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Takeover Thread

Guest Snorky

By Guest Snorky
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Guest Snorky

Guest Snorky

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Posted

Posted by Leftpeg on SCM

 

From this week's PR Week magazine:

 

Square1 to help with Liverpool bid

 

The bid team considering a takeover approach for Liverpool FC is using Square1 Consulting alongside retained agency Brunswick to brief journalists.

 

Square1, formerly Holborn PR, is working with a third party involved in the possible Dubai International Capital deal and has been talking to journalists about the bid.

 

Liverpool is currently under controversial American ownership, which has prompted protests from fans. DIC looked set to buy Liverpool 18 months ago and is rumoured to still be interested.

 

Brunswick was used during the initial bid and is DIC's retained agency.

 

The takeover by US duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett was seen in many quarters as a huge PR success. But since then, relationships between the owners, manager and Liverpool supporters have soured considerably.

 

The fact a PR team are broadcasting that they are involved in a takeover bid with Liverpool shows that things are happening and that talks are ongoing.

Guest Snorky

Guest Snorky

Posted
Posted
So any synopsis of the last thread for those of us who bailed on it after 50 pages?

 

no, read the whole thing like the rest of us.

Guest sinbad

Guest sinbad

Posted
Posted

PR firm hired by potential new Liverpool owners

Posted on February 15th, 2008 by Jim Boardman

 

According to the magazine for the Public Relations and advertising world, PR Week, a press relations consultancy has been engaged to brief journalists on behalf of a “bid team considering a takeover approach” for LFC.

 

The article, which you can also view on the Brand Republic website, says Square1 Consulting is “working with a third party involved in the possible Dubai International Capital” deal.

 

Square1 are working alongside another agency, Brunswick, who were used in DIC’s first move for the club which they backed out of on January 31st last year after learning of the interest from Hicks and Gillett. Brunswick continue to provide services to DIC.

 

The PR Week story also says that the “takeover by US duo Tom Hick and George Gillett was seen in many quarters as a huge PR success.” That’s quite true of course, very few fans feeling sufficiently worried about the US duo to actually raise any real concerns. They said the right things, making promises or at least implying actions that Liverpool fans were expecting from any new owners. All that started to go wrong around the time of the Champions League final in Athens in May last year.

 

That was when Rafa Benítez first hinted at delays in getting transfers under-way, the plan he’d agreed with the owners not being acted upon. Soon came revelations in the Echo in a Chris Bascombe exclusive that Rafa had to lower his sights and instead of having the cash to buy the strongly-linked Samuel Eto’o he’d now have to look at strikers costing in the region of £16m-£18m instead. Diego Milito was mentioned as was Diego Forlan as just two names on a list of striking targets. Rafa was going to have to sell to buy and in the end paid a fee believed to be as low as £18m (certainly not the £26.5m usually quoted) for Fernando Torres.

 

It was PR that allowed the owners a little more time and trust from the fans, many falling for the £26.5m claims over Torres’ fee, many feeling that Liverpool really did have generous owners, but more and more rumours about this being far from the case continued to be leaked. In November the story came out, again from Bascombe but by now working at the News of the World, that Rafa was about to be sacked. Despite a march by thousands of Reds in support of Rafa the owners continued to be given the benefit of the doubt by many fans.

 

More rumours were leaking out, selective denials by Tom Hicks and Rick Parry of only some of the claims made against them allowed many of the rumours to grow legs. Then came the Tony Barrett exclusive in the Echo where Tom Hicks admitted having not only spoken to Jurgen Klinsmann about Rafa’s job, but to have also offered it to him. That admission ended any lingering support from all but the tiniest number of fans. We also learned that day thanks to Tony Barrett that DIC had indeed been involved in discussion to buy into the club, something else that had been denied before. The Kop sang “Liverpool Football Club is in the wrong hands” and George Gillett was never seen again.

 

Tom Hicks kept battling on with his attempts to convince the supporters he had only good intentions, but after mocking Rafa in the wake of the press conference where he was clearly distressed at learning about the Hicks and Gillett plan to sack him, and after claiming the papers had made up the story about him wanting Rafa sacked, nobody really believed him. Especially so when Gillett disappeared from view, no longer having his name included on any statements issued by his partner Hicks, despite claims they got on well with each other, and the admission of DIC interest despite past denials added more weight: Tom Hicks was perceived as a liar by fans, as many banners showed, and he could no longer rely on any support from the fans.

