Watford In Talks To Sell Stakes In Watford And Udinese.

The only stakes I am interested in are wooden ones to take out the vampire that owns the club.

 

I’m hearing from a source (ESSO) that the Liverpool owners are looking to sell up and buy us. Probably complete nonsense but if news breaks today that they are looking to sell, then it’s clearly happening.

 

They're asking £4bn for Liverpool so I assume that's what they'll need to tempt Gino.

 

Just maybe, if all upfront - otherwise they could always increase the headline price by jettisoning some of their other sports investments in the US.

 

Aren't they testing the water on the club's valuation before selling a minority shareholding?

 

https://sportwitness.co.uk/negotiat...no-pozzo-leads-talks-deal-enters-final-phase/

Quoting Il Sole 24 as is source, but apparently it's New York based 890 fifth avenue group who are the interested party and its in its final phase

 

The day will finally come when we wear red shorts, be sponsored by McDonalds and be called the Watford Red (or Yellow) Sox.

 

I always like the black shorts,red socks combination.

Luther at Old Trafford springs readily to mind.

 

890 Fifth Avenue is the fictional address of the Avengers Mansion in the Marvel universe according to wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avengers_Mansion

Here is the website for this lot if anybody is interested in digging around https://www.890fifthavenue.com/

 

So our new investors are a bunch of cartoon characters ? Surprised at the buzz given this could be lightyears away from happening.

 

They seem to have a little more of a media focus than a sports focus, though there is a growing sense of intersection between these days (Hull and Southampton’s owners both moved into sport as a media play).

There is one guy listed on their team, Patricio Teubal, who is the former CEO (2012-14) of Palermo.

 

Awesome! In 2012/13 they got relegated, appointed Beppe Sannino twice, as well as another bloke twice and one other guy for 19 days in between.

Can see why Gino might like these guys!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012–13_U.S._Citt*_di_Palermo_season

 

Did win the league in 13/14 though

 

890 5th Avenue Partners initially raised $287.5mil at IPO in 2021.

They already took a percentage of Buzzfeed public via SPAC in 2021, but most of the investors in the SPAC withdrew from that deal and only $16mil was raised through the sale of the Buzzfeed shares (initially valuing the overall company at $1.5bn).

Buzzfeed's shares since going public have done abysmally - they finished first day trading in Dec 2021 at $8.56, but are now at $1.76. Buzzfeed also "raised" $150mil additional debt as part of the deal.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/h...sing-of-287.5-Million-Initial-Public-Offering
https://www.marketwatch.com/article...q-trading-debut-51638802293?mod=mw_quote_news
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...nd-its-employees-are-protesting.html#comments
https://www.wsj.com/articles/buzzfe...r-withdrawals-before-going-public-11638472756

 

It's not been going too well for Hull and Southampton so far under their new owners...

But 890 5th Avenue Partners don't seem like they really purchase and run their investments long-term anyway - as with SPACs in general the goal appears to be takeover a company, perhaps implement a few quick wins to increase their potential attractiveness, and then fairly swiftly take them public and sell their shares off in to the market.

From what I'm reading so far I don't particularly like the sounds of this. I'm a bit concerned by the possibility that this is the Pozzos seeing a quick and easy way to cash out, but with it being in a manner whereby there's little actual additional funding being brought in to the club and little chance of some sugar daddy benefactor anywhere pumping in cash.

There could still be more going on behind the scenes which we are not aware of, and I'm hoping that has to somehow be the case given I'd be surprised if the new DoF would join us under such circumstances, but from the information released so far I'm not sure how else it could be expected to play out in a more beneficial fashion?!

 

I'm surprised no one has picked up on this, but 5 days ago The Athletic published another article on us with names 890 5th Avenue Partners, but in addition Group Nine Acquisition Corp (another US SPAC) as also being part of the deal. The article can be read here without a subscription:

https://theathletic.com/3741858/2022/11/07/watford-investment-pozzo-udinese/

The Athletic's source appears to be this Tutto Udinese article:

https://www.tuttoudinese.it/primo-p...l-club-bianconero-valutato-200-milioni-149964

GNAC's founders seem to have previously bought and merged a number of media companies including Thrillist and TheDodo in to a SPAC, but did not end up taking the SPAC public, with it instead merging with VoxMedia to form a larger media conglomerate.

https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-group-nine-merger/

The presence of Group Nine is marginally more reassuring, as they appear to have a bit more experience, vision and scale, but even then they don't appear to be the end-buyer of the investment and appear as if they'll look to polish up the business a bit for a while, but with the ultimate fairly short-term aim of then finding another attractive buyer for the newly created share package whereby they can make a return from the sale - whether that buyer be the public markets, or another larger third-party investor we currently have no idea about.

Supposedly the deal is valuing Udinese at around 200 million euros and Watford at 168 million, unless we return to the PL this summer.

