C&P from WHO

West Ham United can confirm the club has been sold in an agreement that will secure its long-term future and allow it to remain a force in the top-flight of English football.

CB Holding, the majority of which is owned by Straumur-Burdaras Investment bank, has completed the purchase of West Ham United and its subsidiaries. As a result, Owner and Chairman Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson and his Vice-Chairman Asgeir Fridgeirsson have stood down with the club's best wishes.

The new Non-Executive Club Chairman will be Andrew Bernhardt, a senior director with Straumur Bank who is the majority shareholder in CB Holding, an asset management group.

West Ham United Non-Executive Club Chairman Andrew Bernhardt said: "I am delighted that an agreement has been reached and look forward to working with CEO Scott Duxbury and his team in the coming years. We have one of the best young management partnerships in Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke and the team has evolved with a great mix of experience and young players coming through from the Academy.

"I can assure fans we will sanction investment in new players, but all within the parameters of sensible budgeting based on revenues generated by West Ham United. It will be my job to help facilitate this continued progress on the pitch, while ensuring the club's success is built on a strong financial footing. We have an initial two-year plan which includes improving the infrastructure at the club and we will be getting to work on this as soon as the new board is appointed.

"CB Holding fully supports the executive management of the club and acknowledges the considerable progress achieved this season by Scott Duxbury and Gianfranco Zola. CB Holding has no intention of changing the executive management or direction of the club."

West Ham United CEO Scott Duxbury said: "I am delighted to say that West Ham United has been sold in an agreement that will secure the long-term future of this football club. Change is always unsettling, but I believe the new owners led by Andrew Bernhardt will bring stability to West Ham United and I hope all our staff and fans will join me in welcoming them to our club. At the same time, my best wishes and thanks go to Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson and Asgeir Fridgeirsson.

"This will allow us all to concentrate on next season and beyond, with Gianfranco Zola, technical director Gianluca Nani and I working to build on what we have achieved. We are all committed to a long-term vision. We are playing great football, have our Academy at the heart of the club and are looking to the past to move forward in the right way. I can assure all fans that I will never lose sight of this. I am determined to bring success to West Ham United."

Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson, former Chairman of West Ham United, said: "I want to thank everybody at Upton Park for unforgettable years. The players, fans, management and staff have all contributed immensely to a period of progress, a period where the club has sharpened its vision, strengthened the first team with young homegrown talents and laid a solid foundation for self-sustainable operations of West Ham United as a strong Premier League football club.

"As my fortunes have changed I now have to withdraw from the board of directors. I do that with a great regret but I am convinced that this change of ownership and control of West Ham United will advance the club in the present circumstances. I wish the new chairman and all involved at Upton Park all good fortunes and great success in future. I will remain forever a West Ham fan and hope I will have many returns to Upton Park."


This is what I got from Wikipedia on Straumur


Straumur-Burdaras Investment Bank hf. (Icelandic: Straumur-Burðarás Fjárfestingabanki, usually referred to simply as Straumur) (OMX: STRB) was a regional investment bank headquartered in Reykjavik, Iceland that was closed by regulators in March 2009.

At one point, Straumur was Iceland‘s largest pure investment bank and the sixth-largest company on the OMX Nordic Exchange in Iceland. Straumur had an established presence in ten countries including the UK, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and the Czech Republic.

On March 9, 2009 Straumur was nationalised by Icelandic authorities; according to Straumur, its "liquidity position was no longer strong enough to sustain activities".[2] Straumur was the last of Iceland's four biggest banks to remain independent, during the financial crisis.[2] As of March 27th, 2009, Staumur was closed with the CEO William Fall tendering his resignation


Wiki syas they're closed and yet they own us? Fuck my head hurts!!!!!

Mostly negativity on the other forums about this BUT this c/p glimmer from KUMB is what I'm wishing for
Fingers crossed

Here's our new chairman (non-exec)

'appy geezer, isn't he

Andrew Bernhardt, Managing Director - Debt Finance



Andrew Bernhardt joined Straumur in October 2007 and he is now Managing Director of the Debt Finance Division where he is responsible for providing clients with expert advice and quick delivery of flexible financing solutions. Prior to joining Straumur, Bernardt was an Executive Director of GE Commercial Finance Leveraged Finance since 2005. At GE, he was responsible for the origination and execution of leveraged finance transactions. Before that, he spent 27 years at Barclays Bank where he was most recently Director of Leveraged Finance in London between 2001-2005. Andrew was educated at Sunbury grammar school and is an associate of the Institute of Bankers.

How random...all we can do is hope for the best and cheers our lads on come kick off.

C&P BBC

The sale of West Ham could be the least exciting takeover in the history of the Premier League.

Without fanfare, CB Holding announced it had bought the club and would not be changing the way it was run.

There were no promises of star signings or qualifying for the Champions League, as there had been when previous owner Bjorgolfur Gudmundsson arrived at Upton Park in November 2006.

Nevertheless, the takeover is hugely significant because it saves the famous east London club from administration.

This was a realistic prospect, according to the new owners.

On Monday, an arrangement protecting West Ham's parent company Hansa from its creditors came to an end, meaning even one of its small creditors could have requested its liquidation.

This could have led to the Premier League docking nine points from the Hammers.

CB Holding was set up last week by creditors of Hansa. It is 70% owned by Icelandic bank Straumur, with the remaining 30% held by Byr Bank and MP Bank, which are also based in Iceland.

CB's spokesman, Georg Andersen, insists Hammers boss Gianfranco Zola will have a transfer budget this summer and will not be forced to sell the club's best players.

"We want to make a clear distinction between the financial side of the club and the football side," he told me. "We will leave the football side of the business to Gianluca Nani, Scott Duxbury and Gianfranco Zola, while we focus on the financial side.

