777 Partners' bid to buy Everton is still alive, after Farhad Moshiri extended the sales and purchase agreement with the firm until the end of this month.
A statement by the Everton Fan Advisory Board based on communication from interim CEO Colin Chong, has confirmed a report in The Telegraph that Moshiri is holding the door open for 777 despite the Miami private equity company having failed over the course of eight months to satisfy the Premier League's conditions for approval of the buy-out.
777 Partners co-founders, Josh Wander and Steve Pasko, first struck an agreement to purchase the Anglo-Iranian's 94.1% stake in the Club in mid-September, with a projected timeline of 12 weeks to complete the deal.
However, after the situation dragged into the spring of this year, Moshiri and MSP Sports Capital set a deadline of 15th April for 777 to meet the most onerous of the conditions, namely the repayment of a £158m to MSP, a target they failed to meet.
That deadline was extended for an undisclosed period of time, thought to be a matter of weeks, and though Alan Myers of Sky Sports has tweeted that Moshiri "had some doubts over the deal", it now appears as though Moshiri has set a hard date of 31st May.
Should 777 Partners fail to complete the takeover, Moshiri will "progress alternative scenarios".
Those doubts over the embattled firm's abiity to get the deal over the line remain significant, however, as they grapple with their own financial problems.
Last week, 777 called in crisis management and bankruptcy experts to assist with “various operational challenges”, as they were hit with arguably the most severe of the civil lawsuits against them in the US the form of an allegation of fraud to the tune of $350m from London-based Leadenhall Capital Partners.
n the interim, there have been reports that MSP, who were close to purchasing a 25% stake in Everton last August before the club's primary creditor, Rights & Media Funding, balked at the terms, were exploring fresh takeover proposals.
Sources claim, however, that privately there is little desire on MSP's part to own the Club outright and they may seek, through Evertonian businessmen, Andy Bell and George Downing, other investment partners if they are to proceed with injecting further capital.
At the same time, Bloomberg's David Hellier, who has done a lot of reporting on the situation regarding Everton and 777 Partners, writes today that the Blues could be offered a £150m loan from GDA Luma Capital, another private equity outfit who specialise in "distressed debt".
GDA Luma are the same lenders reported to be talking to 777 about providing them the capital to complete their takeover of Everton but the inference here appears to be that this loan would be independent of that and though reports claim it would provide the Club the funds needed to complete construction at Bramley-Moore Dock, Evertonian finance expert The Esk insists this would be used to repay MSP instead.
