ENIC now control 68.86% of the club. That includes: 90.56% of Preference Shares, at a cost of £6.5m 47.56% of Ordinary Shares, including Sugar's shares at a cost of £25m http://www.londonstockexchange.com/LSECWS/IFSPages/MarketNewsPopup.aspx?id=1507229&source=RNS Preference shares are: It is just to secure their hold over the remainder if and when they choose to buy them, and they don't have to launch a formal takeover until they reach a certain level of Ordinary Shares. I think it's 66%, if I remember back to my financial law class. That doesn't mean the offer has to be accepted but most companies who edge up to the 66% mark do expect to take over the rest of the shares. Otherwise they stick to 65.5%. And it makes Spurs worth £208m at 113p per share.
Nicely put Danners. One extra bit of info would be that by gobbling up the preferred shares means that any potential hostile-takeover would have to do it on the back of a wildly fluctuating ordinary share price structure. Essentially, the moment a sniff of a buyup hit the streets, the ordinary share price would spike immediately and sharply--as we've seen at various times over the last few months actually. So, that figure of £208M may be a viable estimate of the "total value" of Spurs from one point of view, it's certainly far under the price needed to even attempt to acquire the club. ENIC's current position may change--upward or downward--in the future. But, the typical fan is going to buy the ordinary shares, and that's where any hostile-takeover would have to begin ... thus leaving the Fans as the first line of defense for a hostile-takeover, not by refusing to sell, but by quickly driving the price quite high. Ultimately, ENIC has a solid stranglehold on the club, and even if their position weakens, any potential investor needs to go through them. At the moment, with such a solid young team, low wage bill, and consistenly good results, the realistic price to buy Spurs would be well in excess of £208M. I suspect the next pieces of the puzzle include attempting to push on into the CL and most importantly, finding a stadium solution. When those pieces are in place (likely 2012 or later for the stadium to be playable), Spurs will be a very attractive item for bored billionaires around the globe ... but ENIC will have full control. -Digital
Well it says 'unlikely'. But they are bound by the rules of the city to make an offer to shareholders.
