Even so, it's absolutely mental for anyone to suggest Levy owes joe lewis something.
He took £50-60m in equity and turned it into a few billion.
It's like hearing someone say they owe their employer for letting them work
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Even so, it's absolutely mental for anyone to suggest Levy owes joe lewis something.
He took £50-60m in equity and turned it into a few billion.
It's like hearing someone say they owe their employer for letting them work
Levy ran a very strong business. I doubt Lewis cares that much, if at all, about the football side of things so yeah I'd imagine Joe is perfectly happy with how Levy handled things up to this point.
ThanksCJJ , appreciated.
I was struggling with the idea that the overall value of the company in terms of market capital (if that's the right term) would not change, therefore the increase in shares would lower the notional value per share. But we are talking about 'share capital' (again, if that's right). You put me right, thanks.
It all makes sense at the level of ENIC's ownership of Spurs (THL), which would be announced by the Stock Exchange. But what about at the level of the ownership of Bahamas-based ENIC, where no such announcement is formally required (if I have that right)?
What you say also applies to the previous two share issues in May 2022 and December 2024, where ENIC – co-owned by the Lewis family, and Levy and family – allotted themselves shares in return for the injection of money.
But how does this work if, as announced, it's only the Lewis family putting in the funds? This is different from the previous ENIC capital injections. Aren't the Lewis family alone in buying the shares in ENIC and therefore Spurs? By implication, haven't the Lewis family increased their ownership of ENIC by £100m, reducing the proportion (by a small degree) owned by Levy and family?
Wouldn't this then apply to the relative shares of the two families in ownership of Spurs?
Ali Gold announced that as a consequence of the £100m issue of new shares to enic (funded all by Lewis family through enic), that within enic the :Lewis family held a slightly higher % of enic (less than 1% increase), and by implication Levy family holds slightly less % of enic.
Worth adding :
Before today's events, ENIC's ownership was 86.91 per cent, which was up from 86.58 per cent after shares were allotted back in December 2024.
Do ENIC own more of the club now after the injection pf £100m in the issue of new shares ?
Fractionally yes. The new percentage of ownership for ENIC is 87.62% with documents filed at Companies House reflecting an allotment of millions of shares.Before today's events, ENIC's ownership was 86.91 per cent, which was up from 86.58 per cent after shares were allotted back in December 2024.
Agree with your optimism, and thanks for the info about 'The Lab'. Will listen.
I think Levy did a lot to please Lewis: Hotspur Way, the Stadium, the debt structure/costs, future-proofing through multi-use, etc., taking Spurs into the Big Six, and the top ten rich lists. It's a considerable achievement when you look at where we were.
Meanwhile the Lewis family were doing their Tavistock thing and were happy – we're one of the jewels in the Tavistock crown.
When Joe stepped back, and then got done for insider dealing, they came forward, and commissioned that review – here we are. They now realise, from a purely investment point of view, that more on-pitch success is desirable.
After our move to the new stadium and the retreat of Covid19, Levy seemed, let's say, to be stuck in rut, far too attached to the idea that a low wages/turnover ratio and healthy operating profit are desirable. This is not how football works. My only reservation is whether financing covenants are holding us back.
Will the Lewis's get us out of this rut with a new corporate structure? Let's see. I like the fact that they seem to have a plan of equity investment. Venkatesham brought Woolwich from top six to top two, and I trust he has the same ambition for us if the Lewis family allow.
Remember when Lewis injected £150M a couple summers ago and everyone thought it meant we were going after big name players...only to not do that at all.
Similar to then, this is almost certainly just covering some outstanding debts from previous transfer spending to allow us to keep spending at similar levels as recent seasons. Which, to be fair to ENIC, is a consistently high net spend in fees.
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By who?
It was said at the time people were talking about mystery investment at the start of the window. I can't remember which journo said it now, but it was in relation to how reluctant JL was to put money in and that DL had resorted in the past to putting his own personal money into the club.
That's odd. Wouldn't something like this have turned up in the financials?
Not if it came via ENIC. it isn't the first case of 'investment' on the financials.
And, I would give your left bollock.
Come on Harry, come home, help heal the gene pool.
It's all about the mood music, and we want more than that.
Apart from small shifts in ownership, what's the difference between the Lewis family £100m capital injection and the two previous investments by ENIC, £150m-odd in 2022, and £30m last Dec/Jan? This isn't doing anything that wasn't done before. Therefore the promise of future investment doesn't necessarily signal a new policy.
Too much attention has been given to the effect on transfers. Yes, liquidity is helped, and, yes, we can continue the higher transfer spend that Levy initiated in recent years. But it's not enough.
Soccernomics tells us that transfer spend is less well correlated with success than the level of wages. That's how you recruit and retain the best players. Yet, we're paying wages at a low level, some 40% of turnover, when, if we're really interested in football success, we should be paying a sustainable 60% of turnover. That's a big gap.
If transfer spending is important to a degree, then we should be aiming to do better in 'player trading', selling as well as buying. We're reassured by those in the know that we'll start solving that problem soon because we've built up a reserve of young and potentially saleable talent. Let's see.
Far more importantly the current and future Lewis investments must enable new post-Levy era policy, especially a transformation of our wage structure and levels. These injections should be used to manage the relatively small operating losses in a transition period before an improved squad brings more success.
Otherwise, the music won't work.
Ah, OK, so the journalist you mention said that Levy may have paid out of his own pocket for part or whole of the two previous investments in the club announced by the stock exchange and labelled in the accounts as 'ENIC'. And the journalist was also saying Levy did this, kind of secretly, because Joe wouldn't?
In this game, I don't know what's plausible or implausible, but to my naïve mind the journalist's story is implausible. Apart from anything else, wouldn't mislabelling a Levy investment as ENIC break stock exchange rules?
I might be misunderstanding this line of questioning, but are we not aware that - in principle - ENIC are the only entity investing in the club, and that any investment made by ENIC is coming from the bahamas regardless, and so Levy investing via ENIC is no in any way different to JL & family investing via ENIC
Hidden deep in only of Alasdair Gold’s articles is a paragraph mentioning that the family’s aim is to reduce the amount of debt around the club.
“The plan is understood to be for the club to have more equity and less debt, helping to ensure it's sustainable for generations to come. That is hoped to come through better structured capital and a reduction over the long term in reliance on debt funding.”
View: https://x.com/alasdairgold/status/1976267042786287789?s=61
As I understand it, the Lewis family's recent £100m capital injection has slightly increased their holding in ENIC and reduced Levy's accordingly.
Under the previous regime, I don't think there is any record of a Levy capital injection via ENIC that increased his holding at the expense of Joe Lewis. The previous ENIC injections were by both Joe Lewis and Levy in proportion to their holdings.
As I've mentioned, I don't believe there's any evidence of this, nor application where this is possible.
The 100 mill is all part of their strategy ... .. we love the club ...... give us more fucking money and its yours ...