The Sunday Sun reported yesterday that Indian billionaire Anil Ambani may be ready to revive his interest in a Newcastle United takeover.
Anil Ambani – still interested in buying Newcastle?
But where exactly the Sunday Sun got that news, or whether there’s any substance in the story is unclear.
Some news reports yesterday were noting that West Ham United’s asking price was a low £50M, caused by the financial problems surrounding their Iceland owner Bjorgulfur Gudmundsson. Iceland’s economy is in dire trouble right now, based on the financial meltdown happening there.
If anybody is looking to buy a Premier League club right now, West Ham would seem the best buy, and it’s located in London, which will be an advantage to foreign buyers.
Everton are also up for sale and Dubai-based Zabeel Investments, who at one point were said to be interested in Newcastle, have already bid for Charlton Athletic for around £50M. If West Ham are available for the same amount, you would have thought Zabeel would have bid for them.
The Sunday Sun reported that Ambani made some serious inquiries about Newcastle during the summer, and has still not completely ruled out an official approach for the club.
But he’ll have to be quick if he indeed is interested, since it’s being reported the deadline for offers is this coming Friday, but even that piece of news is uncertain. It seems that everything surrounding Newcastle United right now is uncertain at best.
For the record Ambani is just 48 years old, and is ranked sixth richest man in the world by Forbes at present, with a net worth of about £24B. Anil runs marathons, is married with two kids, and his current biggest asset is his 65% stake in telecom venture Reliance Communications.
His brother Mukesh Ambani, is 50 and is ranked 5th in the list, and worth a measly $1B more than his younger brother. 😀
Comments welcome.
70 comments so far
Punk Skunk
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:21 PM
Comment #41Van Gaal would also be v cool!..
…But i also like what Temuri’s been doin’ with Famagusta…
Punk Skunk
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:22 PM
Comment #42Keegan &(v) Shearer…
…Am not feelin’ that like!..
51times
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:23 PM
Comment #43Flounce the names Terim and Temuri or anybody you like, you know as well as I they’re never getting the job. Please be realistic, we all know who will get the job once the new owners come in. Whether that’s a good idea or not is irrelevant.
beyethegreat
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Comment #44according to wikipedia katsbaia wants the job though it is wikipeidia
Punk Skunk
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:24 PM
Comment #45Uh Oh!..
Tom_Toon
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:28 PM
Comment #46beyethegreat – yes he does, he said about 2 weeks ago he wants to job: ‘I’ve been a Newcastle player so why not manager’.
beyethegreat
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:32 PM
Comment #47who ever our new manager is i just hope we give him time
skin d
Oct 13, 2008 at 2:51 PM
Comment #48jamie g,why the f##k would anybody get behind ashley.
the kk saga was just one episode in the mike ashley,s how to run a football club show.
i for one will never get behind that clown,he is a complete embarassment to newcastle.
whether people are for or against kk,mike ashley brought him in because of the big sam mess which dont forget he created.
fat boy couldn,t get anyone else to run the club,after the big sam fiasco,kev was doing that f###ing hippo a favour ffs!!!.
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 3:02 PM
Comment #49skin d .. did you read that in the chronicle … ashley hasn’t invested any money into the club .. how anyone back him is beyond reason.
Paul
Oct 13, 2008 at 3:30 PM
Comment #50skin d, how did Ashley create the ‘big sam mess’ exactly? As for Keegan, he was paid £4 million a year, so he wasn’t ‘doing a favour’, he was doing a very well paid job to bail out his soccer circus. If anything Ashley was doing Keegan a favour, because he certainly couldn’t have found such lucrative employment anywhere else.
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 3:59 PM
Comment #51Paul what has Ashley actually done for the club..
The only point anybody pro ashley has come up with is the Cleared debts — and now its come out he actually hasn’t in fact done this
So what has he done which is positive for the club. Greedy fat tw*t has got my blood boiling again.. and he is looking at least 40 mill from his investment .. if there was a god he’d have poisoned one of them copious meat pies he obviously eats loads of.
RANT OVER 🙂
Paul
Oct 13, 2008 at 4:36 PM
Comment #52Well Sweendog, he got us out of the clutches of the swivel-eyed scrapman and his weasel faced assistant who were driving the club toward bankruptcy with leveraged debt and huge dividends for themselves. He underwrote many of the huge debts accruing from that time, stopped the policy of wasting huge sums on has-been and nearly has-been players with little or no resale value and huge wages. Shall I go on?
canada willie
Oct 13, 2008 at 4:45 PM
Comment #53Ashley’s company Sports Direct is tanking and he has lost millions on his other investments in hbos etc. I think he needs the money and really has no other choice than to sell Newcastle, which is only a toy to him
An offer below 200 million will take it now. If I were Ambami I would throw in a bid below 200 million and see where it goes. No one else is going to be seriously making an offer in today’s market
clive lancaster
Oct 13, 2008 at 5:16 PM
Comment #54Quite apart from what is going on at the moment, I see that there are quite a few Newcastle supporters in South Africa. Is there a Toon supporters branch in South Africa?
Paul
Oct 13, 2008 at 7:32 PM
Comment #55Wouldn’t bet on it canada willie. Ashley raised over £900 million with his Sports Direct IPO, then when the shares dived, he bought back at a much reduced rate. Some you win, some you lose, and some you win even when you lose!
CLINT FLICK
Oct 13, 2008 at 7:41 PM
Comment #56Ah! Betting, that’s the name of the game.
