The end for Thomas Sandgaard closes in
I have been closing my eyes and hoping for the best in relation to the takeover. Dave has been far more on top of it, but it sounds as if we are very close to a set of new owners after Rich Cawley announced this afternoon that Joshua Friedman and Thomas Sandgaard have agreed to a price and signed a SPA (Sale and Purchase Agreement).
The price is reported to be £12m, but Cawley also mentions that Sandgaard is continuing his talks with other parties, which appears very irregular, but that just about sums Sandgaard up as he seeks I am sure a last minute better offer.
Friedman’s group include his son Spencer, Gabriel Brener plus of course the delightful Charlie Methven and his group of cheap dates that includes old pals Jim Rodwell, Ed Warrick and Andy Scott, the master of the transfer window himself!
Friedman and Brener have money, real money. Friedman is the co-founder of global hedge fund Canyon Capital and lives in Dallas. Brener runs a small private equity firm, a family office the Americans call it, named Brener International Group, which is based in Beverly Hills, California.
For Friedman and Brener the investment in Charlton is small fry. Mind you, maybe we are looking at the new head of recruitment in Friedman’s son Spencer…. well, it’s wouldn’t be the first time.
Brener, a Mexican, also has close connections to Texas once owning MLS club Houston Dynamo’s that he sold in 2021 for $400m. Houston having a metropolitan population of over 7m people but still only get crowds just slightly more than the Addicks in League 1. No wonder Brener thought investing in Charlton was a steal.
As for Methven and his caricatural ‘Global Football Partners’ then, well every new perspective owner at Charlton should arrive untrusted after what we’ve had to suffer for more than a decade, but Methven should be given plenty of scrutiny even though bettering the last range of muppets doesn’t appear too difficult on paper.
Despite the big pockets of both Friedman and Brener, this does not look a move to fund the club for the long term, otherwise they would have looked in another pocket and bought The Valley and Sparrows Lane as well.
These are private equity men who only want to extract a quick profit. Funding the club with long term objectives and with sustainable ambition will not have been in the sell sheet. Trimming expenses, and selling assets probably was.
In Rodwell and Methven at least they have people who have worked in the business and hopefully will seek advice and give Dean Holden, their own man, the tools to bring success and improve our valuation in the right manner.
Meanwhile bringing our Valley and the training ground back within the fabric of the club looks further away than ever.
Chicago Addick 
I hear Friedman plays drums, Brener plays Keyboards and Methven is on the Fiddle…….or did I just dream that !!!!
Like it Greg 🙂
I think the January transfer window just gone with Andy Scott in charge showed us that we are only likely to be selling assets !!
The thing is, Sandgaard (like now) still owned the Club in January and he was never going to approve any transfers in which required him to put his hand in his pocket.
Dean & Scott had to wheel and deal with no money… sadly, other than Big Hec, they got things wrong.
Or another way to look at that transfer window is that they got a lot right shipping out a bunch of players who made no difference to our final position and allowed Holden a long, hard look at the remainder to see who would be good enough for the long run.
Out of the frying pan into the fire springs to mind. This smacks of a Jiminez/Slater deal all over again, albeit more Gekko than Del Boy. “Fund” – if thats the right word – for a year or so then dump once the assets are sold. An easy profit surely.
But they still have to fund operating monthly losses, so they will only make a profit if we get out of L1, but even then, unlike RD, they would need to invest to ensure safety. Whatever way you look at it short term plays in English football outside of the Premier League don’t extract quick returns unless there are more sinister motives.
I guess the big question is how much do we trust Dean Holden? He knows what these people’s intensions are and he has said publicly that they want to build a squad and not sell Miles. Let’s wait and see?
If they are short term, to get us out of L1 and then sell for a profit I see no problem with that, but our worry would then be… who they sell on to?
Charlton fans need to start being careful what they wish for. RD was hounded out of the door, and was replaced by ESI. Matt Southall was practically carried through the streets of Greenwich. And look how that turned out. Then along came Paul Elliott. Within a matter of weeks, the club nearly ceased to exist. And fans were clamouring for an unknown American ex-Danish businessman to by the club. Pleading with him, in fact! Less than a year later, the clamouring starts to get rid of TS, because he deigns to spend all his money on a loss-making League 1 football club.
And let me ask you this: do you think we’ll be any better off with 2 venture capitalists owning the club. However much their personal wealth is? The liklihood is, they’ll put in a few quid, to try to get us a promotion, and if they succeed in the short term, they’ll just flip it when they have any chance of making a profit, and we’ll be back to square one again…
Bang on – we have to remember that their core skills are turning a fast Buck. They will have a firm plan (100 days), clear exit strategy and expect it to be executed. No tolerance, no emotion, no exceptions. Delivery or they cut their losses with no regard for the consequences. Methven will need a better explanation of Global Football Partners being registered in the Cayman Islands, tax free home of opaque company structures and accounts.
What did Storrie say Dave? Because it is fiscally responsible 😉
They think we are thick and will take any crap. Can’t wait to hear Methven patronising us.
There’s no deal until it’s signed off and the money transferred – then we can sound the done deal klaxon.
But on paper it looks positive – Spiegel and other interested parties seemed to be enthusiastic but lacked the funds themselves to invest in the club suggesting to me that they were front men for other as yet unnamed parties and that created uncertainty in my mind. If these two are genuine then they have serious money behind them, but then so did RD and TS has some wealth. At least we know who the beneficial owners will be.
Then we need to see what involvement Charlie Methven and gang have will have in the club. Those who watched Sunderland ’til I die will know that he was well and truly out of his depth. Maybe he has learnt a few lessons? But these Old Etonian spiv types rarely change their spots. At Sunderland the main problem was that neither Methven nor Stewart Donald had any money themselves to invest in the Mackems, they were using the parachute money that Sunderland were getting after relegation from the premier league and were fortunate that Ellis Short, the outgoing owner, had wiped out the debts out as he left. Stewart and Methven were soon found out and were forced to sell when the money ran out.
We can’t accuse this lot of being asset strippers because there are no assets to strip. RD still owns the valley and the training ground and there is precious little value in the playing squad. Maybe a few £million could be raised by selling Miles Leaburn, AMB and Lucas Ness, but for billionaires that is literally pennies.
Hopefully this deal will complete soon and we can get on with the squad rebuilding before the season starts. If nothing else I like the timing of the news.
Poor Charlton. Why can’t a real English Billionaire Take over this wonderful club for a long period of time?. It has one of the most ardent fans. We were the best club in South east London not Crystal Palace.
God…..I’m very very very worried a out this takeover ..nothing seems positive for the club as it seems the new owners are in fir the short term.
They will aim for promotion and will sell players to save money…..we could be facing losing the ground and indeed Charlton forever.
What have we done to deserve this ?
Perhaps we sold our souls to the devil in exchange for those Premier League days. This is all just pay back