Amanda Staveley made some interesting comments at a meeting in Jeddah last Thursday.
The consortium containing Staveley, the Reuben family and
Saudi’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) purchased Newcastle from UK businessman
Mike Ashley for £305million ($389.5m) in October 2021.
Although she would not confirm so when asked, Staveley
implied that the club are likely to be worth significantly more than that
already, given their greater on-field success since, increased profile; and,
moreover, the fact that fellow leading Premier League sides Manchester
United and Chelsea have been valued at several billion pounds
each over the past two years.
The price the consortium paid for Newcastle was, according
to Staveley, around twice the club’s annual turnover at the time, whereas most
Premier League outfits are sold for several times more than that percentage.
“The only thing I’ll say about valuation is, in particular,
we — PIF, myself and my husband, and the Reuben family — bought the club well —
at less than two times turnover,” she said. “Most clubs at the top of the
league, you’ve seen valuations between five and seven times turnover. We look
at things in a more measured way.
“We still look at a valuation not just in terms of turnover,
but we use multi-variant models which look at profitability and that’s critical
— especially with the environment we’re moving into.”
Interestingly, despite her suggestion that PSR should be
reformed, Staveley also believes that the existence of FFP regulations has made
English clubs far more attractive to U.S. owners and asset managers.
Staveley managed to convince PIF to take an 80 per cent
stake in Newcastle through a clear and thought-out business plan. However,
given that Newcastle were winless that season when the takeover went through in
the October and facing relegation, more than £100million was spent in the
transfer market in January 2022 to try to make sure they didn’t go down.
For the financier, there was a need to oversee “dramatic
change” in a short space of time to revive the club and ensure they remained a
Premier League side, even if she admits it deviated from the initial stringent
financial blueprint.
“Pretty fast,” Staveley said, when asked how long it took
for the business plan to be “thrown out”. “When you go in, you have all the
hype of trying to acquire the club and it took us four years to do that.
“So you need to know that we’re patient and we were
persistent, but there needed to be dramatic change… We had to take this
incredible club and inject it with some life.”
Staveley described Howe as an “incredible coach” who was a
“very important” hire in the process of turning the club’s fortunes around.
Summer plans
A summer of upheaval is expected at Newcastle, with several
incomings and outgoings likely, and early plans are already in place — though
Staveley would not reveal them.
“I’m not sure. You’ll have to come back and see a little bit
— see how we do the next few months,” Staveley said, when asked if Newcastle
will be involved in any “big transfers” this summer. When pushed that her
response “sounds like a yes”, she added: “Oh, I don’t know. I’m not sure what
we’ll be doing on transfers at the moment.”
Multi-club model
There has been an expectation since the consortium acquired
Newcastle that they would be the first of multiple clubs within a wider
sporting organisation. More than half of the 20 current English top-flight
sides have relationships with at least one overseas side.
The consortium has explored markets across the world —
including discussions with clubs in Belgium and France — but Newcastle do not
so far have any partnerships in the way that Manchester City do via the
City Football Group. Staveley insisted Newcastle remain interested in pursuing
that avenue in the future.
“I think we are very much (interested in a multi-club
model),” Staveley said. “Multi-clubs are part of having football, it’s a real
benefit to be able to have players and train players that aren’t part of your
squad.
“The UEFA rules are changing and so we have to see what
emerges. Obviously, the dynamics around whether we could have a club have
changed quite dramatically over the last year. I’m still a very big fan of the
multi-club model, a lot of other competitors and friends in the Premier League
have multi-club relationships, but it has to be considered as a whole.
“We’ve looked at Belgium, we’ve looked at a lot of European
markets, we’ve looked in Asia, Australia, we’ve looked in Brazil — pretty much
everything. We’ve looked at every market and getting players through our
academy system and through that multi-club model would be very helpful in terms
of allowing us to buy and have players as part of our journey earlier on.”
Getting involved in
Saudi
Again, with the discussion taking place in Jeddah, the
discussion returned to the Saudi Pro League and whether Staveley would be keen
to purchase a stake in a club in that country, given the vast investment being
ploughed into its top division.
“I think that’ll be a lovely idea,” she said with a smile.
“It’d be a fantastic opportunity to take a space in a Saudi club. I love the
league and I’ve seen it develop. It’s really exciting to see the competition
really growing over here as well.”
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