadn't haggled quite so much, the deal would have been done and dusted a week or two ago - but maybe it was down to Frankie's hard bargaining too. Who knows? - the board don't tell us anything.

So maybe the quote above should read "We are in melt-down".

Our best prospect at the moment is to appoint Jim Cassells as manager - he must be as truly sickened as we are, and at least we know he can really do the business.

Anonymous said...

Man City are a complete and utter fucking joke, you can't even give ur club away!

Ur Shit and u know it, ur city and shitty.

C'mon u reds!!

Anonymous said...

something isnt right about this thai feller... city fans should pray someone else comes along quickly or those who currently run the club find a strong backbone to ward him off....

Anonymous said...

Nice Mr Anonymous Red - A certain literary bent showing through there. See you at Mary Dees, or the next meeting of the P&W branch of the supporters club where you can put your views forward to a rapt audience.