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SINGAPORE – After getting out of the game with its questionable marketing collateral, the Bellagraph Nova Group’s (BN) ill-fated bid to take over Newcastle United Football Club (NUFC) looks set to end in defeat.
On Saturday (August 29), Newcastle-based newspaper The Chronicle published a report with the headline “Mike Ashley ready to disconnect two bidders and do a new investment search this fall.”
He said the Premier League club “is still for sale, but Mike Ashley has lost patience with two groups saying they want to buy NUFC.”
BN Group, co-founded by Singaporean entrepreneurs and cousins Terence Loh and Nelson Loh, is believed to have not increased its initial offering of £ 280 million (S $ 508 million), and the proposal does not go beyond the legal team. from Ashley, owner of Newcastle.
The other offer is from American television mogul Henry Mauriss, who has failed to honor his verbal agreement to buy The Magpies for £ 350 million after holding talks with Ashley and her close assistant Chris Ronnie earlier this year.
Ashley had previously accepted a £ 300 million offer from the Saudi Public Investment Fund, which collapsed after the group refused to accept the Premier League’s offer of independent arbitration to decide who would own the club. .
The Chronicle cited sources close to BN Group, who stated that it is “trying to go ahead with its business in silence and are desperate to adhere to Ashley’s desire to keep developments out of the press,” and that negotiations will continue through the respective legal teams. , although Ashley is still said to be in favor of a revival of the Saudis’ candidacy.
One analyst, who declined to be named, told The Straits Times on Monday (Aug 31): “I have not heard of the BN Group or the Lohs prior to this saga, and I think many have not, either, Which begs the question: How can there be internationally successful Singaporean entrepreneurs buying a prominent football team and so few people in Singapore have heard of them?
“The group’s reported bid was £ 280 million, when Mike Ashley already had and accepted a £ 300 million offer. Why bid below the agreed price? Maybe that’s a good way to get publicity without buying? “
Since announcing on August 15 that it was “in an advanced stage of negotiations” with its offer, controversy and uncertainty have engulfed BN Group and its co-founders, which also include Ms. Evangeline Shen, attorney and jewelry merchant. China.
On August 22, Reuters reported that BN Group’s head of global marketing and investor relations, Nereides Antonio Giamundo de Bourbon, admitted that some advertising photos of the co-founders with former US President Barack Obama had been tampered with.
The ST checks also uncovered a pattern of outlandish and questionable claims in the founders’ interviews, press releases, and social media accounts. These range from hype to misinformation.
The group has retracted or removed press releases that were online, and also blocked its website and Instagram account.
British sports journalist Liam Kennedy, who first broke the story of the deal in the Tyneside Shields Gazette newspaper, told ST he was already skeptical at first and felt the deal would not go through.
He said: “There is a real air of unprofessionalism in the way they have done things, even going so far as to send a statement with the contact details of each of the investors detailed in it. This is so far from common practice.
“Newcastle United fans want change, they are desperate for it, but it has to be for the better. And there is a feeling that this offer from BNG could be a recipe for disaster.
“Mike Ashley isn’t even entertaining him, and that says a lot, given he’s so desperate to sell the football club.”
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