Sky News City editor, CityAM columnist; winner, 2021 British Journalism Awards; twice London Press Club Business Journalist of the Year. Charlton Athletic fan.
EXCLUSIVE: Chelsea FC’s new owners could be prevented from paying dividends for ten years and be bound by strict limits on the club’s indebtedness under a package of measures dubbed ‘anti-Glazer clauses’ aimed at avoiding the controversy that dogged Manchester United after…
EXCLUSIVE: The brother of Gina Coladangelo, the Whitehall director whose alleged affair with health secretary Matt Hancock has prompted calls for him to quit, is a director of PHL Group, a private healthcare provider which has won several NHS contracts.
EXCLUSIVE: Manchester United’s owners, the Glazer family, are to explore a sale of the club as part of a review of options that could also include selling a minority interest. An outright sale would bring an end to 17 years of controversial ownership.
Exclusive: Jim Ratcliffe’s acquisition of a 25pc stake in Manchester United Football Club will be announced today, 13 months after the launch of a review initiated by the Glazer family. Ratcliffe’s Ineos Sport will take control of the football side of the club. More soon.
Exclusive: Chelsea FC has struck a £20m-a-year shirt-sleeve sponsorship deal with WhaleFin, a cryptocurrency group, that could be announced as early as tomorrow. Although the club continues to operate under the strict conditions of its government licence, the partnership... 1/2
Exclusive: The Premier League told clubs at a meeting today that a new six-year partnership with Electronic Arts, the video games group, would be worth close to £500m (more than twice the current annual value) and underlines the League's ongoing commercial pull. More soon.
Revealed: Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has decided to block an application from Madison Square Garden to build a London version of the Las Vegas Sphere at the Olympic Park in Stratford on the grounds of excessive light pollution. A formal statement is expected later today.
Exclusive: Tom Glick, a former top executive at Manchester City FC's parent company, is to take over day-to-day running of Chelsea Football Club following its £2.5bn takeover by a consortium led by Clearlake Capital and LA Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly. More on
@skynews
soon.
EXCLUSIVE: Richard Arnold, the Manchester United Football Club CEO, is to leave the club by the end of the year. An announcement will be made later today and will come shortly before Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos Sport confirms the acquisition of a 25% stake in the club. More soon.
EXCLUSIVE: A Premier League club - thought to be Manchester City - is threatening to bring a legal challenge to prevent the adoption of reforms to rules governing associated party transactions aimed at ensuring fairer commercial deals in the top flight.
Exclusive: Newcastle United FC is in advanced talks to sign a multimillion pound shirt sponsorship deal with Sela, a Saudi-based events company - an alliance that would provide a litmus test of new Premier League rules on related-party transactions.
Exclusive: PricewaterhouseCoopers is to separate its Russian firm from the rest of its global network in a move affecting 3700 partners and staff in the country. It's arguably the most significant example so far of a global multinational exiting Russia. Full story up soon.
Manchester United has just confirmed my scoop that its board and shareholders have kicked off a process to explore options for the club which include an outright sale that would end the Glazer family’s 17-year ownership of the Old Trafford outfit. More to follow shortly.
EXCLUSIVE: Sir Jim Ratcliffe will commit $300m (£245m) from his multibillion pound fortune to
@ManUtd
's ageing physical infrastructure as part of a deal - expected to be sealed this month - that will see Ineos Sports buying a 25% stake in the Red Devils.
Exclusive: George Osborne, the former chancellor, has been parachuted in to help the Todd Boehly-Clearlake consortium clinch a takeover of Chelsea Football Club that would be the most lucrative sports franchise sale in history. Full story on
@skynews
shortly.
Revealed: Sir Jim Ratcliffe's purchase of a 25% stake in
@ManUtd
will be announced early next week - barring further delays - with the $33-a-share tender offer to public investors coming more than a year after the Glazers said they would court bidders.
Exclusive: Netflix to announce deal with the estate of children's author Roald Dahl this week that will lead to creation of original animated content based on Dahl books including Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and George's Marvellous Medicine.
Exclusive: The final bidders for Chelsea FC have been told to guarantee that their controlling shareholders will not sell any of their stakes in the Premier League club until at least 2032 - a move designed to ensure continuity under its next owners.
Exclusive: The government is racing to finalise a multibillion pound sovereign investment partnership with Saudi Arabia following a £10bn deal struck with Abu Dhabi last year. Observers speculate that it could be announced when the PM visits Saudi this week. Full story up soon.
