Former Liverpool managing director Christian Purslow has revealed he believes Christmas is an unrealistic target for the takeover of Newcastle United to be completed.
Current owner Mike Ashley put the Tyneside club up for sale at the beginning of last month.
After a number of non-disclosure agreements had been signed with multiple parties, it is now Amanda Staveley and her firm PCP Partners who look most likely to purchase the club from Ashley after a decade at it’s helm.
Staveley and co’ are understood to be preparing a £300 million formal bid for the club to be submitted in the coming weeks, however with it only being now 2 months till Christmas, Purslow believes it could be too late.
Purslow said speaking on Sky Sports (via Sunderland Echo): “I’ve spent most of my life buying companies – clean, well-run, predictable companies. Probably that takes six months to execute a sale. Football clubs are anything but – they’re complicated, where the club finishes in the league determines value.
“People trying to buy a football club – it’s a lot easier to time that at the end of a season when you can see where a club sits, you can see what its financials actually look like.
“Any buyer is going to need to get to the bottom of the tax investigation too. My feeling as an experienced mergers and acquisitions guy is that selling Newcastle in the next six weeks looks extraordinarily unlikely.
“If I was a betting man, I’d think it will be sold by the end of the season – not by Christmas.”
