Quinn Close To Sunderland Takeover.

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

From: BBC.co.uk/Sport

Niall Quinn's takeover of Sunderland is set to be confirmed by Friday, BBC Sport understands.

The ex-Black Cats striker's consortium has agreed a price for the shares of chairman Bob Murray, who admitted a deal was close to being finalised.
Quinn said: "While we note and welcome Bob's disclosure, there are legalities to finalise before completion.


"Stock Exchange rules restrict me from commenting further but I can say we are committed to closing the deal."


Murray went public over the possible deal with Quinn's group of eight investors on Wednesday, saying the consortium will pay only £10m for the Championship club.


He said: "A figure of £80m has been mentioned in some quarters. I've spent millions acquiring my shares as well as investing and also given more than 20 years of my life to the club.


"We started our negotiations at £20m and all parties agreed to a price of £16m in March when we confirmed we were in discussions.


"The price may ultimately be a third lower than this so that more can be invested in the club.


"That would mean the price for the club could be as low as £10m - and the figure for my shares would be £5.7m, which is slightly different to what some people have been suggesting.


"I agreed to this price simply because of the very deep feeling and love I have for the club and the people."


But Quinn will also be taking on the club's debts of nearly £40m and he added: "All I can say is I have enjoyed the spirited negotiations."


The chairman, who owns nearly 57% of the shares of the club, has already confirmed he will stand down from his role at the end of June after 20 years.
Quinn's deal was in doubt last week, with claims that four of his consortium were pulling out.


But Quinn flew to the north-east for talks with Murray - in the hope that he would seal the deal.


He has spent the summer trying to put together a package with his group Drumaville to take control of the club from Murray.


The Black Cats were relegated from the Premiership with a record low points tally of 15 last season and have debts of about £40m.


Sunderland have been without a manager since Mick McCarthy was sacked in March.


Quinn's consortium have been linked with Martin O'Neill and BBC Sport understands they will make an approach for the former Celtic boss once they have assumed control of the club.



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HURRAH!!

All i can say is its going to be great once we have more money than Chelsea and i'm not talking out my arse, one of the consortium has more money than abramovic so its all good.
Lets hope we are out of the Championship next season.

Tyler Durden

Mikk, who? Abramovic has more money than the his 10 closest competitors in football all put together. It's hard to imagine someone with this much finance is manoevering quietly behind the scenes of this consortium, so who is he?

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

An irish bussiness man who reportedly has 16billion compared to 10 of Roman.

Its what i heard when i went on the tour a week or so ago.

Tyler Durden

Just doing a bit of research suggests you really are letting yourself in for a fall if you think it's going to be boom time at The SoL Mikkster....

Michael Walker
Thursday June 29, 2006

Guardian

Sunderland are expected to announce today that Niall Quinn's consortium has bought the Wearside club and will take control of it within the next two weeks. The fee is understood to be £10m, some £6m less than had been expected, but the consortium inherits debts of £40m - the total liability is £50m.

The Sunderland chairman, Bob Murray, began clearing his desk at the Stadium of Light yesterday. He will finally depart tomorrow with around £6m.

Quinn is still bound by stock market rules and cannot comment until every document is signed but the 39-year-old former Sunderland captain can set about recruiting a manager now that he knows he has a concrete position to offer.

The negotiations have dragged on longer than Quinn would have liked, with Murray believed to have twice asked for extensions in the last few weeks, but the consortium of Irish businessmen have remained determined to see the project through and are expected to make funds available to the next manager quickly.

The price they have paid for the club for will be seen as a bargain by some but the debts have to be dealt with. Interest payments alone are approximately £4m a year and there will be no Abramovich-style plunge in the transfer market.

One source close to the consortium said last night: "The hard work starts now for everybody. Nobody is underestimating the task but Quinn and his backers are desperate to make Sunderland important again. These people are not viewing Sunderland as an investment opportunity."

Murray denied he had been holding out for more money. "The suggestion is quite hurtful as the truth is actually the opposite. I've always put the club first. I've spent millions acquiring my shares as well as investing, and also given more than 20 years of my life to the club."

Property developers Sean Mulryan and Sean Dunne are the star players in Quinn’s bid team. Mulryan’s company, Ballymore Homes, has a €22 billion property portfolio spreading from Ireland to London and eastern Europe. Dunne is spending tens of millions of euro on swathes of the most expensive land in Ireland, in Ballsbridge, and is embroiled in a High Court case over the Whitewater Shopping Centre in Newbridge, Co Kildare, not far from Quinn’s home outside Naas.

Mikk, two of the "players" combined seem to have quite a big company they own which has a value of around £15M plus. This is the market value of their company and not their personal wealth (unless of course they choose to sell up all their holdings to invest into Sunderland.....this doesn't seem likely!!). Abramovic sold off nearly all his company assets and lives off his personal wealth. It's a huge discrepancy between the listed value of these guys companies (their assets, not Sunderlands) and Roman's personal wealth (which he devotes to Chelsea).

It should all be a lot better than what you have there, but I'd suggest fans believing their in for the kind of investment Chelsea have had are in for a shock!!

Mikk

WC's Sexy Beast

Well i suppose we shall see tomorrow what exactly they are going to bring do Sunderland, hopefully its going to be enough for us to be clear of debt for a while.