Can't Reveal Ltd? A response to criticism, and a clarification of the doubts surrounding Cantervale Ltd.

Earlier this morning I wrote an article concerning Cantervale Ltd, and the implications this company has on the sale of Newcastle United. I have been delighted by the response amongst the Newcastle fanbase, and hope it put Cantervale into understandable terms for the laymen amongst you. However, my claims have since been rubbished by local ‘journalists’, whom I feel obliged to respond to. This is not out of desire for conflict, but to ensure my fellow fans are best informed on the legal status of the takeover. Furthermore, there has been a few questions raised by you on Twitter which I felt I should address.

A response to the critique of my previous article:

A variety of ‘journalists’ have claimed ‘Cantervale is unrelated to Staveley’s interest in NUFC’, and that ‘Cantervale isn’t a holding company created in anticipation of a takeover deal’. They have citied ‘sources’ as evidence of this, later clarifying them to be ‘Amanda Staveley’s people’. Now, if we believe even for a second that Amanda Staveley would be in touch with a local newspaper to inform them of her Corporate Structure and Business Strategy, this simply wouldn’t be compatible with Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDA). Mutual NDA’s restrict disclosure of information from parties in negotiations for ‘a specific purpose’, that purpose being the sale of Newcastle United. Therefore, even if Staveley’s people felt compelled to disclose their current situation to local journalists, they couldn’t do so without being in breach of NDA. Not only would a breach result in litigation and possibly compensation for Mike Ashley, it would massively damage her reputation and standing in the corporate world. Given her bread and butter is brokering deals within NDAs, Staveley would be extremely careful to remain within the agreement. Her livelihood depends upon it. It’s highly unlikely she’d risk a breach of the NDA for the sake of hushing a few claims on the NUFC Twittersphere. Given there’s no statements likely to be made about the deal anytime soon, we can only infer the status of the takeover from the information we have. Said information, that which is available at Companies House, suggests a takeover is imminent.

Now, to answer some of the questions put forth in more detail:

Couldn’t Cantervale be created another purpose?

Some of you were asking what the implications of my previous article were for NUFC. The structure of Cantervale is indicative of a ‘vehicle company’ used to transfer assets. The link between it and Penhallow creates a corporate structure in which one would facilitate a takeover of the club.

Given the infrequency in which Staveley establishes Companies like this, the effort expended in doing so, and the way she structured the Man City deal, I am highly confident the Cantervale will be used to transfer a highly valuable asset in the very near future. No prizes for guessing what that asset might be.

Now, ask yourself the following. If you were in the process of negotiating the purchase of a £300 million pound asset, your first ever personal asset purchase of that size, would you deviate attention away from that to focus on the transfer of other assets? Couple this with the January transfer window. Staveley will be devoting all of her time and effort to securing NUFC in order to invest before the window shuts, thus protecting the value of the club.

Furthermore, using Cantervale to transfer other assets would be contrary to how Staveley has undertaken business in the past. She generally focuses on one deal at a time, seeing it through to completion with her and Mr Craig Farquhar undertaking most of the work. For these reasons, I'm certain Cantervale has been put in place to transfer Newcastle United.

But PCP was established in 2005?

This is an understandably confusing, and something I should’ve clarified in the initial article. Pantalaimon Capital Partners LLP was established in 2005 before coming ‘PCP Capital Partners LLP’, Staveley’s parent company. However, the company through which the Man City deal was brokered was ‘PCP Capital Partners Ltd’, an offshoot of ‘PCP Capital Partners LLP’. They’re two different companies.

Who are you to be ITK?

Nothing I have discussed is insider information in any way, and I don’t claim to be ‘in the know’. Having studied Law for the past 5 years, I’ve simply used this knowledge to join the dots in the publicly available information at ‘Companies House’. I’ve then analysed how Amanda Staveley has structured transactions in the past to predict how she will structure the NUFC Deal.