North-East correspondent offers fresh hope on the takeover front - Ashley ready to compromise?
North-East correspondent Craig Hope has revealed that IF Amanda Staveley returns with an offer of £300m for Newcastle United, Mike Ashley will listen - stating that it is 'likely' that deal can be done if Staveley and PCP agree to compromise after their initial £250m offer was quickly rebuffed.
His story states that 'there has been a stand-off between the two parties since that (£250m offer) was tabled nearly three weeks ago', however claims that a £300m offer would now be enough suggests Ashley is ready to compromise.
For clarity, PCP's opening £250m offer appeared to be incentivised and included several clauses, however Craig reports that Ashley would want any £300m bid to contain NO clauses.
https://twitter.com/CraigHope_DM/status/938303402689343489
He reveals that Staveley is now aware of claims that a second bidder is interested in buying the club, so hopefully this pushes her and PCP to blink first and up their offer to meet Ashley's alleged demands - which now seem very reasonable if his new £300m asking price is to be believed.
Now, whilst this comes from the Daily Mail, Craig has proven himself to be a solid source over recent years (despite his papers highly debatable reputation), with him breaking several NUFC exclusives that ended up being true.
As always, we have no clue whether this has any substance behind it, but, if true, it would represent a significant drop in price from Ashley - with it being reported only recently that he'd be demanding a fee in the region of £350-400m.
