So who are our new owners then?

aliwibble

According to the OS, our new owners are Global Football Partners via its UK subsidiary SE7 Partners, and GFP is made up of seven shareholders with 5%+ each, namely:

Gabriel Brener and family
Private investor and former majority shareholder of a Major League Soccer team

Joshua Friedman and family 
Co-Founder, Co-Chairman and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Canyon Partners, LLC, a leading global alternative asset management firm

Warren Rosenfeld and family
Owner of major US Recycling firm Calbag Metals

ACA Football Partners (acafp.com)
Singapore-based group that invests in football with a focus on building a foundation for sustainable growth

Munir Javer
Founder of Connecticut-based investment firm Sahana Capital

Marc Boyan 
CEO Miroma Group (global marketing, media and content company) and Miroma Ventures

Charlie Methven
Sports and leisure industry entrepreneur and adviser

For those of us who've not been wading through most of the hundreds of pages of takeover thread or have just lost track of the myriad names involved at different points, if anyone can provide any further confirmed details about the major shareholders, that would be helpful. Apparently the other 65% of the shareholding is held by a number of smaller investors (I'm not sure if the percentage is significant in terms of voting rights etc, so perhaps the finance/corporate law types could weigh in here)

As far as the club board is concerned, it will consist of:

• Jim Rodwell (new Managing Director) who will be chair for this season,
  
• the rest of the SMT (which if I'm reading it right is Finance Director Ed Warrick, a new Technical Director and Performance Director, and the Commercial Director, which will be Steve Sutherland on an interim basis)
• Paul Elliott (the former player, not the ESI one) as a non-executive director
• Gavin Carter (GFP investor and lifelong Charlton fan) as a non-executive director

gilbertfilbert

The 7 named investors each have 5%+, Ali. Much more than 5 in some cases. The % held by small investors is much less than 65%.

Karim_myBagheri

think i read somewhere the two Brener and Friedman family's hold over 30% each. 

Danny Addick

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how much is spent by everyone and when?

IanJRO

Pleased the takeover has completed but Rosenfeld concerns me a little as Calbag Metals are quoted as a major US recycling firm yet are regional at best. That's fine except for if that's being spun what else is? 

golfaddick

Karim_myBagheri said:

think i read somewhere the two Brener and Friedman family's hold over 30% each. 

I think @Henry Irving posted it yesterday/ day before. Saying the "top 3" had 70% between them (23% each). 

For clarity I think the club should give actually percentages, not just "5%+", as that could mean there are more than a dozen 5%-ers.

Scoham

Danny Addick said:

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how much is spent by everyone and when?

Sounds like the owners won’t be running the club, that’ll be done by the board and SMT.

thenewbie

Methven is in fact not therefore on the board as per his own statements regarding his role going forwards and "day to day" management, which is good to see (if taken at face value of course and he does not take it on himself to provide "advice.")

sam3110

IanJRO said:

Pleased the takeover has completed but Rosenfeld concerns me a little as Calbag Metals are quoted as a major US recycling firm yet are regional at best. That's fine except for if that's being spun what else is? 

You can be Major and be regional. People forget that America as a whole is as big as the entirety of Europe. So if you're a major player in Recycling in The UK, that's the equivalent of being a major player in Recycling in the Pacific Northwest. (That's also just one stream of his revenue)

Exiled_Addick

sam3110 said:

IanJRO said:

Pleased the takeover has completed but Rosenfeld concerns me a little as Calbag Metals are quoted as a major US recycling firm yet are regional at best. That's fine except for if that's being spun what else is? 

You can be Major and be regional. People forget that America as a whole is as big as the entirety of Europe. So if you're a major player in Recycling in The UK, that's the equivalent of being a major player in Recycling in the Pacific Northwest. (That's also just one stream of his revenue)

The stat used to be that if California was as a country and not a state, it'd be the world's 4th largest economy. 

ElfsborgAddick

Danny Addick said:

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how much is spent by everyone and when?

This is a very good point.

bobmunro

Scoham said:

Danny Addick said:

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how much is spent by everyone and when?

Sounds like the owners won’t be running the club, that’ll be done by the board and SMT.

The majority shareholders will set the budgets though.

Fumbluff

Danny Addick said:

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how many chips in a portion and when?

