Takeover completed

“As the new owners, we are both football fans and businessmen. Today’s acquisition brings much-needed financial stability to the club. Our plan for Charlton is to run the club on a sensible financial footing and develop a commercial plan to ensure we make progress on and off the pitch to meet the expectations of our fans.

What we won’t do is create unrealistic pie in the sky expectations.”

Comments from new Charlton chairman Michael Slater, who is described as co-owner alongside property developer (those two words always worry me) Tony Jimenez, once of Newcastle ‘fame’. There also appears to be an unnamed 3rd party, whom I wondering maybe the money behind the transaction because I don’t think Jimenez or Slater have the funds themselves. Slater did say that Dennis Wise is not in the new owners’ plans.

Good news is that Richard Murray remains a director and Peter Varney is appointed as executive vice chairman, with responsibilites for corporate strategy and planning. Former managing director Stephen Kavanagh becomes chief executive and will continue to be responsible for the day-to-day running of the club.

All a bit too cloak and dagger still for my liking, Slater a lawyer by trade has a lot of business interests including a couple of investment trusts. Jimenez equally has a number of fingers in pies. However I am happier that Murray, Varney and Kavanagh are staying involved with the new company but I am interested to know more about a rumoured Swiss interest. More information will hopefully unravel itself in a few days.

More: Official Site, BBC, Sky Sports, Daily Mail, Slater interview.