Said no to MoatWould-be Newcastle United owner Barry Moat tried to persuade Richard Harpin to invest in his bid to buy the club.
Richard Harpin is the head of HomeServe and has a personal fortune of more than £200m, which places him as one of the top 5 richest North-Easterners according to the Sunday Times Rich List.
Harpin was born in Huddersfield but moved to Stocksfield in Northumberland with his family when he was young and then went to the Royal Grammar School in Jesmond.
“I regard myself as an adopted Geordie,” says Harpin.
He launched his first enterprise – a mail-order fishing tackle business – at 15 with just £200 and by the time he was 22 it had a turnover of £45,000 on a gross margin of 40%. He had actually started five businesses by the time he was 20 in industries as diverse as Christmas trees, jewellery and magazines before going to work as a brand manager at Proctor & Gamble.
His ‘big break’ came when he partnered with South Staffordshire Water to set up a plumbing insurance cover business and it was after expanding this business to cover all utilities that HomeServe was born.
Anyway, to get to the point of this article … (more…)
Gis a jobAlan Shearer says he would still love the Newcastle United manager’s job but is also prepared to consider managing other clubs.
At the end of last season it seemed almost certain that Shearer would be given the Toon job despite failing to keep us in the Premier League. Ashley had described employing Shearer as ‘the best decision he ever made’ and Shearer had drawn up plans about how he intended to rebuild the club and take us back to the top flight.
Then of course Mike Ashley put the club up for sale. Whether that had anything to do with Shearer’s rebuilding plans is unknown but it’s understandable that Ashley would be reluctant to appoint to Shearer – or commit to a long-term rebuilding plan – if he planned to sell the club.
The press has always stated that if Barry Moat took control of the club then Shearer’s appointment as manager would swiftly follow but it seems that Ashley, should he stay, would prefer Chris Hughton instead. (more…)
Toon top table ... justNewcastle United manager-in-waiting Chris Hughton, heaped praise on the players after the 2-1 win over Doncaster Rovers at the weekend.
Rumours suggested that Hughton would be appointed as permanent manager before the game but there’s been no official confirmation of that, possibly because Ashley is still considering Barry Moat’s latest offer for the club.
Hughton – presumably still in the role of caretaker manager – said of the game:
“We’ve been through everything but credit to the players, they were magnificent and we got the win we deserved.”
I didn’t see the match personally but according to our match report I think ‘magnificent’ might be stretching things a bit. Although to be fair we did have 57% of the possession, 10 on-target shots to their 3 and 8 off-target shots to their 3. (more…)
Ashley - in the red cornerApparently Barry Moat tabled an £80m bid for Newcastle United on Friday and Mike Ashley had to be saved from angry fans by stewards during the away match to Scunny.
Divven get too excited though – it’s News of the World time again.
First, Barry Moat’s bid. Sport of the World has apparently ‘learned’ that Barry Moat put in an £80m bid for Newcastle on Friday after being given the go-ahead by his financial backers.
It seems this bid consists of £60m down plus a finance package to appease Barclays Bank which will see Moat inject another £20m into the club immediately.
I’m a bit confused by the newspaper’s claims here because surely that’s a £60m bid as far as Mike Ashley is concerned isn’t it? Which of course he’ll most probably refuse. Anyway, Moat was supposed to have been promised a decision on Friday but it seems Ashley has since asked for a few more days to consider Moat’s offer. (more…)
Not a single serious bidderAfter a summer of discontent at Newcastle United, with the club having been up for sale since May, we’ve failed to attract a single serious buyer.
It seems Moat was all mouth and all the other ‘bidders’ were either publicity hunters, time-wasters or chancers who only expressed an interest in the hope of purchasing way below Ashley’s £100m asking price.
A few weeks ago I posted an article which quoted the Telegraph’s ‘source close to the club’ as follows:
“No one has come up with any money – no one.
“Barry Moat and the South Africans have one thing in common – they are all talking but they have no produced any money.
“There will be some preliminary conversations late in the week and I would think Barry Moat will have some provisional discussions with them although I can’t underline provisional enough.
“Until someone comes up with the money Mike Ashley has got to stay in control of the club. He has got no choice.” (more…)
