Qwiss! wrote:
Anzac wrote:
Except DD didn't hand him the keys to the club - PHW & Co did that.
Kroenke wasn't our largest shareholder until PHW got him to buy Fizman's shares and then his own, and got Lady Nina to sell so that Kroenke gained over the 30% to make a buy out offer, and then they changed the rules to prevent Usmanov doing the same.
DD brought him in with the intention of him taking over the club eventually, which has happened.
So yes you can thank Dein for Kroenke.
No, PHW said 'we don't want his kind' and froze Kroenke out of the BoD. I don't recall there being any comment that Dein wanted Kroenke to take over the club, only to encourage investment. The other point to this was that Dein had done exactly the same to bring Fizman in as an investor earlier, which enabled the club to sign DB10, & David Platt, and to give Wright a new deal. Likewise Dein
DD then sold his remaining shares to Usmanov in another attempt to get investment into the club, at which point PHW threw their lot in with Kroenke so as to stop Usmanov, who had claimed that he was prepared to use his own money to directly invest into the club.
Everyone went anti Usmanov over his proposed 500m share float that he offered to cover himself, because everyone was against any shareholder having over 50% - [size=x-small][font=Tahoma,Verdana,Arial,Sans-Serif]well guess what not only are we solely owned but the club got nothing for it. [/font][/size]Usmanov also said he would retain the AST, wanted dividends paid so as to keep the shareholders accountable as they were the BoD and you couldn't get on the BoD without being a shareholder. He also said he wanted to keep AW as manager but wanted him to be able to sign the best players for his method and style as seen during The Highbury Years, and he wanted the club to be able to use the revenues we were generating by using the 500m to pay off the stadium debt and to provide a 1 off transfer kitty in excess of 150m.
DD may well have brought Kroenke to the dance, but it was PHW who took him home when he thought there was another potential rival in Usmanov, as he knew the club could hold off one billionaire investor but not 2, and he chose the one who was more likely to retain his precious 'traditional values' BS as opposed to the one who wanted to make changes. In doing so he made sure that his interests were taken care of and made more money from selling his shares than Dein, and in doing so he sold out the future of the club. At the time of the buyout Kroenke made some comment that it hadn't been his intention to end up as majority shareholder or owner, but PHW has convinced him that he could do so under the current financial model without needing to spend his own money on the club its self in addition to the shares.
That is not to say that Dein wasn't wrong so far as Kroenke was concerned, but IMO his reasons for doing so (being his concerns as to how the stadium financing was structured), were correct. The front loading of the sponsorship deals meant that we had single figure cash flow for that decade, and had no means to adapt to any changes in the market, which changed almost immediately after the build began. Rather than do anything different PHW & Co told the AGM that they did not believe the market would stay inflated & the strategy was to simply wait it out.
IIRC Dein didn't do anything the strategy didn't change after the move despite the increased revenues.
Dein was seen as being a turncoat and lost his position at the club as a result. However there was no ambition at the club before him and there has been none since, and less from PHW who is the one responsible for ultimately selling the club out - not Dein.
