What now for Norwich City as the Delia Smith era comes to an end?
Delia Smith is handing over control of Norwich City Football Club after 27 years as the club’s joint majority shareholder.
The celebrity chef and her husband Michael Wynn Jones have agreed to allow Mark Attanasio’s Norfolk Holdings Group buy newly-created shares which would increase the group’s stake in the club to 85%.
Ms Smith and Mr Wynn Jones are set to stand down from the board of directors and become honorary life presidents, but they won’t make any money from the move.
Who are Mark Attanasio and Norfolk Holdings Group?
Mark Attanasio is an American businessman who is best known for owning the Milwaukee Brewers baseball team.
The Brewers have regularly made Major League Baseball’s post-season play-offs despite being one of the smaller teams in the league.
It was that success and the way it was achieved, with a big emphasis on player data and good relations with fans, that inspired Norwich City to make contact with Mr Attanasio to sound him out in the search for new investment about three years ago.
Norfolk Holdings Group is made up of investors, including Mr Attanasio, who bought shares in the club in 2022.
Why don’t Delia Smith and Michael Wynn Jones stand to make any money from he deal?
The current majority shareholders are not selling or losing anything. The number of shares they will have in the club will remain the same as now.
However, because new shares are being created, their existing shares will drop from being worth 40% of the company to being worth 10%.
The new shares will replace loans totalling £59m that have been made to the club by Norfolk Holdings Group, and that debt will be wiped out.
What happens next?
This is where football governance meets the world of business and finance.
Mr Attanasio and the other members of Norfolk Holdings Group have already been approved by the Football League’s fit-and-proper-persons test, which everyone who wants to become an owner or a director of a league club has to satisfy. That protracted process was completed earlier this year and does not need to be revisited.
However, because Norwich City FC is a PLC, the plan must go before The Takeover Panel. This would happen for any PLC that wanted to change its ownership model, whether it was a football club or not.
In simple terms, the panel's aim is to protect the interests of a company’s minor shareholders to ensure they are being treated fairly. Norwich City is hopeful this process will be completed by the end of September. It will also be necessary for the independent shareholders to approve the plan at an extraordinary general meeting.
If all goes smoothly, Ms Smith and Mr Wynn Jones will step down from the board by the end of September. The share issue would be completed by March 2025.
What do Norwich City supporters make of it?
Twenty-seven years is a long time in any business, and particularly in football.
Back in the mid-1990s, the Canaries were in a perilous state financially and on the brink of administration. Ms Smith and Mr Wynn Jones, along with other directors at the time, were credited with turning the business round.
The two-and-a-half decades since then have been a rollercoaster of six promotions, six relegations and 15 head coaches (or managers), of which Johannes Hoff Thorup is the latest.
Many supporters have expressed gratitude that the pair have been fiercely protective of the club where they were previously season-ticket holders. They have often spoken out against the eyewatering amounts of money in modern football and the risks that some clubs take as they chase Premier League football.
Other fans have been frustrated by that approach in recent years as Norwich have managed to win promotion to the Premier League on several occasions but then struggled to compete without someone to plough in vast sums of cash.
Each triumphant Premier League promotion has been followed by relegation – sometimes in meek fashion.
What is beyond doubt is that Norwich are waving goodbye to owners who have a passion for the club and genuinely believe they have always acted in the best interests of its long-term sustainability.
Mr Attanasio has had to prove that he has the right approach and ethics to take the club on, and has been working alongside Ms Smith and Mr Wynn Jones for the past couple of years.
Will Norwich City now become big spenders or will they still have to sell their top players?
Brazilian midfielder Gabriel Sara became the latest high-profile departure from Carrow Road when he was sold to Galatasaray this month for more than £20m. Norwich supporters would dearly love transfers like that to become a thing of the past.
But that feels somewhat unrealistic. Most clubs end up selling their best players at some point because there is usually a bigger club with more money to throw at them. They also have agents and advisors who stand to profit from moving talent around.
The Milwaukee Brewers approach suggests that the Canaries will take pride in developing talent and at least getting into a position where they can maximise the value of any player that does leave the club.
Mr Attanasio played in active role an recruiting Ben Knapper as sporting director last year. Finding talented players before bigger clubs do, giving them a chance to shine and then selling them on for a profit to reinvest is bound to be a major part of the plan.
Mr Attanasio doesn’t have the feel of a "sugar daddy" owner but having investors with deeper pockets provides some insurance against the need to have a fire sale of players when the going gets tough.
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