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Saudi PIF in talks with potential investors


The Great Soprendo said:
The Man City ruling will be relevant I agree, though I suspect whatever the outcome it might lead to further tightening of rules, rather than opening up a free-for-all for those willing to bend them. Also, one feature of the PIF ownership up the road is that they don't seem to be willing to bend the financial rules like others have: I'm assuming they don't want their sportswashing to be visibly tarnished, otherwise what's the point of it. Plus if they do want to sell the club, they don't want any potential case against them hanging over a deal.
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Yeah, that's a very good point.

It's also a timing thing too I suspect. Russia invaded Ukraine in the very early months of PIF ownership which put huge scrutiny on Abramovich, and therefore state ownership more broadly. MBS' opportunity to do a Sheikh Mansour died during the "legally binding assurances" pantomime, and PIF's ability to go all guns blazing left along with Abramovich.

They're now at a crossroads. Invest in the long term or pull the plug. There is a third option - stagnation - which is the one I'd fear most if I was a mag.
 
how much are they going to buy this minority stake for?

The Saudis paid £350 million for a majority stake, it would need to be at least that much to make a meaningful contribution to presumed building costs of £1 billion + (they say think of a number and double it) and whilst the Saudis aren’t putting their hands in their own pockets they’ll be giving part of the business away for nothing losing value in their asset won’t they?

Add to that they’re not selling out hospitality at the moment which will be the main purpose of any new ground to maximise revenue and I can’t see them doing well with it next season if it’s true their increasing prices from £3000 to £10,000 for the season
 
Bacon said:
Mental that the worlds richest oil nations investment fund and the UK’s second richest family can’t stump up an odd billion quid between them to fund a new stadium.

If they don’t think it’s worth them putting their own money in who else will?
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Thats the rich man's game. Get other people to pay for your stuff.

Didn't Musk do something similar when buying Twitter?

Back to the thread. Hope these B&W twats have these owners for a while now. It's obvious they've turned the tap off.

Why are the mags different to LIV golf, snooker, and other projects that the Saudi's have taken step back from? Someone needs to break it to them. They aren't.
 
By the time it's actually built they could be in the Championship.

They've still barely got a competent board at the club with Howe's nephew as head of recruitment and Jack Ross locking the gates at night! Building a new stadium seems to be taking priority while their top players would all fuck off at the drop of a hat!

Feels like they haven't got a clue tbh, and long may it continue.
 
The soap powder said:
It was always going to happen and not being funny they are getting excited cos someone has designed a new stadium on Chat Gpt
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Did you see what the thick knackers did? They took the cross section design of the stadium that shows the concourse layouts within the stadium and then made an AI image of the stadium as if that's the actual stadium, even though the design is missing a whole stand and the 2 corners! 🤣 🤣

Another lopsided tip! 🤪 🤣

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FlashGordon said:
It doesn't even make sense.

There's "something" there in the project for investors to be interested in and that means the project is moving...

But that something hasn't been decided if it's the current stadium or a new one and the owners didn't reach out to potential investors anyway, so how are said investors aware that "something" is there...
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I think that something is the fact the stadium can make decent money on non match days as it would be the Wembley of the North for sure.

What I'd be asking as a mag fan is that if other investors come in then does that potential other revenue go to the mags or does it go to the investors?

Basically Newcastle don't own their own stadium but get free use of it and what they make on match days is theirs. The rest of the time, the money from concerts, International games, many other events etc goes elsewhere.

PIF could then sell the mags if the footy side return is shit but still own the stadium and have NUFC by the balls given they'd only be tenants and PIF still make the money outside of football for many years to come by owning the Wembley of the North.
 
Mboma said:
By the time it's actually built they could be in the Championship.

They've still barely got a competent board at the club with Howe's nephew as head of recruitment and Jack Ross locking the gates at night! Building a new stadium seems to be taking priority while their top players would all fuck off at the drop of a hat!

Feels like they haven't got a clue tbh, and long may it continue.
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On a recent Athletic podcast they were talking about the Saudis and apparently the mags are so far down their list of priorities, club officials struggle to get anytime with them.

For well over a year they have known the costs of redeveloping SJP or building a new stadium but they don’t want to make any decision.
 
Zidane said:
PIF are at at point where they have to decide whether to bail out now or they are in it for a very long time.
If the stadium is 1bn and I'll guess a new training ground is £200m, then you dont build those and then sell the club two years later.
They are valued at around £750m to 1bn now depending on who you believe. They paid a total of 370m to buy it. Theyll have spent a fair bit but if they sold it now they probably won't lose that much overall.
I would have thought right about now would be a good time for them to sell if money is getting tight in Saudi. Maybe they want to get the new stadium to planning permission stage to maximise sale value and hassle factor for new owners.
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This is what I was thinking. How could putting in £1Bn to build a ground work from a minority shareholder PoV when the club in its entirety isn't worth £1bn?

Someone could just buy the whole club, the take out loans to build the stadium, and move that loan onto the club's books. At which point the club is worth about £2bn on paper, so you've got the exact same situation as being touted, but instead of being the minority shareholder, you are the only shareholder.
 
Hank Scorpio said:
On a recent Athletic podcast they were talking about the Saudis and apparently the mags are so far down their list of priorities, club officials struggle to get anytime with them.

For well over a year they have known the costs of redeveloping SJP or building a new stadium but they don’t want to make any decision.
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I suspect PIF have had more trips down south than they have to Newcastle this season. Quite telling that when they took over they were eager to be seen, and now they hardly take in game.

Theres barely a board to keep things ticking over, let alone seeing them improve to step up another level. The shit is going to hit the fan when their players will be wanting away this summer.
 
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