A group of local businessmen are in advanced talks to buy Southend United in a deal that could result in English actor Ray Winstone joining the club’s board.
Ron Martin has been Southend’s majority owner for the last
25 years but he put the club up for sale in March, a move that delighted most
fans as his tenure has been an almost constant battle with the taxman and other
creditors.
Two weeks before Martin’s announcement, the club avoided
liquidation by finally settling a late tax bill of almost £2million only for
another winding-up petition to arrive two weeks later over more unpaid tax.
That petition, which was joined by three other parties,
including the club’s front-of-shirt sponsor, PG Site Services, was adjourned
last week until July 12, giving Martin 56 days to either find another £275,000
or sell the club and let someone else settle the bill.
The favourites are a group led by Kristofer Tremaine and
Simon Jackson, respectively the chief executive and chief financial officer of
Kimura Capital, a London-based hedge fund that specialises in commodity
markets.
Six years after launching that business in 2013, the pair
moved into sports, esports, media and marketing with the creation of Kimura
Performance and a motorsport division called Kimura Racing.
The group, who are being advised by football finance veteran
Laurie Pinto, have long-established links with Southend. For example, Kimura Capital sponsored a
charity event at the club’s Roots Hall stadium last weekend and ex-Crystal
Palace, Hull and Leicester manager Peter Taylor, one of the club’s most famous
former players and managers, is involved with Kimura Performance.
If their bid for Southend is successful, the Kimura group
will become the new majority owners of the club, its training ground and the
new stadium Martin has been trying to build for the duration of his time in
charge.
This proposed stadium is part of a longstanding plan to
develop a large site on the edge of the city called Fossetts Farm. After
several failed attempts to get schemes off the drawing board, Martin finally
settled on an idea to build hundreds of other new homes at the site and Roots
Hall.
Winstone is a well-known West Ham fan, which is not
something many would loudly profess at Roots Hall. While the clubs have rarely
been in the same division, Southend supporters have traditionally seen their
east London neighbours as rivals.
Speaking of rivals, there is at least one other group with
Essex links that has been talking to Martin about buying the club but a
rumoured approach from a North American group fronted by former NBA star and
Vancouver Whitecaps co-owner Steve Nash has not materialised.
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