Revealed: The Premier League club Southampton FC is close to being sold to Dragan Solak, a Serbian-born businessman behind cable-TV operator United Group, according to my sources. I understand he is paying about £100m to buy the Saints from Gao Jisheng, who took control in 2017.
Exclusive: Aston Villa Football Club suspends CEO Keith Wyness less than a fortnight after Championship play-off final defeat and amid suggestions that HMRC has served a winding-up order against Villa, one of England's oldest professional football clubs, for missing tax payment.
Revealed: Former BT and Sainsbury’s bosses among more than 50 business leaders calling for new Brexit vote in letter to be published in tomorrow’s Sunday Times.
EXCLUSIVE: Sir Lewis Hamilton and Serena Williams have agreed to invest millions of pounds in the takeover bid for Chelsea FC being spearheaded by Sir Martin Broughton. Full details of the line-up here - with the most unexpected financial backers so far.
EXCLUSIVE: The Chicago Cubs-owning Ricketts family and the hedge fund multibillionaire Ken Griffin have joined forces to mount a blockbuster bid for Chelsea Football Club that will be tabled on Friday. First formal confirmation of their interest. Full story online shortly.
Exclusive: Sir Jim Ratcliffe's swoop for a 25% stake in
@ManUtd
, which could be announced in the early part of next week, will be priced at $33-a-share (or thereabouts), representing a more than 75% premium to yesterday's NYSE closing share price.
2/2 …the club’s sale to the Glazer family in 2005. The series of conditions is under discussion between advisers to Roman Abramovich and the preferred bidder for the club: a consortium majority-financed by Clearlake Capital and spearheaded by Todd Boehly.
I’ve supported Charlton Athletic since the early 1980s, through near-extinction, homelessness, two spells of ground-sharing, the return to The Valley, a golden age of Premier League football and then a decade of negligent ownership. Our club is too important to die.
#SaveCAFC
Exclusive: The six English clubs which signed up to the now-abandoned European Super League project earlier this year have agreed to pay a combined sum of just over £20m as part of a settlement with the Premier League that will be announced later today.
Exclusive: Amanda Staveley, the financier spearheading a £300m takeover of Newcastle United FC, has accused the Premier League of acting as a "shield against public scrutiny" ahead of legal proceedings that will determine the club's future ownership.
Revealed: The £4.25bn takeover of Chelsea FC has been thrown into fresh doubt amid “concerns” in Whitehall about assurances being provided by the Roman Abramovich. A failure to secure the licence needed to expedite the sale by the end of May could be disastrous. More soon.
Exclusive: Jonathan Goldstein, a London-based property investor and developer, is part of a consortium led by the LA Dodgers-backer Todd Boehly that is vying to buy Chelsea Football Club after owner Roman Abramovich was sanctioned by the government. Full story up soon.
Exclusive: Manchester United supporters have issued an ultimatum to the Glazer family over delays to a fan share ownership scheme promised by the club in the wake of last year's European Super League fiasco, demanding that it is in place by mid-April.
EXCLUSIVE: Gary Hoffman, the Premier League chairman, is on the brink of resigning less than 18 months after taking the role, following a backlash from a number of top flight clubs over the League’s handling of the Saudi-led takeover of Newcastle United. Full story up soon.
Exclusive: Elliott Management, the US-based owner of AC Milan, has agreed to become a minority investor in Chelsea FC if the property developer Nick Candy’s takeover bid for the club is successful. Bidders may learn today if they have been shortlisted.
Exclusive: Patrick Stewart, Manchester United's general counsel, will be named interim CEO in addition to his existing role. Richard Arnold's departure will come after a year of uncertainty about the club's future ownership, with an announcement on that front expected next week.
EXCLUSIVE: The four remaining contenders to buy Chelsea Football Club are being told they must commit at least £1bn to future investment in the Blues' stadium and squad as part of binding offers that will need to be submitted by the middle of April.
EXCLUSIVE: The Wall Street bank JP Morgan is in talks to provide a debt package worth around $6bn (£4.6bn) to a new FIFA-backed European Premier League, which Liverpool and Manchester United - and clubs from Germany, Italy and Spain - are in talks to join.
...actually signed at the start of the year, I'm told. It will see WhaleFin, which is owned by Amber Group, replace Hyundai on Chelsea players' shirts from the start of next season - assuming the takeover by the Clearlake-Boehly consortium is approved.. Full story up shortly.
