Chelsea news: Takeover hopeful Sir Jim Ratcliffe ‘plots Todd Boehly hijack’ in new twist | Football | Sport
Britain’s richest man Sir Jim Ratcliffe is supposedly holding out hope that he can reignite his Chelsea takeover bid despite being turned away by the bank in charge of the sale. A consortium headed up by Todd Boehly has already been selected as the preferred bidder, but Ratcliffe and his INEOS team submitted a shock late offer worth over £4billion in total.
The Blues have been forced into an ownership transition after Roman Abramovich, who bought the club back in 2003, was hit by UK government sanctions due to alleged ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Culture secretary Nadine Dorries has heaped pressure on Chelsea to get a move on, claiming that they are already on ‘borrowed time’.
Their takeover took another step when Boehly’s consortium was selected as the preferred bidder last week, but Ratcliffe’s approach threatened to throw a spanner in the works. Now, The Telegraph claim that he is waiting to pounce should Boehly fail to finalise his takeover.
Boehly supposedly enjoys a period of exclusivity until the end of this week, which means Ratcliffe’s team face a waiting game to see if they still have a chance to strike. Raine Group, the bank handling the takeover, supposedly emailed them claiming that they were out of the process, including the words ‘forget it’.
Some fans have been left puzzled at why they left it so late to join the process, to which INEOS director of communications Tom Crotty has offered an explanation. “We’re not giving up because we believe what we’ve got is a bid that makes good sense for the club,” he said.
“They will say it was too late. We said ‘you need to give us some feedback and if we’ve got something wrong, tell us what we’ve got wrong and we can try to correct it’. But we haven’t even had that opportunity. We were told over the weekend. I’m not going to criticise Raine because we are late and in their defence, they will use that and say you should have been in much earlier.”
Despite rival consortia headed up by Sir Martin Broughton and Stephen Pagliuca making it deep into the selection process, it emerged last week that Boehly’s group would be chosen to move forward. The US-based billionaire is already a part-owner of Major League Baseball team LA Dodgers, and has backing from American investment firm Clearlake Capital.
Ratcliffe, meanwhile, turned up late to the party but reportedly lodged a £2.5bn bid, with the promise of a further £1.75bn in investment. INEOS is the fourth largest chemical company in the world with ventures in cycling and sailing, while Ratcliffe has an estimated personal fortune of £11bn.
The takeover process could be struck by a new obstacle amid fears that Abramovich is demanding the repayment of a £1.6bn loan as part of the sale. The Russian billionaire had his UK assets frozen back in March which would see him pocket nothing from offloading Chelsea, but The Times claim that there was a recent request to restructure the way the club is sold.
It remains to be seen if Boehly and co become hesitant about the deal on that basis, which would leave the door open for Ratcliffe’s group to pounce and once again attempt to hijack the takeover.
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