A football finance expert has claimed that Mike Ashley would sell Newcastle for less than his £300 million asking price.
Ashley put the Magpies up for sale late last year and were negotiating a sale with Amanda Staveley and her PCP Capital Partners company before the United owner revealed in a statement last month that he had withdrawn from talks.
It’s understood that Staveley made three bids for Newcastle – the first two containing a financial penalty clauses – with the third falling £50 million below Ashley’s valuation.
“We use a valuation model here at the University from a guy call Dr Tom Markham, who is now head of Sports Interactive – the people that do Football Manager,” Maguire explained.
“His PHD was based on this. I’ve crunched the numbers into that and it comes out at around £280m for a cash price.
“That is also around about the amount of money that Ashley has stuck in on a personal level, so I think when he walks away from Newcastle, he doesn’t want to be out of pocket himself.”
And Maguire believes that if Staveley is willing to slightly increase her bid it could persuade Ashley to sell.
“If PCP stuck in an extra £20m-£30m [on top of their final £250m offer] I think perhaps he might move on that [£300m asking price],” he said.
