Liverpool FC sold to New England Sports Ventures after Tom Hicks challenge fails

15 October 2010 14:16
LIVERPOOL Football Club's sale to New England Sports Ventures has been formally completed, the Echo can reveal.[LNB]The club is now legally and officially the property of Boston-based NESV, led by John W. Henry, after the deal was signed at 3.45pm.[LNB]Former co-owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett no longer have anything to do with Liverpool Football Club or its affairs.[LNB]The dramatic, drawn-out sale ends three and a half years of controversy, crisis and heartache for Britain's most successful ever football club and its supporters, who have campaigned relentlessly to get rid of Hicks and Gillett.[LNB]The £300m deal which claimed the five times European champions for NESV was sealed after a another astonishing day of developments. It saw Hicks attempt to reach agreement with American hedge fund Mill Financial to take over at Anfield at very the last gasp.[LNB]Had it been successful, that would have seen Mill Financial repay Royal Bank of Scotland their £237m loan, which Hicks and Gillett have been liable for, just hours before an RBS deadline passed today.[LNB]But Hicks' desperate 11th hour move to somehow retain control - or pass it to Mill by selling them his shares and thereby get his money back - has failed. The deal agreed on October 6 with NESV has finally been signed - and Hicks and Gillett are estimated to have lost £140m in total from the whole venture.[LNB]However, they are determined to pursue further legal action over the matter, having claimed in a statement that the sale to NESV amounted to an 'epic swindle'. They are seeking 1.6 billion dollars in damages and promising 'protracted litigation' over the 'illegal sale'.[LNB]But the NESV deal has now gone through and a new era at Anfield is in place. The owners of the Boston Red Sox baseball team are now legally recognised as the owners of Liverpol FC in Britain, where jurisdiction over the matter has been emphatically proven to rest.[LNB]John W Henry, who is one of 17 American investors in NESV, is not expected at Goodison Park on Sunday, when Liverpool play Everton in the 214th Merseyside derby. He said he would prefer to watch Liverpool's first game as owner at Anfield.[LNB]Henry has spent the last two days in London to help Liverpool's English non-owner directors overcome the massive hurdles that were being placed in their way by Hicks and Gillett.[LNB]The news is a major triumph for those three English directors - Liverpool Chairman Martin Broughton, Managing Director Christian Purslow and Commercial Director Ian Ayre.

Source: Liverpool_Echo