Goodison View: Bidder may have already won Everton takeover race after names dismissed

777 Partner’s failure to get their Everton takeover bid over the line after 37 weeks has led to a number of new prospective buyers emerging.

Farhad Moshiri has reportedly now received three bids [The Athletic, 8 June] while a number of other parties have been credited with interest as hopes have raised that the Toffees’ months of ownership uncertainty could finally be coming to an end, but it appears that race may already have been won.

Part-owner of Crystal Palace John Textor first emerged in the picture as 777’s exclusivity agreement with Moshiri was limping towards expiry on 31 May, telling The Athletic (26 May) he had had conversations about buying the club.

An “unexpected twist” was then reported by Bloomberg on 6 June, as the outlet claimed A-Cap, the American insurer who were the main financial backer to 777, had come forward with an offer of funding that would keep Moshiri in control, with Sky Sports reporting as recently as 9 June that the outfit were actually “looking to acquire” Everton.

Paul Joyce then reported in The Times (6 June) that rival bids had gone in from two of the current club creditors, with local businessmen Andy Bell and George Downing, whom it subsequently emerged were being backed by computing billionaire Michael Dell’s investment vehicle MSD [Daily Mail, 8 June], and New York firm MSP Sports Capital both making offers.

Andy Bell, George Downing and MSP Sports Capital already Everton creditors

AS Roma’s owner Dan Friedkin then expressed his own interest in buying the Toffees [Sky Sports, 8 June], with Sky Sports Italy reporting the same day that it was “very serious”, before a third bid arrived from a consortium led by London-based businessman Vatche Manoukian, as reported by The Athletic late that night.

But while Moshiri suddenly appears blessed with options as to who he chooses to offload his shareholding to, the battle may not be so wide in a realistic sense, and the winners may even already be clear.

Even before news of the Friedkin and Manoukian routes broke Textor, who would have been unable to purchase Everton without offloading his shares at Palace, told Goodison News that he was not and had never been a frontrunner in the race, despite Sky Sports naming him as such on 27 May, before Bloomberg reported (7 June) that he had “suddenly” withdrawn from the picture altogether.

Similarly, the possibility that A-Cap were looking to pick up where 777 failed was dismissed by Matt Slater in The Athletic on 8 June as they have financial concerns of their own to deal with, although they will remain involved with the club for the foreseeable future as they are now “calling the shots” at bankruptcy-threatened 777, and are a major Everton creditor after over £200m in loans were pumped in through last season.

John Textor and A-Cap out of Everton takeover race

The same report claimed that Freidkin has also not actually made an offer, and prominent Toffees analyst The Esk has suggested he will not actually be doing so thanks to UEFA scrutiny of multi-club models.

Speaking on the Talking the Blues podcast on 8 June, as well as saying that A-Cap are “categorically not” bidders in this race, he indicated that the Roma boss has concerns about a potential hit to value in future.

He said (17m 20s): “I was told this afternoon that because UEFA is now starting to look very closely at the multi-club operations that there’s little point in them buying Everton. Let’s say they bought Everton and they became successful once more, it may be the case that multi-club clubs won’t be able to play against each other in European competitions going forwards and they’re quite concerned about that because of the drop in value of those clubs.”

When it comes to MSP’s bid, The Esk also has doubts, saying (16m) it “runs completely contrary to everything they’ve said in the more-than 12 months that they’ve been involved with Everton”, citing the fact that Rights and Media Funding Ltd, yet another company the Toffees owe money to, had blocked a minority ownership deal for MSP [The Athletic, 24 August] because the latter weren’t prepared to put in extra money after that.

If they wanted to MSP had the option to acquire majority control from Moshiri when their loan, believed to be £158m, was not paid back by the 10 April deadline, as one, of the Premier League’s conditions for 777 to takeover.

At the time Josimar journalist Paul Brown (10 April) rejected the idea that the American company wanted control, and they clearly chose not to take it, instead agreed to an extension to the repayment deadline brokered by Moshiri, which has reportedly since been extended again after 777’s failure [i News, 31 May].

Dan Friedkin and Vatche Manoukian not set to replace 777 Partners for exclusivity?

After the Manoukian bid subsequently emerged The Esk also dismissed the offer as “not serious” via Twitter on 9 June, and while his perspective is not automatically fact he does have a certain amount of credibility on the takeover situation when his long-held beliefs about 777 being incapable of a takeover essentially turned out to be accurate despite claims of the opposite from co-founder Josh Wander and Moshiri himself.

That would seemingly leave just the Bell and Downing offer, backed by the MSD money, to get the next chance at exclusivity, and they have indeed been named the frontrunners, particularly among supporters, by Slater.

Whether they can rescue the club from the endless financial chaos that has been allowed to develop in recent years and navigate back towards former glories would only become clear in time if they complete a buy-out, and at this stage they seem to be in pole position to get the opportunity.

This being Everton, and perhaps more importantly Moshiri, it is impossible to be certain of any course of action, but absent yet another as-yet unknown offer emerging, the takeover race may not only be much thinner than reports suggest but might be close to over.

In other Everton news, the Toffees have made an offer to sign a very strong option on a free transfer.

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