According to the Icelandic info-site newsfrettir Björgolfur Guðmundsson is finally losing control over the sale of West Ham.A brief brush up:
Hansa holdings ehf, the company through which BG owns West Ham, is under the threat of liquidation and as a result of that BG in November asked for Hansa to be put in a one month "moratorium".
This means that the legal system gives the company some time to sort out its business before the company that wants their money from Hansa can force Hansa to sell its assets to come up with the money it owes.
The moratorium expired yesterday and BG of course tried to renew the moratorium to give him even more time "on the ball".
And here is the real news: MP bank, as I understand it one of the claim owners, objects to a renewal of the moratorium, wanting to get what Hansa owes them. This would mean that BG loses the control over Hansa and Hansa will request bankruptcy, go into liquidation.
Now a judge of the district court of Reykjavik have 7 days to rule in this matter, but a similar request to extend a moratorium was turned down when BG's other holding company - Samson - went through the same process.
The odds are therefore decent that BG will lose control over Hansa, meaning he will no longer be deciding what will happen with the West Ham shares that Hansa owns.
Does this mean the claim owners want as much money as possible and are willing to wait, or some money as soon as possible?
As BG, the administrators of the bankruptcy will weigh pros and cons of a deal, trying to get as good a deal as possible. But since at least one claim owner is not willing to give BG more time to sort it out, one can speculate that these claim owners are more inclined to cash in as soon as possible. They may well be in a desperate situation themselves.
My bet is that if the application for extension of the moratorium fails, we will be sold as soon as any even close to decent bid comes along.
I can't wait!
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4 comments:
Very interesting!
Though I am not as sure as you seem to be about a new owner turning out to be a new Messiah. Even if I hope!
It would be awful if Zola and Nani won't get the chance to continue what they just have started.
I have no illusions, any more, that the new owner will be the Messiah.
However, almost every new owner will be an improvement over the current situation and even though we will not get the infinate funds of a sheik, most new owners offer at least some transfer funds.
There´s not much time left if a new owner would like to be able to affect this season with his take over. At least this time I guess a take over could be arranged quite fast since BG is the only owner. It would have been a bigger problem with the kind of ownership we had before.
I agree with Prince H that I really like Zola and Nani to get a chance to finnish what they´ve started. They need some backing in January though.
As I understand it, the speed of the process from now on depends to a large extent on the relation between the amount of money Hansa owes its creditors and the amount that a sale of West Ham might generate. If the Hansa debt is "small" enough to be covered by a sale of WH for, say, £50m this will happen very quickly after the court decision. It will not be in the creditors' interest to wait for a higher price since any sum above £50m will go to BG, not to the creditors.
If, on the other hand, the Hansa debt is e.g. £150m the creditors are more likely to wait for a higher price since every penny up to 150m will go to the creditors.
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