Everton takeover: New 777 Partners loan expected this month as £550million debt grows
777 Partners’ next loan to Everton is expected to be required this month as they continue their attempted takeover of the club, The Guardian reports.
According to the paper’s website on 17 April the American firm are set to increase their lending to the Toffees, quoted as “about £160million” so far, in the next fortnight after they received an extension on their deadline to repay a loan of a similar amount from a consortium of MSP Sports Capital and Evertonians George Downing and Andy Bell.
That will add to the club’s total third-party debt which is said to stand at around £550m currently, which the Guardian notes is a major increase since the 2020/21 financial year when net debt stood at £58.2m.
It had been reported by i News on 27 March that 777 were set to advance more money to Everton before the end of last month – it is unclear whether the April cash is in addition or a delayed arrival of that payment.
Everton continue to borrow after Farhad Moshiri funding dries up
For the size of the debt at Goodison Park to have shot up to nearly 10 times the level it was just three years ago is an alarming picture of the situation the club is in.
It looks anything but ideal for that number to simply continue to climb as 777 pump more loans in just for Everton to be able to see out the season, whether they succeed in their takeover or not.
Since they have been borrowing the money themselves in order to then put it into the club Kieran Maguire was getting “twitchy” about the arrangement even before Christmas, and it is developed significantly since then.
And yet if Farhad Moshiri, for years happy to spend huge amounts on the Toffees, isn’t willing or able any longer to fund the club he still controls for now, there appears to be little alternative unless other current creditors are going to leap to the rescue and hold of administration.
Since it has now taken 777 over seven months of trying without getting their takeover completed, with the request for an extension to the MSP repayment deadline seen as the “biggest red flag” yet by The Esk, Moshiri could, and perhaps should, seek another buyer.
But as it was he who negotiated more time he clearly isn’t willing to do that either, so absent a major change in circumstances for 777, or in the intentions of either the current majority shareholder, it looks like the current holding pattern looks set to continue for the foreseeable future.
In other Everton news, Alan Myers has responded to rumours that the takeover may now be off.
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