 

Yes and no.
Certainly for FCA regulated brokers, assets are held by a nominee, with you registered as the beneficial owner. This nominee account is separate from the brokers assets and should they go bust are protected and transferable to another broker and remain in your name.
There are possible circumstances where fraudulent activity means your holdings are less secure, which is why I would suggest using a reputable company rather than the cheapest company.

 

If it's another one of the 'Ed's' chain, there in fact was one in Watford for several years - on the upper floor of the Harlequin, just before the exit to Charter Place/whatever the shiny new cinema and Uniqlo area is called. It closed during the covid period.

As for the best food you've tasted, I make no comment

 

The original Ed’s Easy Diner in Soho was amazing. Was a sad day when it became a chain.

 

My dad took us there one time when we were children, and I do remember it being something of a revelation and he definitely hyped it up beforehand as something of a 'thing', but that would have been in the late 90s or early 00s, probably, so I may have actually once experienced the OG you describe.

 

Would make sense to get any new investment tied up during the World Cup if possible. A few bob on 2-3 players in January could well be the difference between promotion or not. A small(ish) investment now could lead to a big boost in revenue.

 

Yup. Hence the madness of right wing back gate under Edwards. That Laird chap needed only to be average to stop Kamara being played out of position. £5m to sort out Bayat’s on reserve player all good though. Scum.

 

But then what excuse could Edwards have clutched straws at for having us under-performing?!

On the positive side, had we signed Laird we might have felt obliged to stick with Edwards and his horrendous 352. We're ultimately better placed with Bilic at the helm.

 

Tend to agree. Bilic is about as good as it gets in terms of attracting a manager at championship level: That said the right back debacle is ridiculous whether Bilic or Edwards, especially when we can find £5m for a reserve striker to fluff our agent and his brother.

Time and again the club’s best interests are not served.

 

Can’t disagree with any of that, however, we’ve got to look ahead now. A World Cup break with a great chance for the players to regroup and for Bilic to have a mini pre-season with the entire squad, minus Sarr of course. We’ll have another 5 games after the break then the winter transfer window opens.

For me it all depends on how many points we can pick up from those 5 games. If we get around 9/10 points then I think that would convince the board to push for a top two position, which would influence the type of player we sign.

We would need to pick up around 45 points from the final 20 games. Basically 15 wins. It’s a tall order but we’ve done it before.

We do need a right back, but I don’t see it as a priority right now. I would go all out for a quality midfielder. Someone who can control that area of the pitch and dictate the game. This is where we are lacking.

Ngakia is coming back and should make the right back position his own with Gaspar as the backup guy.

Assuming we get Martins then we only really need the midfielder.

I have every confidence in Bilic to identify what we need. With Manga and D1cks hopefully coming and and that extra bit of investment, I can see good things for the second half of the season.

 

We did actually sign one in Gaspar at least, but they just turned out to be crap.

 

Think this is a huge 'if' and not something we should be relying upon actually happening, based on the evidence to date, personally.

 

Ngakia has never looked good enough to be the RB for a promotion chasing team though. Some, myself included, hoped he might be an upgrade on Gaspar at least when he came back earlier this season, only for him to play crap again vs Blackburn before getting injured.

He'll suffice until 1 January if Gosling is out injured, but he's worse than Femenia was and even Masina when he was in the Championship. He has too many brainfarts defensively while offering little going forwards. I'd still probably even pick Gosling ahead of him on recent form if fit, as at least he's seemed pretty solid in defence in a way Ngakia never has.

If we really are serious about promotion then we can't have him playing there, the league is too tight to have such a mediocre player as a starter.

 

Agree with most of this apart from the stuff about Kiko.
Some players you don't miss until they are not there.
IMO Kiko is one of them

 

Strange argument for not signing a RB, denying a manager an excuse? it would’ve been better to have signed a RB, if Edwards is as bad a manger as you believe he is then he would’ve found a different excuse wouldn’t he! And if we actually did better having bought said RB, how what that have been a bad thing? Only at the same time, we’d have signed a much needed player, in a much needed position, surely that would be what all real fans priority is over denying a manager an excuse?

 

Having known Pozzo for the past decade, absolutely no way us signing Laird would have meant that we'd have given Edwards more of a chance lol

 

While I'm certainly not convinced by Ngakia yet, and the fact that he has been supposedly fit for a while now is not a great sign, but was he fully-fit against Blackburn?

 

https://m.tuttomercatoweb.com/amp/s...lub-bianconero-ceduto-a-due-fondi-usa-1780119

Done deal apparently.

Although details of percentages sold aren’t shown. Suggestion seems to be the deal is that Udinese have been sold and the deal includes a share of Watford of ownership. Details to be made clear at the end of the season. Acquisition seems to be a hedge fund of sorts as previously discussed - so the real party behind the deal yet ti be revealed?

 

Well that might be the game changer Scott's been working on! There I was led to believe its players