Peace cops for £1.3 million

29 May 2003

The offer from Jeremy Peace, to buy shares from anyone who wants to sell them at £55 a time, expired today at 3pm. The Albion Chairman, who was obliged to make the offer under Rule 9 of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers, has received acceptances in respect of a further 23,680 shares, giving him a new total of 93,680 shares - roughly 66.9 percent of the total in issue - and costing him just over £1.3 million.

In the offer documents, Peace stated that he did not wish to acquire more than 50% of the club's shares and would sell any further ones that he became obliged to buy through the offer. Who will want that many shares in a club exclusively controlled by one man, however, remains to be seen. If placed on the open market, it's likely that the share price would drop further, leading him to make a substantial loss on the sale.

At least half of those shares are likely to be the remainder of the ones held by former Chairman Paul Thompson, and a further quantity have probably come from Barry Hurst and Clive Stapleton, the former Board colleagues of Paul Thompson who were forced out by Peace last summer. By our reckoning, that leaves about 4,600 shares sold by "small" shareholders - less than ten percent of those held by people with less than a thousand or so shares in the club.

Previous Stories:

  12 May 2003:  SuperBob goes sweet

  24 April 2003:  Pre-season fixtures

  21 April 2003:  Thompson in hot water?

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