 

After this he started to use a PR agency for statements relating to the club, no doubt advised that he had to be more careful about what he admitted to.

 

And it now seems that the latest suitors to the Liverpool name see the importance of handling the supporters properly. We won’t be caught out again, we’re determined not to be, and a PR agency won’t catch us out either. But used properly the PR agency can help to smooth the takeover through, ensuring the truth comes out without any ambiguity or promises that can’t or won’t be kept.

 

All the indications at the moment are that a takeover is extremely close, although it is still unclear exactly what the details of that takeover will be, with the strong possibility that Hicks would stay on as a minority shareholder still not fully ruled out.

 

The Square1 agency have experience of dealing with PR for football teams over the years, including work carried out by the Holborn PR company they acquired recently. Their Square1 Sports division is headed by their sports director Paul McGoohan who was once the news editor at Sky Sports News. He said at the time Square1 Sports was set up that they have the skills required to help clubs out with their public relations: “We aim to bring the skill sets of the city to the sports business industry. Clubs with corporate issues, from financial reports to boardroom changes can come to us - and given our links to the city, we can also provide corporate and financial counsel.”

 

The division’s most recent big name clients have been Randy Lerner who took over at Aston Villa and Thaksin Shinawatra, once linked with a takeover at Anfield but now the owner of a rejuvenated Manchester City. Shinawatra was the subject of much negative press, which Square1 dealt with on his behalf. One example of a statement they had to issue was issued by McGoohan, who said: “Dr Thaksin Shinawatra has not been found guilty of any of the allegations made against him and as such is an innocent man. He has bought a public company in the UK and complied with UK law. In addition, he has complied with Premier League rules. He has shown his commitment to Manchester City by buying the club and investing in new players using his own money.”

 

McGoohan also had some interesting words on football club takeovers when the sports division was launched: “Purchasing a football club is different to acquiring any other business because of the fans and their emotional attachment to the product. Our role is predominantly about making the fans and the public understand who these guys are and what they want to achieve. Likewise it is important for the owner to understand the central part the clubs play in fans lives.”

 

Getting the owner to understand the importance of a club to its supporters isn’t difficult to achieve - the trick for the PR company is to make it look like the owner actually cares about this importance. And if the next owner of Liverpool doesn’t care about that importance, no PR company will find it easy to conceal for too long.

 

http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/2008...l-owners.html/

fyds

fyds

Posted
Posted
:woohoo:

It'd be sad if it turns out DIC are the same :lol:

One big difference between DIC and Tom Hicks is that Hicks is mostly paper and asset rich - DIC are just mega-fu*king rich. Hicks is valued at just over £1bn - DIC at £684bn. This does not of course mean they will go bananas with money on us, but it does mean they can afford what they say they can afford, they can spend what they say they will spend and so do not need to lie to get us on board. Also, when you have that kind of resource at your disposal, you automatically have another - time - you can afford to play the long game, should you so choose. Of course a level of professionalism could be expected from DIC that Tom Hicks would not even understand. That would do for starters and already address most of where the current ownership has gone wrong.

David Hodgson

David Hodgson

Posted
Posted
One big difference between DIC and Tom Hicks is that Hicks is mostly paper and asset rich - DIC are just mega-fu*king rich. Hicks is valued at just over £1bn - DIC at £684bn. This does not of course mean they will go bananas with money on us, but it does mean they can afford what they say they can afford, they can spend what they say they will spend and so do not need to lie to get us on board. Also, when you have that kind of resource at your disposal, you automatically have another - time - you can afford to play the long game, should you so choose. Of course a level of professionalism could be expected from DIC that Tom Hicks would not even understand. That would do for starters and already address most of where the current ownership has gone wrong.

 

Yes, but equally crucially, those that count at DIC seem to be people who know and love the sport, and are actually LFC fans. This is what troubled me most about G & H at the begining. We were suddenly being run by guys who had zero knowledge of our 'industry'.

Guest Rafa's Red Army

Guest Rafa's Red Army

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This will never happen.

 

We'll be stuck with them.

 

This is Liverpool FC after all.

