Re: LFC not yet sold to NESV (but we're getting there, maybe...)
.02pm: David Conn has some more on Mill Financial:
Mill Financial are an arm of the Springfield Financial Companies. That has been confirmed. In recent weeks, there have been reports that they lent George Gillett £75m to meet his further loan commitments at Liverpool, and that he defaulted on that loan, so they have in effect repossessed his shares. That has not been confirmed by Mill, who so far do not return calls. Gillett has not returned a call for some weeks now.
If those reports are true, that means if Liverpool is sold to NESV for the agreed £300m, to repay all Liverpool's debts owed to the banks (except for £30m to finance stadium development), it is Mill Financial which will lose that £75m, along with Hicks losing his around £70m.
That means a US hedge fund, based, like Hicks, in southern USA - Springfield, Virginia - have a £75m loss to protect. That helps to explain why they should now be apparently working desperately with Hicks to avoid a sale to NESV. If they lend Hicks the £200m to repay RBS, the scenario being discussed at the moment by the participants, and Hicks does so, he could stay in control of Liverpool, because RBS is repaid and their hold over the board via the undertakings falls away. Hicks would owe Mill £200m, at whatever rate of interest he has had to agree to. The "payment in kind" loans from the US hedge funds at Manchester United currently charge 16.25% interest, a year, so that would be £32.5m a year interest, and there would likely be very large costs to add to it - financial institutions like to charge for the right to lend their money.
There seems little doubt that Hicks would make Liverpool itself, out of its income - fans' money, TV, commercial revenues - pay that interest and harges and service the debt, as he and Gillett did with the RBS loans. That is a major financial reason why Liverpool fans will be desperate the Mill/Hicks eleventh hour bid does not succeed.
NESV, have committed, to clearing the £300m of debt, and not loading the club with any more debt, or making the club in any way pay any of the costs associated with buying it.
NESV are saying very firmly they will sue because they have a binding agreement with the board to buy the club - as Henry has reiterated on Twitter.
Martin Broughton has arrived at Slaughter & May's London offices, reports Caroline Davies, our on-the-doorstep reporter. Broughton said: "Hopeful a deal can be done."
Chris Purslow added he was "confident we can do a deal