The Red Robin

Tweets don’t embed on my iPhone/or I can’t figure it out but Hiroyuki Ono of ACA Football has tweeted that Methven invited him:

https://twitter.com/hiroacafootball/status/1682487793937965058?s=46&t=M-NDf3oHELIxCYVPW64aVg

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/hiroyuki-ono

ShootersHillGuru

The Red Robin said:

Tweets don’t embed on my iPhone/or I can’t figure it out but Hiroyuki Ono of ACA Football has tweeted that Methven invited him:

https://twitter.com/hiroacafootball/status/1682487793937965058?s=46&t=M-NDf3oHELIxCYVPW64aVg

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/hiroyuki-ono

At this point I think this group is the most intriguing part of the new set up. Be interesting to see how this works and to what extent. If it was Methven who invited them to invest they must see a benefit going forward. 

IdleHans

Danny Addick said:

I guess the main question I’d have is how much would each investor be willing to put in to pay for players/ coaches etc? Who decides how much is spent by everyone and when?

There will, I am sure, be a shareholders' agreement already in place which sets out the rights and obligations of shareholders, including funding, so they'll all know where they stand. It is unlikely ever to be made public.

PragueAddick

thenewbie said:

Methven is in fact not therefore on the board as per his own statements regarding his role going forwards and "day to day" management, which is good to see (if taken at face value of course and he does not take it on himself to provide "advice.")

It looks that way, and is quite interesting. In the May interview he predicted that he'd be the "TopCo" guy who would provide the link between the club SMT and the investors, of which he was one (albeit small, but the only one in the UK with time on his hands). In the intervening time, the consortium expanded, and suddenly he produced Gavin Carter as an investor who would sit on the "CAFC board". So this seems to further limit CM's potential influence, and maybe he's Ok with that, for whatever reason. 

I think we can now be fairly confident that, whatever else, this is not a re-run of Sunderland.

oohaahmortimer

PragueAddick said:

thenewbie said:

Methven is in fact not therefore on the board as per his own statements regarding his role going forwards and "day to day" management, which is good to see (if taken at face value of course and he does not take it on himself to provide "advice.")

It looks that way, and is quite interesting. In the May interview he predicted that he'd be the "TopCo" guy who would provide the link between the club SMT and the investors, of which he was one (albeit small, but the only one in the UK with time on his hands). In the intervening time, the consortium expanded, and suddenly he produced Gavin Carter as an investor who would sit on the "CAFC board". So this seems to further limit CM's potential influence, and maybe he's Ok with that, for whatever reason. 

I think we can now be fairly confident that, whatever else, this is not a re-run of Sunderland.

Steve Sunderland is back , even if it is interim 

up_the_valley

We are now officially minted. It's now a case of the owners ambition and working diligently around the EFLs rules around transfer fees and salaries.

BrentfordAddick

I dunno. Sounds like it could easily descend into different investors arguing; none of them have any emotional attachment but perhaps that is wishful thinking. I don't see any evidence that we are minted. 

up_the_valley

Johsua Friedman 

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vPwPb5R-RtU

aliwibble

gilbertfilbert said:

The 7 named investors each have 5%+, Ali. Much more than 5 in some cases. The % held by small investors is much less than 65%.

Thanks @gilbertfilbert. So is it that the 5% figure is the threshold that requires clearance of ODT and source and sufficiency of funds from the EFL then? (Although I'm dying to know how all that worked for the Singapore group, ). While I can understand why there may be good reasons for not going into too much detail at this stage, it would be helpful to have confirmation of what the balance of the ownership is, and what proportion the small investors have invested. The latter point is particularly important I think, as they are likely to have less scope to put in additional investment if required to improve the team, buy the ground etc. Do investors A & B have enough shares between them that they can override the wishes of the others, would there ever be a situation where the small investors have a casting vote if the major ones disagree, and how would that work? I know it's early days yet, but my gut feeling is that this is a "too many cooks" situation in the making.

ElfsborgAddick

I am no expert on these things, the expression "too many cooks" comes to mind with this ownership.  However, I am guessing here in that whoever has the highest % ownership has the final say.

ElfsborgAddick

BrentfordAddick said:

I dunno. Sounds like it could easily descend into different investors arguing; none of them have any emotional attachment but perhaps that is wishful thinking. I don't see any evidence that we are minted. 

Given your username you'll probably agree that it is a shame we do not have Matthew Benham as our owner.

Callumcafc

aliwibble said:

gilbertfilbert said:

The 7 named investors each have 5%+, Ali. Much more than 5 in some cases. The % held by small investors is much less than 65%.