There are plenty of wealthy gamblers out there who will not be touched by the ‘so called’ credit crunch. I’m guessing, russian, ukrainian, arab, etc etc.
Tom_Toon
Oct 13, 2008 at 7:47 PM
Comment #57Russians are very badly affected!
CLINT FLICK
Oct 13, 2008 at 7:53 PM
Comment #58Maybe, but they have ways & means.
chuck
Oct 13, 2008 at 8:51 PM
Comment #59Why would any sane person want to buy a club with a 160m. debt and a fan base consisting of crazies who have driven out umpteen managers
over the last few years.
Who are as we speak attempting to drive out the current owner , Why you may ask ?
Because their hero KK a petulent looser has thrown in the towell because the current owner would`nt waste his money on buying ageing superstars like Henry, which was his answer to the clubs current demise , sad !
Truth is no one wants a club where the inmates run the asylum, so wise up before we become another struggling lower division team.
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 9:03 PM
Comment #60Paul ,, thats sweet fa … he has done nothing except buy us .. steady the ship then make it infinity worse by underming the manager and recking the club …. he is a greedy wh*er and if I met him in the street I would have a few things to say…
On a side point, you must be a supporter so why back him… its like lets back the devil as it may work in the short term but we’ll lose everything in the process ..
Apologies for the new Rant ..
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 9:07 PM
Comment #61chuck .. keegan isn’t a petulant loser but you probably can’t remember him playing football or even guiding our team to second back in the early 90’s .. otherwise you wouldn’t be so flippant with your comments.
toon mad tom
Oct 13, 2008 at 9:20 PM
Comment #62tbh i’m sick of hearing about (Anil Ambani ) interested in buying us, its not goin to happen.
god i hope i’m wrong 🙂
TOON TOON
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 9:40 PM
Comment #63toon mad tom .. true .. if only the new owner would just buy us and soon..
chuck
Oct 13, 2008 at 9:54 PM
Comment #64Are we talking about the same manager who blew a 12 pt. lead and settled for 2nd.place during that great 90`s era you recall ,which was his best season at the helm and the highlight of his management career , who has quit this club twice and has a history of quitting elswhere when the going gets tough, is this the same guy?
If that does`nt define petulence , then I dont know what does .
And yes I remember him playing, I also remember Millburn and many players you probably have never heard of.
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 10:02 PM
Comment #65chuck ..
pet·u·lant (pch-lnt)
adj.
1. Unreasonably irritable or ill-tempered;
2. an irritable or peevish statement or action
Don’t think so .. rash, head strong yep .. honest,passionate,loves the club yep .. but not petulant..
Paul
Oct 13, 2008 at 10:23 PM
Comment #66On a side point, you must be a supporter so why back him?
Because I don’t go just go with the majority when the majority have to ludicrously distort reality, be in a state of denial, or just repetedly use mindless obscenities and accusations of sexual deviance with Mike Ashley to sustain their argument sweendog. Though of course, I wouldn’t say that in your case. Newcastle is risking it’s whole future for the sake of a manager who no other major team would touch with a bargepole now. It is a crazy, surreal situation driven by a catatrophic collective mentality that is ripping this team to shreds. Truth is I’m not an Ashley supporter and I am not anti Ashley either. My turn to be angry with him was when he brought Keegan back, because I knew exactly how it would end. However I do think that he has done some good things for the club, and he is a major improvement on those swivel-eyed gets, Shepherd and Hall junior. It’s the fans who are ripping this club to pieces, not Ashley.
sweendog
Oct 13, 2008 at 10:34 PM
Comment #67Paul .. frustration is breeding this mentality .. and the frustration is bread from MA .. watching what he is doing and knowing you are nearly powerless to stop the greedy mess from sucking the club you’ve supported from childhood dry..
Now the keegan debate a side story .. the most important problem our club has is ashley .. so the sooner ashley is out the better for everybody .. I hope I can get back to simple discussion on whether the manager is getting results or not ..but until then I keep on getting rushes of blood to the head with pictures of ashley milking newcastle dry … he’s worse than them bankers who’ve ruined economies because of their incessant greed.
Paul
Oct 13, 2008 at 10:56 PM
Comment #68“Now the keegan debate a side story”
Er, no it isn’t, that is the WHOLE story sweendog.
All evidence suggests that it was the Shepherd -Hall politburo who were bleeding the club dry rather than Ashley. Their dividends were huge, their expenditure was huge and incredibly wasteful, the club was leveraged to the eyeballs and they treated the supporters with far more contempt than Ashley ever did. The club was teetering on the edge of a fianacial abyss in a time of financial confidence when Ashley took over. It is now in fairly decent shape financially despite the fact that we are in one of the worst economic climates in recent times.
RANT OVER 🙂
Thump
Oct 13, 2008 at 11:21 PM
Comment #69“Sunday Sun”
lol
Dondatta13
Oct 14, 2008 at 1:34 AM
Comment #70Tom_Toon your attitude, quite frankly makes me sick to the stomach ….
YOU and the likes of SPYRO and Jamie G are the reason I now only brush through this blog these days.
Your comment ~34 has me praying one of KK or Shearer takes over the helm at SJP, just to piss you off…..
This site is filled with non Toon fans and pro Ashley goons and im SICK to the back teeth with it, the sooner we are sold the better I say….
Ashley has single handedly taken this club through its darkest hour, he is a bungling idiot who the FA should throw the book at for bringing the game into disrepute, to be quite fair.
GET ASHLEY OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!