EXCLUSIVE: Nissan will announce next week that it’s cancelling a plan unveiled in 2016 to build its X-Trail model at its Sunderland plant. Bombshell Brexit move for industry given that ministers gave Nissan secret reassurance over industry competitiveness.
Exclusive: Bankers advising on the sale of Chelsea Football Club have been seeking binding commitments from bidders on future spending on the club and its Stamford Bridge home before deciding (possibly tonight) on a shortlist of prospective buyers.
Exclusive: The announcement of Richard Arnold's departure as
@ManUtd
chief executive - which should come in the next couple of hours - will offer the clearest sign so far that the arrival of Sir Jim Ratcliffe as the club's new investor is imminent.
Revealed: Kemi Badenoch, the business secretary, has snubbed an invitation from the CBI to speak at its annual conference next month, leaving it without a senior ministerial speaker at a summit seen as crucial to restoring confidence among its members.
Exclusive: Nigel Farage has instructed London-based Grosvenor Law to pursue millions of pounds in damages from NatWest Group, the taxpayer-backed lender, and its former chief executive, Dame Alison Rose, as the fallout from the debanking scandal goes on.
Exclusive: Whitehall and Ofwat, the water regulator, are drawing up contingency plans for the possible collapse of Thames Water, Britain's biggest water company, which could entail a special administration like that used when Bulb Energy failed in 2021.
Revealed: Allianz, the German insurer, is one of a number of companies vying to take over from the telecoms group Three as Chelsea’s main shirt sponsor, even after a dire Premier League season risks hurting the club’s pricing power with potential backers.
Exclusive: RedBird Capital Partners, the US-based owner of a minority stake in Liverpool FC’s parent company, has approached Elliott Management, the hedge fund owner of AC Milan, with a €1bn-plus proposal to buy the Italian football giant.
EXCLUSIVE: Asda and J Sainsbury are in talks about a £10bn merger that will send shockwaves through Britain’s retail industry. Full story on
@SkyNews
shortly.
EXCLUSIVE: The final three bidders for Chelsea FC have been asked to increase their offers by £500m following a demand from Roman Abramovich, just days before a preferred buyer is expected to be selected for last season’s Champions League-winners.
Exclusive: Sir Jim Ratcliffe's bid for Manchester United Football Club includes a put-and-call arrangement exercisable after three years which could force the remaining Glazer family shareholders to sell the rest of their stake to the billionaire.
Exclusive: The six clubs - Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur - have also agreed to fines of over £20m EACH and 30-point deductions if they sign up to any similar European breakaway concept in future.
Revealed: Clearlake Capital, the majority funder of Todd Boehly’s preferred bid for Chelsea Football Club, has offered assurances to the Premier League about the identities of its fund investors in an attempt to win swift approval for the takeover.
Revealed: A string of bidders have been eliminated from the auction of Chelsea Football Club, according to sources close to a number of offers. Those said to have been unsuccessful include Aethel Partners, Woody Johnson, Saudi Media Group and Muhsin Barak. 1/3
Revealed: Clearlake Capital's stake in Chelsea FC would be reduced to about 60% under a restructured ownership agreement being finalised following Roman Abramovich's demand for an additional £500m to buy the Premier League club. More here:
Exclusive: Manchester United will announce the appointment of Richard Arnold as CEO as early as today - the first person to hold that title at the club since David Gill in 2013 - with executive vice-chair Ed Woodward remaining as a consultant next year.
Revealed: The board of NatWest Group is meeting now to determine the future of Dame Alison Rose, its CEO, after she admitted disclosing inappropriate information to a BBC journalist. It’s expected that she will step down although no final decision has been taken. More soon.
@airmanbrown
@andrewdbarclay
I've been a
#cafc
fan for 40 years, and the immediate prospects for the club have rarely felt as bleak as they seem today; I know
@andrewdbarclay
well, and think he has the right approach - as well as access to sufficient funding - to provide a way out of this mess. We need it.
Exclusive: Nissan will announce on Friday that it will build electric versions of the Qashqai and Juke models at its plant in Sunderland in a major boost for Britain's biggest car manufacturing site. The project will involve a major investment from the Japanese carmaker...
