The Sunday Times
 

New Russian tycoon to buy Everton
By John Elliott,  22 August 2004

A SECRETIVE Russian tycoon is set to take control of Everton Football Club, home to England’s star striker Wayne Rooney. Boris Zingarevich, who co-owns one of Russia’s largest companies and is a business rival of Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner and fellow Russian, is poised to complete a £20m coup.

It will give him a 40% controlling stake in the Merseyside club, one of the best-supported teams in the country. The deal with Bill Kenwright, the Everton chairman and theatre impresario, is expected to be announced after a board meeting tomorrow.

Zingarevich, who is based in St Petersburg, will inject £20m of his family’s estimated £362m fortune into the club through a special share placing. The cash is expected to secure the troubled club’s immediate financial future.

He is likely to join the Everton board and there are strong indications he plans to make further investments of tens of millions of pounds to help the club clear its considerable debts, estimated at between £30m and £40m.

This should increase Everton’s chances of holding on to Rooney, the club’s star England player valued at £30m, and will allow David Moyes, the manager, to strengthen his depleted squad.

Formerly a championship-winning club, Everton are now one of the favourites to be relegated from the Premiership this season. In recent weeks the club has been rocked by a bitter boardroom dispute and fans had feared financial disaster for the club known as the “toffees”.

While Zingarevich is not in the same wealth league as Abramovich (who, it has been disclosed, has bought a Boeing 767 as a private jet), hopes are high that he will help Everton become a fourth force in the Premiership behind Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea.

“They are starting with an investment of £20m, then we will see how it goes. They have a lot of money and will want to see the team do well,” said a football agent involved in the negotiations last night.

Kenwright is likely to remain chairman, but majority control of Everton by the Russian could follow, the agent said. He also warned that the deal had not yet been signed, and there remained a small chance that it could fall apart.

The brothers are the founders of Ilim Pulp Enterprises, Russia’s largest pulp and paper manufacturer with annual revenues approaching $1 billion, which employs 42,000 people. They are considering putting the company’s shares on the London stock exchange.

The arrival of the Russian tycoon on the English football scene follows the dramatic impact that Abramovich has had on Chelsea. The Russian oil magnate, said to be worth £7.5 billion, has spent more than £200m on new players since completing his £60m takeover of Chelsea last season. But he seems unlikely to welcome Zingarevich to Britain. The two tycoons have been involved in a long-running legal dispute centring on the ownership of two of Russia’s largest pulp and paper mills.

The news about Everton’s new controlling shareholder ends weeks of speculation about a mystery investor being courted by Kenwright. The Everton chairman has been making frantic efforts to find a backer for the club and has had a football agent scouring Russia and the US for rich industrialists eager to become owners of a Premiership team.

Several days ago, Kenwright announced he had found an investor, but stopped short of naming the person as checks were being carried out.

The deal, if completed, will mean that his substantial shareholding in Everton will be diluted, but he will have seen off his boardroom rival Paul Gregg, who had hoped to take control of the club through a £15m deal. Their board battle had plunged the club into crisis, but now a backer has been found Kenwright will remain influential.

Kenwright and Gregg, an Oxford-based entertainment businessman, formed a company called True Blue Holdings in March 1999 to buy a 70% stake in Everton. It is unclear what percentage of the club each will own after the Russian transaction goes through.

Kenwright, who did not know of the Russian businessman before the agent introduced them, is said to have wanted to be sure he was worth as much as reports from Moscow have suggested.

[The above is unedited and provided within ToffeeWeb for archival purposes.