Reliable business report offers insight into Staveley’s NUFC offer & Ashley’s actual asking price

Following last night’s breaking news that Ashley had ended talks with Amanda Staveley and PCP Capital Partners, Reuters (one of the leading business news agencies based in London) have offered an insight into Staveley’s offer and Mike Ashley asking price.

According to this report from Reuters, PCP made them aware that their offer was an upfront payment of £250m back in November (an offer that they thought was ‘still on the table’), however Ashley’s asking price is believed to be £350m – highlighting how far apart they may have been on price.

Here’s a snippet from their story following Mike Ashley’s announcement last night:

“Mike Ashley’s talks with prospective buyer Amanda Staveley’s firm PCP Capital Partners have broken down with no progress made since an offer in November

 “A source close to PCP told Reuters the offer was still on the table and the bid was an upfront payment of 250 million pounds.

“The source added that Ashley wanted 350 million pounds for the north-east club but they had not had any communication from the Newcastle owner to suggest talks were over and the first they had heard of the deal being dead was the Sky report.”

Interesting that they claim ‘no progress’ had been made on the deal ‘since an offer in November’ was lodged by Staveley and PCP. This perhaps highlights why Ashley had become ‘frustrated’ by the talks, as it seems things had not been moving in the right direction for months.

Who is to blame for that is open for debate, however. Did Ashley become greedy? (£350m seems steep) Or did Staveley make a mistake in not meeting in the middle? (£300m seems fair). Who knows, but it really does feel like back to square one.

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