Christian Purslow: NESV's Liverpool bid a 'bottom of the barrel' deal
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Email comment emerges in court bid to block Hicks and Gillett
• Liverpool's then managing director unconvinced by NESV
Christian Purslow, right, the former Liverpool managing director, with Ian Ayre, one of the directors to whom he criticised the level of NESV's bid for the club in an email in September 2010. Photograph: Paul Ellis/AFP/Getty Images
Christian Purslow, Liverpool's former managing director, described New England Sports Ventures' original offer to buy the club as a "bottom of the barrel" deal, it has been revealed in court. In an email sent to fellow directors only a month before NESV bought Liverpool for £300m, Purslow, who left the club within days of the takeover, initially cast doubt on the group's ability to pay off the debt left by the then owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, to build a new stadium and to invest in the squad. The only positive was that NESV "existed" he wrote, albeit at the start of the negotiating process and his comments do not relate to the deal that was ultimately struck.
Purslow's email emerged at the high court where NESV, the former Liverpool chairman Martin Broughton and the Royal Bank of Scotland are seeking to extend indefinitely an injunction that prevents Hicks and Gillett suing for damages abroad. Hicks called October's £300m deal "an epic swindle" at the time and launched a $1.6bn lawsuit in Dallas in an attempt to halt the sale. RBS, Broughton, and NESV responded with an injunction that Hicks and Gillett want removed in order to pursue a legal claim in the US.
When Liverpool's owner, now called Fenway Sports Group, completed its takeover on 15 Octover last year it eliminated all the acquisition debt placed on the club by Hicks and Gillett. Plans for a new stadium, however, are under review with John W Henry and Tom Werner, the principal owner and the chairman respectively, considering a redevelopment of Anfield. The owners also spent £57.8m to sign Andy Carroll and Luis Suárez in the January transfer window, although that was offset by the sales of Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel for a total of £56m.
In the email sent to his fellow directors Broughton, Ian Ayre and Philip Nash on 15 September 2010, Purslow wrote: "To get it straight, I think we should avoid the natural temptation to jump straight in to the deal with NESV. Whilst they are charming, intelligent and credible their bid is by any standards at the extreme bottom end of the 'right deal' threshold we set for ourselves: it only reduces debt by less than half and is I feel unlikely to yield incremental equity to fund a stadium.
"They may say they have money if necessary but I do not take this very seriously. Their eyes only lit up at the idea of other opportunity improvements. An American deal guy simply can't avoid using other people's money if they can.
"There is no extra money on the table to enable short-term investment in what remains a squad palpably needing more quality if we are to be definitively top four. New American sport team owners with the senior guy being a hedge fund manager could not be worst [sic] from an image standpoint, which is an issue for us independents. I have not even talked about valuation. I leave that to other members of the board. So what is positive? Answer, they exist. Which is not a lot, but it is not to be underestimated in importance."
Purslow added that the board should "double check that none of the possibles who have come and gone in the last 18 months to apparent levels lower than Sharjah but higher than NESV are not there. So I repeat this is a bottom of the barrel outcome."
The email is one of 75,000 that allegedly refer to the sale process, with the Sharjah reference believed to be that of an earlier £600m offer from the Middle East. The case continues.
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