EPL

Tottenham for sale? Iranian-American billionaire lines up £3bn takeover bid

Tottenham will be subject to a takeover as Iranian- American billionaire in Jahm Najafi is lining up a £3bn purchase of the North London club.

As reported by Dailymail UK, the bid is expected in weeks becoming the latest mogul involved in a Premier League takeover.

Iranian-American billionaire Jahm Najafi is reportedly preparing a group of investors to launch a $3.75bn (£3.1bn) takeover bid for Tottenham, according to two people with direct knowledge of the plans.

The Financial Times report that Najafi – who is chair of MSP Sports Capital – is working with a consortium to prepare the structure of the huge bid and the group is expected to approach Spurs owner Joe Lewis and chairman Daniel Levy in the coming weeks.

The bid is set to be factored so that Najafi and MSP would put forward 70 per cent of the capital, while others would contribute the remaining 30 per cent – with these backers likely to come from the Gulf, and particularly Abu Dhabi.

A £3.1bn bid for the club consists of the club’s equity being valued at approximately £2.5bn, before adding about £610m of the club’s current debts.

However, Sportsmail understands that Spurs are not the only club Najafi is interested in buying or has looked at – and that he is and has considered investing at another Premier League team too.  

The news of a potential takeover is likely to be welcomed by Spurs fans as it would see the end of the unpopular ownership of ENIC.

ENIC is connected to Lewis and Levy and they purchased a 26 per cent from Lord Alan Sugar for £21.9m back in 2000, which has since risen to 85.5 per cent.

Their time in charge of the club has been praised for the development of a new stadium, efficient financial management and Spurs regularly qualifying for the Champions League and finishing in the top echelons of the Premier League.

However, with the club’s last title being a League Cup in 2008, Spurs fans have become increasingly frustrated at what they perceive is a lack of ambition from the ownership and there have been increasing protests against the club’s hierarchy in recent times.

Levy is the face of the Tottenham Hotspur, with Lewis a silent owner and based out in the Bahamas.

Premier League clubs have been subject with new takeovers with Chelsea recently sold by Russian owner Abramovich to Todd Boehly.

Liverpool and Man United are in the process of new takeovers but not completed with multiple reports that PSG owners are interested in buying the club from the Glazers family.

Copyright 2021 @ The Athletic NG. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to https://www.theathletic.com.ng/ as the source.

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