Arsenal Share Dealings are a cause for concern

Robsy · Post by **Robsy** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 10:55 am

I received this email today:

"Danny Fiszman lives in Geneva and it is now obvious he wants out.

In the second month of the season Arsene Wenger was saying that foreign ownership was bad.

On September 15 he warned about the dangers of foreign takeovers and said he would prefer Arsenal to be run by fans rather than by billionaires like Roman Abramovich.

He said: "It's important for English clubs to continue to have English values. It should not just be a matter of who spends more but how we behave and how we achieve it. One of the charms of English football is that fans create the clubs and control them and owners are fans first and foremost. If someone offered me a transfer budget of Â£100million or the status quo, I would take the status quo."

At that time, only Chelsea, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Portsmouth were foreign-owned.

Wenger said: "Arsenal is owned by Englishmen and they are fans of the club first and I find that reassuring.One day the players and I will go, but the owners will stay the same and they must transmit the values."

Later on, in December, Wenger spoke again about foreign ownership on the day after West Ham's Alan Pardew was sacked by the new Icelandic owners, and his position had softened. Indeed, he conceded that Arsenal might have to look abroad for investment if they got left behind. Wenger reckoned that if there were suddenly three or four Chelseas in the Premiership, Arsenal would be dead.

He said, "If today you go into football and think: 'I have Â£100m available, I will put it into Arsenal Football Club and want to make Â£200m,' it looks to me very dangerous, both for football and for the club," he said. "If you say: 'I have Â£100m and I want to enjoy it and be inside the club and help the club to develop' it's OK. But to find people who put Â£100m, Â£200m, Â£800m into a club and are prepared to lose their money, you must be lucky."

Between September and December, something had changed. Maybe it was the AGM.

Maybe Arsene saw the writing on the wall when Danny Fiszman did not turn up to the AGM on October 19. It must have been weird for him to be on the stage with all the directors except the biggest shareholder. That had never happened before.

Some absences are significant, impossible to ignore. When the club announced the stadium funding was in place, at a press conference at Colney, David Dein was absent. For those who knew how Arsenal operated through the Eighties and Nineties, David Dein's absence was massive and mind-boggling. It told us that Dein, who had run the club and hired George Graham as well as Arsene Wenger, was on the way out.We could not believe it. Dein knows a lot of the journalists and gets on well with them.

A strategic business brain like Danny Fiszman's can easily figure out that Arsenal's value, after moving to the Emirates, would be very high between 2006 and 2008.With Arsene Wenger in charge, working sensibly within his budget, the balance sheet would look tidy and attractive.

Today, if a new owner buys ITV's shares, and Fiszman's shares, the rest of the shareholders have to sell at a stated price. That is what takeover rules dictate.

As I've said before, this board needs a dynamic 40-something chief executive who can take the club to the next level. The board is old and tired, and they don't get along. So it's no fun for them. They own something worth Â£400 million but they are exhausted by the last four years.

None of them wants to be chairman, except David Dein, and the other directors will never allow that to happen.

Last week Fiszman sold 659 shares and on Matt Scott's Guardian story on Tuesday pointed out that having under 25% means he can no longer veto proposed changes in the club's statutes. Matt's story also suggests that Fiszman will soon become a non-domicile, which reduces the capital gains tax he would pay on the sale of his shares.

What I'd like to know is : who bought those 659 shares? Was it one person or several?

PS : On Wednesday another 31 Arsenal shares were sold. The price was a record high of Â£6.215 per share. If you want to buy a share now the offer price is now Â£6,200.

Is this takeover activity?"

I don't like the idea of Arsenal losing Highbury one year, then the board going the follwoing year. It would be like wiping out history and then values in one swoop.

Are we about to become the starbucks of football?

