Hicks Ready To Share Liverpool, But Are We??

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks'
11th-hour bid to hold onto his
control of the club is understood
to involve him offering a minority
share to the global investment
firm GSO Capital Partners, a
subsidiary of the Blackstone
group, and substantially reducing
the underlying level of debt,
which he needs to refinance
imminently.
The Blackstone "equity rise"
would, as Hicks envisages it, see
the underlying level of debt
reduced to around £100m. That
would mean GSO committing
£180m, with co-owner George
Gillett apparently on the way out.
As of last night, there was no
confirmation that GSO is ready to
go in with Hicks, with whom it
has had a working relationship
in the past; how much control
GSO would want at Anfield; or
whether new lenders would be
needed to take on the remaining
£100m debt when the terms of
the current loans with the Royal
Bank of Scotland expire on 8
October.
Ironically, the device Hicks seems
to be using to hold on at Anfield
is precisely the one that
managing director Christian
Purslow used in his attempt to
reduce the club's debt earlier this
year. But when the New York-
based Rhône Group came in with
a £110m offer for a 40 per cent
share, with a demand that it have
a meaningful say in the running
of the club in return for that
investment, Hicks dismissed it.

If Hicks wants to borrow from
another source to refinance the
£237m debt,it seems he would
have to offer the club as security
and there appears to be no
question of Liverpool's non-
executive chairman Martin
Broughton, Purslow or
commercial director Ian Ayre
sanctioning that.
Hicks believes he can drive any
such action through despite the
stance of other board members ,
who are understood to have
engaged legal firm Slaughter and
May to assess their options.