Leeds close in on takeover

Cash-strapped Leeds are tomorrow expected to be taken over by the Yorkshire-based consortium who have spent the last two months putting together their bid.

Negotiations which began in mid-January should finally draw to a close with a planned completion meeting, bringing to an end the uncertainty which has surrounded Leeds’ future since they announced a financial standstill agreement with their creditors on December 4.

In the last 48 hours talks involving lawyers from all parties have progressed rapidly, with the finishing touches being put to more than 100 documents such is the complicated nature of the deal, understood to be worth £22million.

Although Leeds owed £82million but the club’s major creditors – bondholders M&G, Teachers and MetLife, and Gerling Insurance Co, the credit insurers of player-leasing agents Registered European Football Finance Ltd – have agreed to cut their losses.

The deal involves a restructuring of the company, with the plc certain to be wound up for, as has previously been outlined, there will be no value to the shareholders from this takeover.

Mystery, though, surrounds the identities of the men involved for with the exception of consortium spokesman Gerald Krasner, an insolvency practitioner with Leeds-based chartered accountants Bartfields, and former Bradford chairman Geoffrey Richmond, who has been acting as an unpaid advisor, confidentiality agreements have long been in place.

There has been speculation that multi-millionaire businessman Jack Petchey, former owner of Watford and now shareholder at Aston Villa, is the man financing the deal.

Given Petchey has made his money in property and that two of the consortium members – understood to be Simon Morris and Melvyn Levy – are also involved in property developing, consternation has been growing among Leeds supporters with regards to the future of their 82-year-old home Elland Road.

The group, though, have made it clear Leeds will remain at the stadium, although there is speculation it is likely to be as tenants as chief executive Trevor Birch revealed at the club’s agm in December “the bondholders have the ground lock, stock and barrel.”

Despite Birch’s firefighting efforts over the past few months, it has been suggested there is unlikely to be a place for the former Chelsea chief executive in the new regime.

Birch has worked a near-financial miracle in staving off the threat of administration and raising enough money to see Leeds through to the end of the season when it appeared as if no buyer would be found.

Although on a salary of £500,000 per year, Birch has never signed a contract and has instead been paid ad hoc on a monthly basis, and there is now the possibility he could move on to Aston Villa.

One other question mark hangs over who the new manager will be for it is believed the new owners want former Leeds captain and ex-Coventry and Southampton boss Gordon Strachan in place this summer, regardless of whether Leeds are in the Premiership or Division One.

Strachan is understood to have retired, although may yet be tempted out if it, with a place found in the Whites hierarchy for current caretaker Eddie Gray given his length of service with Leeds.

On the playing front, Jermaine Pennant has been granted another month-long extension to his loan from Arsenal, with the move almost certain to go through to the end of the season once he has completed this latest deal.

Although having to frustratingly sign on a month-by-month basis since first joining Leeds in August, winger Pennant has taken the situation in his stride.

“Ideally, I wanted it to be until the end of the season, but I just keep signing every month so I’m happy,” he told the Yorkshire Evening Post.