Ashley era soon to end?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...ted-for-sale-as-Mike-Ashley-eyes-Rangers.html

Mike Ashley is willing to listen to offers to sell Newcastle United as he looks to bring an end to a troubled seven-year reign at St James’ Park.

Ashley has become involved in the running of Rangers and is interested in taking complete control. However, he has been prevented from increasing his stake to more than 10 per cent by the Scotland Football Association as he already owns Newcastle.

Uefa rules stipulate the same person cannot own two clubs that might meet each other in European competitions, and while neither Rangers or Newcastle are playing in Europe, they could in the future.

Rangers are standing on the precipice of administration for the second time in three years and Ashley recognises the opportunity it presents. The billionaire, who made his fortune through his Sports Direct retail chain, has already secured naming rights to Ibrox in return for a stake of nine per cent, although he has not yet taken up that option in order to avoid creating any animosity towards him.

Should he take control of Rangers and stabilise the business, he knows there is huge potential to grow if, as should be the case, they return to the Scottish Premier League and, eventually, the Champions League.

That has increased Ashley’s desire to sell Newcastle to a new investor and he could be willing to offload it for around £230 million, which includes repayment of the £129 million he is owed in the form of interest-free loans. Ashley paid just £134 million to buy Newcastle from Sir John Hall and Freddie Shepherd in 2007.

Although the club have not been officially put up for sale as the uncertainty could destabilise the business and unsettle the team, Telegraph Sport understands Ashley would like to sell if he can find someone with the financial muscle to take the club forward. Anyone who claims they are interested in negotiating a price will be asked to pay for the use of a box at St James’ Park for 10 years up front to prove they are serious bidders.

Ashley has tried to sell up twice before, but was unable to find a buyer willing to match his asking price. He failed to offload it in the face of angry supporter protests in 2008 immediately after former manager Kevin Keegan resigned. He tried again in 2009 at the knockdown price of just £100 million after relegation to the Championship, but nobody was willing to take on a club that was losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a month outside of the top flight.

However, the previous attempts to sell were made during a global recession and Ashley is aware the economic landscape has improved dramatically, particularly in the United States, where interest in “soccer” has never been higher. It is thought that Ashley will look closely to see if there are potential buyers on the other side of the Atlantic.

Newcastle are in excellent financial shape thanks to the prudency of the Ashley regime and posted a post-tax profit of £9.9 million for the last financial year. That has done little to persuade fans he is the right man to lead the club and there have been persistent accusations of a lack of ambition. Although Ashley sanctioned around £40 million worth of player recruitment this summer, that was paid for almost entirely out of the sale of Yohan Cabaye to Paris Saint-Germain and Mathieu Debuchy to Arsenal.

Ashley has been unwilling to invest any of his own money since Newcastle returned to the Premier League and has overseen a dramatic overhaul of the books, securing an increase in commercial revenue, which includes a record shirt-sponsorship deal with loans company Wonga.

This has been done in conjunction with a series of cost-cutting measures, including player wages, which fell from £64.1 million to £61.7 million in the last financial year. That represents 64 per cent of the club’s turnover, well below the Premier League average of 70 per cent. The business is in good shape to sell.

Whether Ashley can finally sever ties with a project that turned sour after just 12 months remains to be seen, but he gains little enjoyment from owning Newcastle other than the free advertising it allows for Sports Direct. Although he attended the club’s last home game, the 3-3 draw with Crystal Palace, his visits to St James’ Park have been increasingly rare since supporters turned against him six years ago.
He is not the only one in the firing line. Alan Pardew, the manager, also looks vulnerable after a poll in a local paper showed 85 per cent of fans no longer want him to be in charge and there is a growing risk the ill-feeling will manifest itself in more vocal protests against Southampton this weekend. One group of supporters has even set up a website called ‘Sack Pardew’. Pardew remained in his dugout during the final home game against Cardiff last season as he was booed and jeered every time he stepped into his technical area.

 

Recycled story or a Fatty seeing the plight we are in and wanting to bail?

 

Probably just a piece of "2+2 = 174" journalism, but you never know!

I think he will have more respect for a fellow hard-nosed businessman, so I'll open the bidding at £1.

 

He's hardly gonna sell you the club for £1 mate.

Especially given the fact that I've offered him £5 for the naming rights to Ibrox which represents an immediate 400% profit on what he recently paid !

 

I feel sorry for Ashley. I believe he has cast iron proof that Rangers will not play Newcastle in Europe at any time under his stewardship.All he needs to do is send them a link to our first team squad.

I think he is being victimised, its disgraceful

 

No he will use the old trick of pretending he wants to sell.

Ensuring he sends out a message that nobody wants us we are worthless etc etc

 

The comments from the AGM of SD confirmed what we already know - that he uses Newcastle for its shop, its free advertising and - in the grand scheme of things - it's a fairly insignificant part of his empire. I still think he likes the free advertising, I don't think we offer him anything else, really.

