£100m+ investment needed for West Brom takeover – Finance Expert
We’re delighted to welcome football finance expert Dr Daniel Plumley as our exclusive West Brom columnist. Each week he’ll be giving his views on the biggest talking points at The Hawthorns...
Dan Plumley has insisted that any investor wanting to complete a takeover at West Brom would need to invest more than £100million.
The finance expert has placed a £75million valuation on the club previously, but any interested parties would need to consider the debt and current loans at The Hawthorns on top of that.
Guochuan Lai is said to be open to takeover offers [The Athletic], with the financial picture said to muddy the waters behind the scenes at the Championship club.
“It would come into play from an investor point of view,” he exclusively told West Brom News.
“If we take the £75million figure as the valuation, but that is the price you would pay for the club, any other investor knows that they’ve got to take on the MSD Holdings loan, the interest attached to it, the £5million loan and the position of the liabilities linked through that owner.
“We can say it’s £75million to buy the club, but a new owner has got to invest a lot more to cover some of that off. Actually, for an investor, it becomes £100m+ but that’s not direct to the valuation of the club, that’s other things that are going on that muddy the waters.
“From an investment in point of view, you could argue that they would be stumbling blocks as it would make it less attractive to an investor because they’ve not just got to buy the club, they’ve got to take on all the debt position that goes with it as well, so it will factor in for sure.”
Things have never been straightforward at The Hawthorns under Lai.
With £5million still not repaid by the controversial chief alongside the £20million taken from MSD Holdings, this is more than just a straightforward investment and takeover if anything was to happen.
In other West Brom news, the Albion would love to re-sign their £6m former player, but would need to secure promotion to the Premier League to do so