As the deadline came and went for any confirmed bids for Chelsea, London-based firm Centricus confirmed that they were part of a consortium attempting to complete a takeover. Supported by hedge-fund manager Jonathan Lourie and businessman Bob Finch, the company announced their long-term commitment to the club.
In a video address shared by The Times, Centricus CEO Nizar Al-Bassam said : "We’ve looked at the club in the past. There have been occasions where there were rumours of the club being available but ultimately all those projects were shelved. Our bid is all domestic, we don’t have any foreign investors so we’re using domestic capital which I think is quite noteworthy. We all attend the matches with our kids.
“I don’t think any of us are coming purely because we’re fans or purely because we love football. It’s really driven by the commercial opportunities. But it is a long-term investment. For us, you simply can’t buy a club and expect to sell it in five or ten years. The expectations from the fans, the regulators, be it the FA or Premier League or from the Government, would be not to have a sale of this club in the next five or ten years.
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“So this would have to be a very, very long-term commitment. The commitment just around either a stadium expansion or a new stadium is a half-decade commitment and that needs to be done in consultation with the community, the council and with fans.”
It remains to be seen whether the bid has been tabled to the Raine Group - and if indeed it is enough to see a sale go through and edge out the rest of the interested parties - but it certainly drew plenty of attention to Centricus. Based in London, they claim to oversee $38bn (£28.7bn) worth of assets.
Of course, that is not all of their own capital so it remains to be seen what the company’s actual net worth is. Most Chelsea fans will of course be hoping they will be able to support the club financially in the same way that outgoing owner Roman Abramovich has done and stick by their ‘long-term’ commitment to the west London club.