Thing is he's a busy bloke - running a football club I think is probably quite time consuming, yet the reward is pittance. I suspect the club's absolutely for sale - it is very "saleable" - but he won't advertise it is. If someone gave him a cheque north of £200m he'd take it.

 

We should only be celebrating if we get the right people in. We could probably do much worse than Ashley. Many clubs would kill to be in this league at all.

 

Think you have hit the nail on the head here. He is obviously running it as a low risk venture with what should be a large surplus in the latest financial year (based on over UKP25million more TV revenue than previous year). He can hold that to have a transfer splurge if needed in January if we are struggling or he's probably hoping we are mid-table and he can take it to pay off part of his loan.

The only reason he might want to sell is if its diverting his time from building his more profitable SD venture. I have also realised that its also getting harder all the time for fans to take any action that would significantly impact on his profits so you might as well go along and 'enjoy' the games without the guilty feelings you are somehow compounding the problem.

 

He won't sell it he will take the piss with the asking price. When will you all learn.

 

Sorry for piggy-backing the debate but that's just the point really. There are afar worse owners out there than Ashley - I mean, how would you all feel if Vincent Tan took over and made you play in red and white?

 

Fan buy out?

 

Your last point is very valid, I wish all fans could understand the economics of the situation. Saying things like "don't go to games" or "don't buy merchandise" - it's so infinitesimally small in the eyes of a billionaire the only impact is on the image of the club. There is nothing whatsoever a Newcastle fan can do to get Mike Ashley out. He'll go when he's ready. I daresay he's ready now, but without a £200m offer on the table, what's he going to do? Dedicate less than 10% of his time to it, use it as a high profile meeting venue and continue to milk the overseas advertising at zero expense. The club doesn't cost him or MASH (the holding company of us and SD) a penny, in fact it chimes in with a pound or two here or there. The lessons being learnt here (though the same lessons are being taught all the time, everywhere) is that money is currently everything and anything, its' more or less the only thing. At the AGM, words to describe NUFC and Rangers were things like "proud" and "historic", when the only words mattering are "shareholders" and "profits". The World has simply moved on and its' hard for fans to accept capitalism as a way of footballing life. How does someone embrace NUFC, when it has all the affection and soul of Microsoft, or Barclays, or SD itself?!

Personally, I think this is where it will eventually collapse. No-one buys a PC and ticks a box that says "Windows", nobody loves Bill Gates or Microsoft - it thrives because its' technology is (relatively) vital. In football, it's really only interesting if there's affection, love that business cannot/will not achieve. Nobody watches NUFC because of the balance sheets, we watch because of the strip, the connection, the sense of belonging. The more that sense is eroded, the harder it will be for that business to remain relevant. If things keep going as they are, I imagine we're no more than two, maybe even one, generation from a total football meltdown. The game will still exist, of course, but it's going to be a bumpy landing.

 

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/mike-ashley-admits-newcastle-deals-4197471

Looks like all is good for Mike, why leave?

 

I'm on £7.31 an hour you nugget, but I suppose if you feel you are persuasive enough??

 

He won't, whilst the club is whoring out his brand, public opinion is a non-issue and always has been.

 

http://www.themag.co.uk/the-mag-art...ing-wont-consider-selling-newcastle-may-2016/

2016? Huh...

 

What an utter **** Mike is.
He is like a cartoon Stalin without the Tash.

 

Regarding the Telegraph's piece article concerning the sale of the club, there's been an official club statement stating otherwise. http://www.nufc.co.uk/articles/20140912/club-statement-daily-telegraph_2281670_4138864

What interests me is this quote:

'For the avoidance of doubt, this means that for the remainder of this season and AT LEAST until the end of next season, Mike Ashley will not, under any circumstances, sell Newcastle United at any price.'

To me this smells like 'brinkmanship' which (if I'm right) may suggest there is already interest.

Who knows maybe there are parties flirting with the idea of a takeover or maybe Ashley has just decided to keep the club for a while longer because it simply keeps him getting wealthier.

 

This comment about sums it up for me...
"Strange statement by Ashley, there must be a solid reason why he will not sell until the end of next season. I dont think he can sell the club until he recovers his loan, nobody would buy the club if that debt was carried over as the club isnt worth over £250 million, so maybe we will see him taking his loan back over the next 18 months. As much as I dont like him and how he runs the club it frightens me when you see some of the owners coming in at places like Cardiff and QPR."

He must have been taking money out to repay the loan, surely to god. If he hasn't, then we're ****ed. Unfortunately, as the club never communicate anything, it's never been made clear what the "interest free loan" deal is.

I'd have to suspect he's going to cash in on us for another season, reaping the TV money into his pocket, and staying with us as long as we stay in the premier league.