Gunnerz4life · Post by **Gunnerz4life** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:32 am

Ive heard experts saying that it is a matter of time before Arsenal is bought of. Not sure what i think of it really. I definitely do love the idea of the fans running the club, but maybe you have to live with the times and success is important and you need the money for success. Arsene is right, if 3 or 4 Chelseas crop up we might have a problem. But English football is suffering by these take overs, no denying that. So much of the romanticism is gone. The fans are the only originals left.

tenementfunster5 · Post by **tenementfunster5** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 11:39 am

Anyone got half a Billion quid?

MK Gould · Post by **MK Gould** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 12:37 pm

It is a bit worrying, but what have the current board done for us? They have run a tight ship, but what in terms of money? The club has been financed by the fans, sponsorship and TV. The directors will have enjoyed years of the high life and walk away with a tidy profit. Hopefully, whoever buys the club will have Ambramovitch/Walker type motives, and not just look at this as an investment that needs a financial return!!!

Chopper · Post by **Chopper** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 1:45 pm

(The former) Mrs Abramovich has half a billion going at the mo.

At that level why cut up his suits when you can break his favourite (chav)toys.....watch this space!

exiled in notts · Post by **exiled in notts** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 1:51 pm

Robsy - That news worries me. Whilst I'd never buy a second hand car off Dein or the rest of the Board, I'd always assumed (perhaps naively) that they had the best interests of the club at heart. I'd hate OUR club to go the same way as Chav$ki. I'm looking for reassurance from other forum members who understand the fiscal stuff here, as I haven't got a scooby.

MK Gould · Post by **MK Gould** » Fri Mar 23, 2007 4:14 pm

exiled in notts wrote:Robsy - That news worries me. Whilst I'd never buy a second hand car off Dein or the rest of the Board, I'd always assumed (perhaps naively) that they had the best interests of the club at heart. I'd hate OUR club to go the same way as Chav$ki. I'm looking for reassurance from other forum members who understand the fiscal stuff here, as I haven't got a scooby.

Is a rise in the Arsenal share price a good thing for the fans? No. It just means that those who hold shares get a better price - but this money doesn't go to the club. What were the motives of the American's buying Man Utd & Liverpool? I think they see them as underachieving businesses - but not on the pitch. They are underachieving in terms of growing their revenue streams. The yanks will have looked at them and said - they don't charge enough to get in and could make much more of their global brand i.e. name/badge. They will obviously want the team to be successful on the pitch, and will be prepared to invest, but only if it generates the right level of income. Cue numerous pre-season tours.... Ambramovitch however is looking to have a good time. Of course he wants to make money - he is a businessman after all - but he wants Chelsea to be Harlem Globetrotters, Real Madrid and PT Barnum rolled into one. He wants to win and entertain and attract the biggest stars, on and off the pitch (which is precisely why Mourinho's days are numbered - as he just wants to win at all costs). Which is best for us? Haven't got a clue.....

Trevheff · Post by **Trevheff** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:19 am

We are streets behind United and also Liverpool in terms of global image. If you go to the Far East it's Utd and Liverpool everywhere. The same in Australasia. They are also both significantly expanding their image in the States. They invested in global marketing long before we even thought of it which is one of the main reasons why United have long been the richest club in the world.

What does that matter? The fact the Arsenal have a largely unexploited international revenue stream on the scale of United makes us a very attractive investment proposition as straight away new investors will see an obvious opportunity to increase profit on a large scale. This obviously wouldn't happen overnight as building and marketing your brand takes time (years) and initial investment.

Long term this could have huge financial rewards for the club (just look at Utd over the past 20 years) but then what will be vital is who is running the club and what their intentions are with the increased money. Invest back into the club and in particular the team, or bank the money and get rich from your investment?

Plus with the Emirates built and now in place new owners will see the opportunity to make money on 60,000 tickets rather than 38,000 - no need to finance a new ground, everything is already there. Add to that the modern day marketable image of Arsenal (free flowing attacking football, cosmopolitan with a multi national squad) and I can't imagine there are too many clubs more attractive to potential buyers than Arsenal.