"Selling our best players would make absolutely no business sense, because it would jeopardise the potential future price. We will try to hold the value of the club and enhance it if possible."

The financial side of the club will be overseen by new non-executive chairman, the publicity-shy Englishman Andrew Bernhardt.

On the field, the club will continue the policy implemented by Gudmundsson and his vice-chairman Asgeir Fridgeirsson - of bringing the best academy talent into the first team, signing promising youngsters from overseas and keeping a tight reign on the wage bill.

"We are not going to throw money around left and right - we don't run businesses that way," Andersen said.

The new owners expect to be in charge at West Ham for at least another two years because of the current economic climate.

"When the markets return and we get offered a decent price, as well as someone who can support the club better than we do, we will sell," Andersen said.

"We don't think it's feasible to try and sell the club at the moment though and can't realistically see anything happening in the next two years. Of course anything is for sale if the price is right, but we can't see that happening tomorrow."

Gudmundsson had been trying to find a buyer for the club since the end of last year, when his business empire began to collapse. Although there was interest from several parties, the offers they made fell dramatically short of Gudmundsson's asking price, which was initially more than £200m
Not one of the buyers even reached the stage of carrying out due diligence on the club.
After the excesses of Eggert Magnusson's tenure as chairman, when West Ham lavished huge salaries on the likes of the injury-prone Freddie Ljungberg, the club now appears to be very well run.

Fridgeirsson has overseen the development of vastly improved training and medical facilities, homegrown talent such as Jack Collison, Freddie Sears and James Tomkins have made an impact in the first team and director of football Nani has made astute signings such as Valon Behrami and Herita Ilunga.

Gianfranco Zola and Steve Clarke have also proven an effective management team and the Hammers finished ninth in the Premier League last season.

CB Holding's promise of "more of the same" could be just what the Hammers fans want to hear.

Seems that CB Holdings will sell us off when the global economy improves. In the meantime they realise that selling our best players strips the asset and hence the bottom line. So keep what you've got and improve the side without going mental by splashing ludicrous amounts of cash. Hopefully the asset, that is West Ham, then goes up in value?

Let's hope they're not just blowing smoke up our arse?

Although, not ideal, the spectre of liquidation has gone so no fire sale etc. Always look on the bright side of life... we could, after all be in Newcastles position, the entire club looks in a right mess.

I am just very nervous about this whole situation,wish we could get an investor that loves all that is WESTHAM.

I think we all do but I'd be happy for now if we can keep Greeno and Upson and find a good Ilunga type right back signing to replace Neill. Also a creative midfielder and a partner for Carlton wouldn't go amiss as we can't trust Ashton's fitness to last a season, IMO

I get what you're saying beggers but I'll give you a bit of an accounting perspective to fill in some gaps.

You mention about them realising that selling our best players strips the asset hence the bottom line.

It's not a strictly true statement. Ignoring the incorrect terminology (bottom line has nothing to do with assets or value) the sale of a player would indeed be striping the club of an asset but would not effect the value of club from an accounting perspective (but it may affect it from a market value perspective which I'll discuss further). Book value of a company is total assets less total liabilities. So if you had a company with an asset value of 100m which had liabilities (debts) of 50m then the net worth or value of the company would be 50M. If you sold a 10m asset for 10m quid then you would be reducing debt with the funds so yes you would only have assets of 90m but then you would have reduced liabilities of 40m - value of the company??? 90m less 40m = the same 50m as before. Where am I going with this? Well I've heard this statement alot from hammers fans about why would BG sell assets it weakens the value etc. Well BG would have been under enormous pressure to pay back debt and without seeing a set of accounts (where the fuck are they - obviously there are things to hide) we don't know the extent of how much or who our creditors are. Is BG himself a creditor? Was his initial investment in players an equity investment or did he loan it to the club and was he enforcing sales to pay himself back? We don't know.

So in summary I'm alot happier BG is gone. The new mob have one interest in mind and that is to maximise the "market value" of their asset. That is enhance the attractiveness of the purchase beyond the book value (assets less liabilities) and the only way to do that is to bring as much success to the club as possible. We'd all love a WHU supporter with claret n blue blood willing to die for the club - but that doesn't always work out either as Gibson @ middlesbrough will tell you. Stripping the club of assets will not help future market value as it effects future performance of the entity (or football club in our case). If we do not perform on the pitch then we will not attract a good price. Worse still if we were to be relegated then the market value would fall through the floor - Mike Ashley wants 100 million for Newcastle - he'll be lucky to get 100 quid.

...errrr that's exactly what I meant to say.

So basically Dave, it's good for now to have a group of blokes in who have some good financial savvy, which it seems this lot have.
I think I read somewhere that our accounts don't officially have to be shown yet (end of August rings a bell??) but we seem to be in no hurry to reveal them which adds up to them not being a good read.
I'm quite happy if these guys come in, balance the books and increase our saleability, which seems to be the plan.

I've read a few other articles and I'm not entirely convinced we're in the hands of any more finacial savvy blokes - the whole icelandic banking system is fucked due to incompetence - in fact the world over. Personally I think we'll be onsold ASAP and don't buy into this 2 year thing. I reckon its smoke n mirrors so they don't look like sitting ducks for anybody wishing to try and prize the club away on the cheap. As soon as a reasonable offer is in we'll be sold IMO - Straumur is fucked and has been nationalised so you could effectively say we are owned by the Icelandic government.

Sooner sold the better.

West Ham Fan and poster on KUMB who resides in Thailand saying (but could be fishing) that news in Thailand this morning say we will be sold to this group in Thailand?? Give us some money please. $25 million should do. Thanks.

One lives in hope........

NO THANKS!

Would rather be a poor English run club than a toy for some corrupt fucked up foreign wankers! (I know we are in the hands of foreigners at present).