Tom Benbow

While searching for developments on the Newcastle United takeover earlier, I discovered that the contents of Sports Direct’s ‘authority to buy back shares’ filing had been released. This surprised me, as the previous two filings on this authority aren't available to the public.  I decided to analyse the contents, and revaluate the speculative conclusions I reached in ‘ Sports Direct Ltd: The Next Chapter in the Newcastle United Takeover?’ . In that article, I analysed why Mike Ashley might want to repurchase Sports Direct shares, why Sports Direct need an injection of cash to do so, and how this relates to the Newcastle United takeover. If you haven’t read that article already, I’d highly recommend you do so for additional context. You can do so by clicking  here . The Law on Share buyback (if you read my previous article, skip this!): Yearly, share buy backs are capped at £15k or 5% of a company’s value, whichever is lowest. In the case of Sports Direct, this will ...

Like most football fans, I was shocked to hear of the staggering £142 million fee for Coutinho. There is a consensus throughout the community that these sort of fees are unjustified and ridiculous. It has led many to question the sustainability of the transfer market and the implications marquee transfers have on fans. In response, I sought to analyse the Deloitte money league and argue in favour of the sustainability of marquee fee inflation. For some context, the signing of Gareth Bale was 16% of Real Madrid’s 12/13 revenue, whereas the Coutinho fee is 22% of Barcelona’s 15/16 revenue. As the 16/17 Deloitte money league is yet to be released, I am forced to rely upon the data from 15/16. I predict the 16/17 data will show Coutinho to be a similar percentage of revenue to Gareth Bale.  I would like to stress I haven’t selected Bale for comparison with Coutinho based on his technical ability, but on the basis they were both marquee signings for Spain’s elite clubs. Now, we mus...

Thanks to some of you on Twitter, I was made aware of a filing submitted this morning by ‘Sports Direct International PLC’ at Companies House. This filing concerns ‘the authority to purchase own shares out of capital’. As some have pointed out, the document will be ‘processed within the next 5 days’, and is not yet available. However, the contents of previous filings on share buyback haven’t been made available after the five-day clearing period. I have no reason to believe this time will be any different, so will not await a document I will never get to see. Instead, I have decided to infer from the purpose of the filing, while conducting research on Mike Ashley’s business history, to analyse what this development means for the Newcastle United takeover.   The Law on Share buyback: To frame my analysis, I’ll begin by explaining the law around a company buying back its own shares. Yearly, share buy backs are capped at £15k or 5% of a company’s value, whichever is lowest. In ...

Earlier this morning I wrote an article concerning Cantervale Ltd, and the implications this company has on the sale of Newcastle United. I have been delighted by the response amongst the Newcastle fanbase, and hope it put Cantervale into understandable terms for the laymen amongst you. However, my claims have since been rubbished by local ‘journalists’, whom I feel obliged to respond to. This is not out of desire for conflict, but to ensure my fellow fans are best informed on the legal status of the takeover. Furthermore, there has been a few questions raised by you on Twitter which I felt I should address. A response to the critique of my previous article: A variety of ‘journalists’ have claimed ‘Cantervale is unrelated to Staveley’s interest in NUFC’, and that ‘Cantervale isn’t a holding company created in anticipation of a takeover deal’. They have citied ‘sources’ as evidence of this, later clarifying them to be ‘Amanda Staveley’s people’. Now, if we believe even for a seco...

Amanda Stavely and Cantervale: What does it mean for Newcastle United? After tweeting about the establishment of ‘Cantervale Limited’, I’ve had a few fellow Newcastle fans in touch. Most of whom to ask what on earth I’m talking about. So, I decided to write an article discussing the implications this company has on the sale of Newcastle United Football Club. To better understand what’s going on, I decided to look back on the sale of Manchester City from Thaksin Shinawatra to the Abu Dhabi United Group (ADUG) in Summer 2008, which was brokered by Staveley. This will give us an idea of how Amanda likes to conduct business, and how she and her Lawyer/Business partner Craig Farquhar have structured deals in the past. In Spring 2008, the Thai government froze Thaksin Shinawatra’s $750 million bank account, and brought proceedings to extradite him.This would make him in breach of Premier League regulations, deemed ‘unfit to be an owner’, then forced to sell the club. Anticipating th...