Chelsea moving from Russian owner to American as British richest man loses bid
An official announcement is expected to be made by Raine by Monday, even if some insiders remain wary of the threat posed by Ratcliffe.
The Todd Boehly-led consortium has been selected as the preferred bidder to buy Chelsea despite a dramatic late move by Jim Ratcliffe to hijack the process with a £4.25 billion offer.
As The Times revealed on Friday, Ratcliffe, one of Britain’s richest men, attempted to jump ahead of the three American-dominated consortiums that had made it to the final stage of the process.
Sources said that it was likely that Ratcliffe’s bid had come too late, with the group led by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Boehly — and funded largely by the California-based investment firm Clearlake Capital — about to be put forward for UK government and Premier League approval.
While there has been no official confirmation, either from Chelsea, their bankers at the Raine Group, who are managing the sale on behalf of Roman Abramovich, or the rival consortiums, it is believed the Boehly group has been told it has won what has been an unprecedented contest to buy one of Europe’s successful clubs.
An official announcement is expected to be made by Raine by Monday, even if some insiders remain wary of the threat posed by Ratcliffe.
The three groups that had been shortlisted were at Stamford Bridge this week making their final presentations to the club’s hierarchy and Raine. While the groups led by former British Airways chairman Martin Broughton and Boston Celtics co-owner Stephen Pagliuca appear to have been told their bids have been unsuccessful, sources insist they too have not given up.
They are clinging to the fact that any bid remains subject to the approval of the Treasury, amid questions about the £1.54 billion debt owed to Abramovich when the sanctions imposed against the Russian oligarch have made it impossible for him to write off the loan. They also wonder whether Ratcliffe’s intervention could complicate matters further.
The government licence that has allowed Chelsea to keep operating expires on May 31 and the club must be sold by then. The view among insiders is that Ratcliffe needed to join the race much earlier given that the checks being carried out by the Premier League, as part of its owners’ and directors’ test, on the main bidders have already started.
The offer sent to Raine by Ratcliffe is more than £4 billion. The owner of Ineos, the petrochemicals giant, held discussions with Bruce Buck, the Chelsea chairman, on Thursday and pledged to invest £1.75 billion in the club over the next ten years as well as matching Abramovich’s £2.5 billion valuation.
“We put an offer in [on Friday] morning,” Ratcliffe told The Times. “We are the only British bid. Our motives are to try and create a very fine club in London. We have no profit motive because we make our money in other ways.”
The Boehly-bid also has heavyweight backing beyond Clearlake, not least in the form of London property investor Jonathan Goldstein and Daniel Finkelstein, the Tory peer, Times columnist and Chelsea season-ticket holder. His consortium includes the 86-year-old Swiss billionaire Hansjorg Wyss, who was the first to declare his interest in taking over the club from Abramovich in March.