Revealed: Mike Penrose, a former chief executive of UNICEF UK and Soccer Aid, has been recruited to establish the foundation that would be charged with using the £2.5bn of proceeds from the sale of Chelsea FC to benefit the victims of the war in Ukraine. 1/3
Exclusive: Months after the debanking row which sparked a slew of inquiries and cost Dame Alison Rose her job as NatWest Group CEO, I can reveal that
@Nigel_Farage
has moved his personal bank accounts to Lloyds Britain’s biggest high street lender.
Revealed: A bid from Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Sport remains the leading contender to secure control of Manchester United Football Club despite an inconclusive meeting of the board of the club’s parent company which was held on Thursday.
Exclusive: Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the Ineos petrochemicals billionaire, is contemplating buying a minority stake in Manchester United Football Club rather than seeking full control at Old Trafford, in an effort to conclude the 10 months-long process to determine its future ownership.
Exclusive: The chancellor, Sajid Javid, has called in 20 of the City’s top figures (including execs from Barclays, Goldman Sachs and HSBC) tomorrow in a bid to convince them that a no-deal Brexit presents an opportunity for the UK’s financial sector.
EXCLUSIVE: The City figures behind the Red Knights campaign to oust the owners of Manchester United have written to the club's co-chairman, Joel Glazer, demanding a string of governance reforms, including that the family sells down its stake to below 50%.
I’ve just been asked by someone whose job title is global media relations director at a FTSE-100 company to identify my source for a story I’ve put to him; and then been told he won’t deal with my enquiry because I wouldn’t disclose said source. Very, very strange behaviour.
EXCLUSIVE: Carlyle, the giant US-based private equity firm, is in talks about a large minority investment in Manchester United Football Club, adding it to the list of parties preparing new proposals before a deadline set by the Glazer family this month.
EXCLUSIVE: The board of Thames Water, Britain's biggest water company, has been locked in crunch talks today as it prepares to announce tomorrow morning that its shareholders are not minded to proceed with a promised £3.25bn equity investment into it. The decision, which...
EXCLUSIVE: Sir Martin Broughton, the former BA chairman who engineered Liverpool FC's sale to Fenway Sports Group in 2010, is in talks to spearhead a bid for Chelsea as the search intensifies for a new owner after the sanctioning of Roman Abramovich.
Exclusive: The Premier League is lining up a £30m-a-year digital collectibles deal with Sorare, the Paris-based NFTs start-up which counts French striker Kylian Mbappe among its backers. The deal will be discussed with the 20 top-flight clubs tomorrow.
Revealed: The bank handling the sale of Chelsea Football Club has told the four remaining bidders that it intends to present a preferred bid to the government during the week of April 18, underlining the quickfire nature of the hunt for a new owner.
Exclusive:
@Nigel_Farage
, the former UKIP leader, has fired a new salvo in his debanking row with NatWest Group by accusing Travers Smith, the City law firm, of "trying to hide the truth" from him over the reasons for his Coutts account closures.
Revealed: Olly Robbins, Theresa May’s chief Brexit negotiator, is joining the Wall Street giant Goldman Sachs as a senior member of its banking team based in London. The appointment has been approved by the ACOBA committee in Whitehall. Announcement expected imminently.
Exclusive: Nick Candy, the property developer whose interest in buying Chelsea FC I revealed a week ago, is pledging to give fans a seat on the club’s board if his bid is successful; he is also offering to provide short-term funding (if it complies with rules imposed by the…
EXCLUSIVE: HSBC Holdings has emerged as a potential white knight as the government races to secure an eleventh-hour rescue of Silicon Valley Bank UK. A deal is not yet certain but I understand that both HSBC and JP Morgan are exploring buying the stricken lender. More soon.
Exclusive: The 555 sub-postmasters who were wrongly convicted in the Post Office IT scandal and then found most of a subsequent financial settlement swallowed by litigation funders will now receive full compensation, the Treasury will announce tomorrow.
EXCLUSIVE: Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is to take a stake in McLaren Group, the British supercar maker and Formula One team-owner, as part of a £550m equity-raise; Ares Management is leading the capital injection, which could be announced today.
Exclusive: Novalpina Capital, the private equity owner of NSO Group, supplier of the Pegasus spyware which has become engulfed by an international scandal, is to be dissolved following a months-long internal dispute, with its assets taken on by a third-party manager. More soon.
Exclusive: The three final bidders for Chelsea FC have been asked to clarify their plans for the long-term funding and management of the club as the process of finding a successor to owner Roman Abramovich inches closer to its conclusion.
