A Look At City's Shareholders

Last week we touched on the amount of shares (in percentage terms) a potential bidder for Manchester City Plc would require to gain control of the company all the way to gaining total ownership. The full article can be read here

Since then many readers have asked us about the shareholdings in Manchester City Plc. We looked at this all the way back in December.

The first four shareholders are well known to most Manchester City supporters and they own (together) 65.71% of the shares. Those four are John Wardle & David Makin who own 29.95%, the Trustees of the S E Boler Settlement (a trust set up by Stephen Boler) who own 18.75%, BSkyB which owns 9.88% and Francis Lee who owns 7.13%.

The next ten shareholders (held in individual and nominee names) own 13.38%. In that list includes the late Peter Swales' wife Brenda together with ex-directors David Holt, John Dunkerley and David Bernstein.

The remaining shareholders number over 5,000 (we are lead to believe that this figure may be over 6,000 now) and they hold the remaining 20.9% of the issued shares.

In summary, only 48.7% of the shareholders are represented on the board of Manchester City Plc with the majority of shareholders not represented.

When we looked at the shareholdings six months ago, we did not include Alistair Mackintosh, Dennis Tueart or Bryan Bodek’s shareholdings as being represented on the board and their total shareholding of 55,358 shares represents only 0.1% of the issued shares.

During our research we did come across some interesting information taken from the accounts. As at 31 May 1998 Dennis Tueart owned 9,800 shares and as at 31 May 2006 he owned 36,258 shares. As at 31 May 2000 Alistair Mackintosh owned 9,100 shares and as at 31 May 2006 he still owned 9,100 shares. As at 31 May 2002 Bryan Bodek owned 10,000 shares and as at 31 May 2006 he still owned 10,000 shares.

As mentioned in our article last week, any potential bidder will need to purchase 75% of the issued shares to be able to de-list the company from Plus Markets, change the memorandum and articles of association and add debt onto the Company a la "Glazer". Loading additional debt onto the Company may also require approval from the secured creditors (the loans secured against future ticket income).

If a potential bidder was able to acquire the four biggest shareholders' stakes they will still require just over an additional 9% from the remaining shareholders (the majority of which we can only presume are City supporters) to reach the 75% mark.