Arsenal Set For Takeover – Stan Kroenke Takes Controlling Stake

Chris Wright

11th, April 2011

5 Comments

By Chris Wright

Arsenal are all but set to announce a formal takeover by Stan Kroenke this morning, after the American tycoon increased his stake in the club to over 62% by agreeing to snaffle up shares from Danny Fizman and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith.

Kroenke Sports Enterprises first purchased 9.9% of shares in the Gunners back in 2007, and must now bid to buy up the remaining shares after taking their stake to approximately 62.89%.

The long and short of the business wranglings is that Kroenke has now taken a controlling stake in Arsenal and has also agreed terms for the purchase of the remaining stock – a deal which values the club at somewhere between £731-900 million, depending on who’s calculations you choose to place your faith in.

Said Kroenke himself:

“We are excited about the opportunity to increase our involvement with and commitment to Arsenal.

“Arsenal is a fantastic club with a special history and tradition and a wonderful manager in Arsene Wenger. We intend to build on this rich heritage and take the club to new success.”

With Arsenal near-as-damnit to being self-sufficient (or so they continually claim) from a financial standpoint and their operative debts not a particularly pressing issue as a result, it is thought that Kroenke will able to pump a significant amount of his greenbacks directly into the club’s coffers  – which, I suspect, is music to the ears of supporters who have had to oversee yet another ‘dry hump’ of a season at the Emirates.

What say you Gooners? Are you confident that, in Mr Kroenke, will Arsenal have the right man at the helm for the foreseeable future?

Posted in Arsenal

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5 Comments

  1. Smelly Feet says:

    I’d rather have him than the other Russian, Usmanov I think was his name. From what I’ve been reading, it seems like Kroenke will just listen to whatever Wenger wants (whether that means $$$ or not) while Usmanov has intentions which he didn’t mention to the public…but already had Wenger saying that he would immediately quit if he had majority shares.

    Although he did say that he would quit if Dein left, and that did happen quiet a while ago

  2. Arthur says:

    Doubt he will pump shit into Arsenal, this man is a business man and will purely be interested in yeilding a healthy profit margin.

  3. craig says:

    will definitely be interesting to see how this goes. I’m sure arsenal will still be run the same way but, I’m not getting my hopes up about new expensive signings coming in. Kroenke is pretty cheap with the US sports teams he runs so I wouldn’t expect anything to change now that he runs Arsenal. All we might have available is just a few extra quid….

  4. says:

    I agree with Arthur. He doesn’t particularly care about the club itself, he probably just noticed that it was the only of the 4 clubs whose logos are on stuff for sale at heathrow that he could actually acquire. English football is god for the portfolio

  5. Rohit Jain says:

    Arsenal are doing most things right, however, silverware has alluded them. Maybe a takeover could change things.

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