Thanks @gilbertfilbert. So is it that the 5% figure is the threshold that requires clearance of ODT and source and sufficiency of funds from the EFL then? (Although I'm dying to know how all that worked for the Singapore group, ). While I can understand why there may be good reasons for not going into too much detail at this stage, it would be helpful to have confirmation of what the balance of the ownership is, and what proportion the small investors have invested. The latter point is particularly important I think, as they are likely to have less scope to put in additional investment if required to improve the team, buy the ground etc. Do investors A & B have enough shares between them that they can override the wishes of the others, would there ever be a situation where the small investors have a casting vote if the major ones disagree, and how would that work? I know it's early days yet, but my gut feeling is that this is a "too many cooks" situation in the making.

There’s been two different stories on this I think.

Some have said that Friedman and Brener own two thirds of the club and therefore, with 65-70%, they have control and all other parties will fall in line.

The other story is that Friedman and Brener own two third of the 70% slice not owned by the minority investors. Two thirds of 70 puts them collectively at 46% ownership so a little under half.

It would definitely be good to get clarity on this ASAP.

iaitch

That depends if Friedman and Brener are in agreement. Say they own 35% each then they can be overuled by the rest. 

swordfish

For the best part of a decade, our fortunes have been decided by deluded egotists ,so I welcome the dilution of power sharing. If it proves cumbersome and unwieldy in operation, we'll find out soon enough, but let's not call "too many cooks" until then.

IAgree

I like the recruitment thus far & feel positive for the first time in an age. There are positives about communication and I think the avoidance of undeliverable promises shows some appreciation of how difficult things have been. The absence of terrible metal songs will surely be the biggest bonus 

Something about the complexity & location of the ownership sits uneasily however and I’m still concerned that there will be a dash for promotion and that we will be flipped. I still don’t think that the club has hidden short term value beyond that.

I guess we enjoy the ride, be mindful of the pitfalls, support the new regime but hold them to account ….

Henry Irving

Good to get some names confirmed although the lack of information on who exactly owns what % of the club is not indicative of the group  being totally open with fans, at least not yet.

Some will say "so what, none of our business who owns how much" and legally we have no right to know.

But it does beg the question "Why aren't you telling us?"

The rumours from a month or more ago were that Friedman, Brener and Rosenfeld all have something like 23% each.

ACA, the Singapore soccer group have 10 or 11%.

Munir Javeri and

Marc Boyan have just over 5% while Methven, I was told, has a similar percentage but his holding is part settlement for brokering the deal.

That was just a rumour and was a few weeks ago so it subject to change.

The wording of "5%+" implies there are others under that threshold who are deemed to small too bother the EFL.

If my maths is correct the big three own 70% between them.

MJ, MB, CM and ACA hold something like 25% between them so that leaves a number of smaller investors with relatively tiny stakes making up the remaining roughly 5%, perhaps £75k each if the Texas prospectus story is to be believed. (I've never seen it but trust Cardinal Sin and Airman Brown haven't made it up although Methvan has denied it had anything to do with him.)

No idea if Gavin Carter has a financial stake but while I don't doubt he's a life long Charlton fan I don't think that will have the positive impact that perhaps CM expects as very few had ever heard of him.  But then again, as we know only too well, picking a well known UK Addick would have been controversial whoever it was as, sadly, some part of the fan base would mistrust (see what I did there) them.

Paul Elliott is a clever move IMHO. Well known in the game with lots of connections and a long association with the club and the community trust, he will present a good public face and brings some welcome diversity to the board, although the ownership is actually quite diverse.  Cynics will say it is window dressing and that PE has long wanted a place at the top table (he was involved with the Australian bid) but personally I disagree.  Football clubs should have ex-players and especially Black players involved in senior roles. Plus he lives in Bromley so any supporters groups in that area might persuade him to pop along for a Q&A.

PS Rosenfeld is in recycling and so is, I suspect, the member of the consortium that CM said Spiegel was trying to persuade to join his group.

bobmunro

iaitch said:

That depends if Friedman and Brener are in agreement. Say they own 35% each then they can be overuled by the rest. 

If we assume they own 70% between them then together they have control. I don't know their full backgrounds but would assume they are not strangers thrown together by CM - they will know each other and having gone into business together I would expect they have a degree of mutual trust. If it doesn't work out (or even if it does) I would not be surprised that over time there will be a consolidation of shares where the lesser shareholders will sell their shares to either Friedman, Brener, or both for a return on their investments. There may even be a deal already.

The other thing to consider is how sensible companies make decisions - they do not make decisions on day to day matters by having a vote! They will agree budgets and they will be set for a season, with perhaps adjustments in the January transfer window. A sensible strategy is 3-5 years, not 3-5 games!

iaitch

Fair enough but people do fall out in business is ll I'm saying.