Edelman: agreement ‘kills’ takeover talk

GROUNDED ROBIN: Striker Robin van Persie could be out for a month through injury and miss games with Slavia Prague, Liverpool and Manchester United.

By Jim van Wijk

ARSENAL managing director Keith Edelman believes that yesterday’s new five-year “lockdown” agreement by directors not to sell any more shares “kills” any takeover speculation.

The agm of Arsenal Holdings plc at Emirates Stadium was opened by chairman Peter Hill-Wood, who used his speech to reveal the initiative.

Under the new terms, directors will only sell their stake to “permitted persons” before April 2009 and have to give fellow board members “first option” until October 2012. However, there is a termination clause in the agreement in October 2010.

The original lockdown came in the wake of vice-chairman David Dein’s departure from the board due to “irreconcilable differences”, understood to be over the involvement of US businessman Stan Kroenke, who has since acquired a 12.2% stake in the club and is now, somewhat ironically, considered a strong ally of the board.

Neither Kroenke or Russian Alisher Usmanov — who, via his investment company Red and White Holdings, now owns around 23% and is the second-largest shareholder behind director Danny Fiszman — appeared in person at yesterday’s meeting, but were represented by proxy.

Like Hill-Wood, managing director Edelman believes this latest move by the board will now end all talk of a hostile takeover and help stabilise the club off the pitch.

“In my view, and the board’s view, it kills any talk or speculation of a takeover, so I think it is finished,” Edelman declared.

“We wanted to put a line under it and end it now, to say ‘finish’, and that is what we have done.

“It is irrelevant what people are doing on the side with our shares. When we look through the shareholder register, there are a number of people who we believe would support the board, come hell or high water. So when we add that together with what we have announced, we are pretty secure.

“With the way the shareholdings are, we are bulletproof.”

Arsenal’s recently-published impressive financial results show the club are self-sufficient following their move to the 60,000-seater Emirates Stadium.

And manager Arsene Wenger also believes it will not be long before there is a strong English contingent in his first-team squad.

The Arsenal boss pointed to England youth international Henri Lansbury, Gavin Hoyte and Mark Randall.

“I feel we have produced some good work from the behind as well, with good young players,” the Arsenal manager said. We hope that in a few years we will have some very strong English players who can of course be a good mixture with players from abroad.”

The Arsenal manager — who recently agreed a new, three-year deal — received a standing ovation when he prepared to address the assembled shareholders at the meeting.