David Dein sold his 14.58% stake to Usmanov for £75 million in August 2007.
And Danny Fiszman probably said to Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith : stick with me, we’re one big happy family, if we all sell together in a few years we’ll maximise our return.
Way back in August 2007, Lady Nina’s 15.9% stake was worth £80m, plus a £10m premium.
Say £90 million. Now that stake is only worth £50 million.
Today we are told that she was bypassed during a marketing agreement in India, and that she did not approve the appointment of Ivan Gazidis, the new CEO, so she decided to walk. They had offered her an honorary role to stay on.
For those readers new to this saga, Lady Nina was brought onto the board in 2005 to keep her inside the tent. The directors all signed the lockdown agreement in April 2007 to make sure she stayed inside and extended it in October 2007. The lockdown agreement was created to keep Nina onside. They all agreed not to sell their shares, except to each other.
However, time moves on very quickly in this game. She would have been free to sell in April 2009 anyway, four months from now.The Indian press was the first to report that she’d had a massive row with Fiszman and the other directors, which had been brewing for many months.
With Stan Kroenke now on the board, Danny Fiszman has another ally, so maybe he thinks he can afford to lose Nina and her 15.9%. Maybe he’s banking on Usmanov not buying Nina’s stake because that would legally oblige him to make a bid for the whole club. I’m guessing that Putin has told Usmanov not to buy Arsenal now, as that would not play too well with voters in Moscow.
It’s not like a David Dein situation. Dein was fired, Nina walked.
Now we have world recession, mass redundancies, people losing their homes, companies in every sector cutting costs.Is the football boom over? Are there still buyers for Premier League clubs? Maybe, if they are cheap enough.
Is there still a buyer for Arsenal? Yes, at the right price. Sure, the recession is scary. The recession changes everything. Russians and Arabs were far richer when oil was $147 a barrel than when it’s $45, as it is today. So the recession changes a lot and will last two years. But it doesn’t change the potential of Arsenal, with its location and infrastructure, to become the biggest football club in the world.
ANR reader Ben Drae corrects my arithmetic. Where would I be without my readers? He says : How do you work out that Nina’s 15.9% stake is only worth £50m? There are 62,219 shares in issue with a mid price of £7,950, valuing the club at £494m and 16% of that is £79m.
With seven days to Xmas, and with my tree bought and decorated today, I’m starting to become quite carefree and jolly. The writing of this piece has been interrupted many times and the phone rang again at 4.30pm.
Mitch said that he’s had lunch at Hunters in Cockfosters, and George Graham, Stewart Houston, Terry Murphy and another ex-footballer were there at a table by the window.
When George stood up he saw Mitch, recognised him, and asked him how he was.
Mitch : “I was talking to an old friend of yours this morning.”
George : “Who’s that ?”
Mitch: “Myles Palmer.”
George laughed and said, “How is he?”
Mitch : “He’s in very, very good form.”
George: “Do send him my regards.”
Looking back, reporters had a lot of laughs with George Graham.
I think he liked me because I wasn’t scared of him. But when he lost the plot, after eight years, I became so disillusioned that I didn’t turn up for several games. One of those was Millwall in the FA Cup, when I thought Arsenal would lose, so I was missing from the press conference and he would have noticed my absence. Score? Arsenal 0 Millwall 2.
The following night I went to see Fever Pitch, the play, at a small theatre near Shaftesbury Avenue. As I waited for a friend outside the theatre I was very surprised to see George walking across the road towards me. I shook his hand and warned him that some tabloid reporters were inside and would ambush him and give him a hard time.
“Don’t worry about them, George. You gave us five great years.”
“Eight great years,” he growled.
Merry Christmas, George! In fact, Merry Christmas to all managers.
If you like ANR, you’ll love The Professor.
A classic paperback that took 10 years to write. You can read the first chapter for free.