High Drama: Hicks Stops Sale To NESV, Temporarily

John W Henry, the principal
owner of New England Sports
Ventures (NESV) and the Boston
Red Sox baseball team continues
to wait to become the proud
owner of Liverpool Football Club.
The highly regarded American
businessman made a somewhat
surprising appearance this
evening as he arrived at 1 Bunhill
Row, London, just before 8pm,
the offices of Slaughter & May,
who have been advising and
handling the legal process for
Liverpool ’s board members
Martin Broughton, Christian
Purslow and Ian Ayre.
Earlier in the day, following their
victory at the High Court over
Tom Hicks and George Gillett,
Martin Broughton advised that a
board meeting would take place
this evening at 8pm to progress
the sale of the club. The arrival of
John Henry immediately
suggested that process was even
closer to conclusion than first
expected.
However as has been the case at
many steps of both the Hicks &
Gillett reign at the club as well as
with the sale process itself,
controversy lay just after 10pm, it
was confirmed that the present
American owners had filed a
temporary restraining order with Judge Jim
Jordan of the 160th District Court
of Texas, to prevent the sale of
the club at present. In addition to
what they call an “epic swindle”,
a term they should be familiar
with from their own financial
transactions, they also claim that
they will sue Liverpool ’s
independent board of directors,
RBS Plc who control the club ’s
debt and it’s prospective buyer in
the form of John Henry’s New
England Sports Ventures (NESV)
for a total of $1.6bn (£1bn) in
damages.
The pair continue to cite that
NESV ’s offer to buy Liverpool is
“hundreds of millions of dollars
below true market value” and
other alternative and suitable
offers were “swept aside” and
ignored by Martin Broughton.