FROM THE TELEGRAPH:
Joe Lewis, the secretive Bahamas-based billionaire who controls Tottenham's parent company ENIC, has reassured Spurs chairman Daniel Levy that the £500 million loss on his investment in the collapsed American bank Bear Stearns will not force him to sell the club.
According to club sources, Levy has been in close contact with Lewis since news of the Bear Stearns crisis broke last Friday. Having spent £550 million building up a 10 per cent stake in the bank last year, Lewis's £2.5 billion fortune has taken a massive hit from the bank's emergency takeover by rivals JP Morgan. Lewis bought his shares at an average of £53 each but yesterday JP Morgan acquired Bear Stearns for £1 a share. In an effort to recoup some of his heavy losses, City analysts predicted Lewis would look to liquidate some of his other assets. But Lewis has told Levy that the blow has not impacted too heavily on his fortune and that he has no plans to put Spurs up for sale.
A club source said: "I don't think Joe needs to raise money by selling the team. He's probably still sitting on the best part of £2 billion worth of assets."
Lewis, the 16th richest Briton, according to last year's Sunday Times rich list, owns a majority stake in ENIC, which in turn owns 82 per cent of Tottenham. Although the company built up a series of stakes in football clubs across Europe at the end of the Nineties, they recently divested their interests in all but Tottenham and Czech team Slavia Prague.
Club insiders say that Lewis's involvement in Spurs is minimal and that he leaves day-to-day management to Levy. Unlike Chelsea, who are dependant on Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich to write off vast annual losses, Tottenham do not rely on Lewis to keep the club afloat. According to their most recent set of accounts for the year ended June 30, 2007, Tottenham made a pre-tax profit of £27 million on a turnover of £103 million.
However, the global credit crisis could still have an impact on Spurs' plans to redevelop White Hart Lane or build a new stadium. Levy and his board of directors were due to decide in the next two months whether to expand their existing ground or explore one of two alternative sites away from Tottenham. But the banking meltdown means that Spurs may now have to rethink how they will finance the scheme.
With the cost of steel and other construction materials rising and banks less willing to lend money, Spurs may have to consider staged financing of the project, rather than borrowing all £350 million needed in one go.
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