Exclusive: WhaleFin's entry into Premier League football sponsorship, through a deal with Chelsea, will, I'm told, be worth around £20m annually to the club. The cryptocurrency group recently struck an even bigger shirt sponsorship with Atletico Madrid.
Exclusive: Debenhams, which has furloughed the vast majority of its 22,000-strong workforce, is preparing to file for administration as soon as next week. If confirmed, the move would be aimed at shielding the business from creditors during the pandemic.
Exclusive: Andy Byford, the London transport commissioner, is to quit, weeks after securing a long-term funding deal with the government for the capital’s pandemic-ravaged bus and Tube networks. His exit after two-and-a-half years will be announced tomorrow. Full story up soon.
Exclusive: GB News, the right-leaning broadcaster whose rivals include Sky News and which will employ Boris Johnson as a presenter from next month, is in talks to raise about £30m from investors, even as it contends with a string of Ofcom investigations.
The project would constitute the closest thing we’ve seen yet to a European super league, and the talks, which have been underway for many months, are at an advanced stage. Up to five English clubs would be involved in the new tournament.
Exclusive: The Body Shop’s UK operations are preparing to file for administration as soon as next week in a move that will put a substantial number of jobs at risk, weeks after the global cosmetics retailer founded by Anita Roddick changed ownership.
Exclusive: The chancellor is to announce an overhaul of the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loans Scheme, removing a key obstacle to SMEs' ability to access it, amid dire warnings about the funding crisis facing Britain's army of small businesses. More on
@skynews
soon.
Exclusive: Car-maker Ford has calculated that hard Brexit will cost the company more than £600m this year alone because of WTO tariffs and potential further Sterling devaluation; awkward timing for ministers on back of Airbus remarks earlier.
Revealed: The Ballymena-based maker of ‘Boris Buses’, Wrightbus, will formally crash into administration on Wednesday after weeks of rescue talks with at least three buyers failed to result in a deal. The move will put 1300 jobs at risk.
Exclusive: Deliveroo will announce today that it is to donate 500,000 free meals to frontline NHS staff, as large companies see the coronavirus pandemic as an opportunity to use surplus resources to burnish their credentials as good corporate citizens.
Exclusive: 777 Partners, the investor seeking to take control of Everton Football Club, has pushed back its target date for buying the Toffees to the end of next month and requested an extension to the repayment of a £160m loan related to its new stadium.
Exclusive: Tilman Fertitta, owner of the Houston Rockets NBA team, is the latest American sports billionaire to show an interest in bidding for Chelsea ahead of a deadline for offers this week. I understand Fertitta is one of the parties in a data-room set up for bidders...
Exclusive: The final bidders for Chelsea FC have been given several more days to table binding offers for last season’s Champions League winners, with Premier League scrutiny of the remaining consortia expected to mean that a deal will now complete in May.
Exclusive: Britain's biggest banks have been placed on alert over hundreds of 'rogue' filings relating to nearly 200 businesses which have been erroneously lodged with Companies House, the UK's central corporate register, sparking an urgent probe.
Revealed: Two-thirds of the funding for the Chelsea FC bid fronted by LA Dodgers part-owner Todd Boehly would in fact come from the Californian investment firm Clearlake Capital, although Boehly and Clearlake would split voting rights 50-50.
Exclusive: The former UKIP leader
@Nigel_Farage
has declared his debanking row with NatWest "far from over" as he questioned whether the retail share sale confirmed in Jeremy Hunt's Budget could take place after the "cover-up" over his account closure.
EXCLUSIVE: Goals Soccer Centres, which counts the Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley as its biggest investor, faces being given the red card by the London stock market; I understand it will disclose tomorrow that its accounting scandal dates back a decade.
Exclusive: Honda is planning to announce the permanent closure of its plant in Swindon in 2022 with the loss of 3500 jobs, and a threat to many more jobs in the company's supply chain. I'm told an announcement might come tomorrow.
EXCLUSIVE: The former Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon is in talks with financial investors about a bid to buy Newcastle United FC from the Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley.
Exclusive: The Premier League has called an urgent meeting of its 20 clubs next week in a last-ditch bid to agree a settlement with the English Football League before ministers introduce the Football Governance Bill, and pave the way for a new regulator.
EXCLUSIVE: Revolut, the digital banking and payments service, has become the most valuable fintech in UK history after striking an $800m funding deal with SoftBank's Vision Fund 2 and Tiger Global Management which values the company at $33bn (£24bn). Full story on
@SkyNews
soon.