Guest Kaizer

Guest Kaizer

Posted
Posted

Its only two days left to the 18th, something big was supposed to happen then was it not?

Rich Gobey

Rich Gobey

Posted
Posted
This will never happen.

 

We'll be stuck with them.

 

This is Liverpool FC after all.

 

'kin 'ell

 

I'll give you the knives myself, you can finish yourself off.

AE

AE

Posted
Posted (edited)
Its only two days left to the 18th, something big was supposed to happen then was it not?

 

Pre-match conference for Inter game? :unsure:

Edited by AE
Guest Kaizer

Guest Kaizer

Posted
Posted
According to Kraptalk, yes.

 

Oh well, I have seen the date mentioned several times, but did not know the original source.

Guest akjohnson

Guest akjohnson

Posted
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What say they will happen?

To be fair I'm not sure they said it either...I think it came from some really dodgy rumours site!

ali

ali

Posted
Posted

From The Times

February 18, 2008

Rafael Benitez running out of chances at Liverpool

Oliver Kay

 

Rafael BenÍtez has frequently looked to Europe for salvation during his reign at Liverpool but, after a grim FA Cup fifth-round defeat at home to Barnsley, it is doubtful whether even a stirring Liverpool victory over Inter Milan tomorrow en route to a third Champions League final in four years could revive the Spaniard’s increasingly troubled regime at Anfield.

 

BenÍtez has been on the thinnest of ice since a very public fallout with Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, Liverpool’s American owners, in the autumn and, while they went against their initial judgment and retained him in the interests of stability, his prospects of surviving beyond the end of the season are slimmer than ever after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat.

 

While some of the club’s supporters might be looking to Dubai International Capital (DIC) to wrestle the club from the ownership of the unpopular American tycoons, the Arab investment group is expected to review the manager’s position if it assumes control.

 

It leaves BenÍtez in a desperate position as he prepares for tomorrow’s first leg tie against Inter, the runaway leaders of Serie A, at Anfield, with the Champions League representing Liverpool’s last hope of silverware this season. The manager did his best to put on a brave face after the Cup defeat by the Coca-Cola Championship side, attributing the result to little more than bad luck and errant finishing, but Jamie Carragher indicated that the rot goes deeper. “I wouldn’t call this just a bad spell,” Carragher said. “It’s been a lot longer than that. We realise we are not playing well enough. It’s not a matter of putting your finger on one reason. It’s simply because we have not been good enough. We’ve still got the Champions League to play for and we have to fight for that fourth place [in the Premier League], so every league game is going to be important. We have to make sure we are in the Champions League next season.

 

“At every club there are ups and downs, but we realise we are going to get a lot of criticism in the next few days and rightly so. We’ve got a massive game coming up against Inter, so we’re going to have to get over this because the Champions League is massive for us now. It’s the only thing we have left that we can win.”

 

A successful end to the season might also prove crucial to Hicks and Gillett as they hope to sell the club at a significant profit. Contrary to Hicks’s claims, talks are continuing behind the scenes about a deal to sell the club to DIC, but there have been indications that the sale price, thought likely to be in the region of £400 million, might be lowered by failure to generate significant profits from this season’s Champions League campaign or, more seriously, failure to qualify for next season’s competition. “That would certainly affect the price,” one source said.

 

The supporters continue to rally against Hicks and Gillett, with a protest taking place inside Anfield after Saturday’s defeat. At a meeting before the match, the newly formed Liverpool Supporters Union called for a boycott of club merchandise and floated the idea of boycotting a match, while the “Share Liverpool” venture, aimed at raising the funds for the supporters to buy the club, has already received pledges of £85 million.

 

The protests seem to have made negligible impact so far on Hicks, whose apparent willingness to sell is based more on a realisation that things simply are not working, although there has been uncertainty at the club about whether the Texan will attend tomorrow’s game, as he initially planned after the Champions League draw was made in December.

Zoob

Zoob

Posted
Posted

Somewhat random bit at the end of this piece

 

"Gillett is understood to be receptive to the idea of a quick profit on his 12-month investment but Hicks is continuing to make exorbitant demands of the Dubai company, not only financial, and remains a major obstacle to any serious business discussions with DIC."

 

:unsure:

 

Maybe Hicks wants sex with some of the Godolphin horses?

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