Bill Gates passed up the opportunity to buy Liverpool FC before FSG took over

Bill Gates passed up the opportunity to buy Liverpool when the club was being sold by Barclays Capital (Barcap) in the final months of the Tom Hicks and George Gillett ownership regime.

The 10th anniversary of Hicks’ and Gillett’s takeover of Liverpool fell on February 6 and court documents pertaining to the sale of the club in October 2010 have revealed that an unsolicited approach was made to Gates, one of the world’s richest men, prior to a deal being struck with current owners Fenway Sports Group (FSG). The nature of the approach, along with a similar attempt to engage Robert Kraft, the New England Patriots owner, is revealed in legal documents lodged in the USA relating to an ongoing court battle between Mill Financial, a company which tried and failed to buy Liverpool, Gillett and the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). A deposition provided by Sir Martin Broughton, Liverpool’s chairman during the sales process, to the commercial division of the New York County Supreme Court discloses that Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, was one of a number of wealthy individuals approached during a global search for a buyer. Asked if he understood that “there was at least an attempt to contact Bill Gates and Bob Kraft in the US?” Broughton replied, “correct.” He then added that the search for a buyer “covered every continent and they were making contacts with people around the world.”

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Gates failed to respond to the approach as did Kraft, leaving Barcap to continue a trawl which eventually led to three interested parties - FSG (then known as NESV, Meriton and Mill Financial – emerging as the most likely prospective buyers. Mill has brought the case against Gillett after he failed to pay a $70 million loan back to the financial institution in January 2008 with accompanying legal papers claiming he offered a 50% “membership interest in Liverpool” instead. RBS are also named as defendants in the case which began more than six years ago, a month after FSG completed their takeover of Liverpool. Up to now, 656 legal documents have been lodged with the court, the last of which was on January 24 this year, with each of them offering an insight into the complex process which culminated in the sale of the club. As well as the Gates revelation, it is also disclosed that Barcap received two bids from Meriton, a company owned by Peter Lim who went on to buy Valencia, and Mill which both valued Liverpool higher than NESV’s offer of between £285m-300m. Neither bid was considered, though, as an agreement had already been reached with NESV.

“We received offers from Mill that were above, and from Meriton that were above,” Broughton confirmed. Asked how much consideration had been given to those bids, he replied “None – Because we had already signed a sale agreement". NESV completed their takeover of Liverpool on October 15, 2010 having valued the club at around £300 million. Hicks and Gillett subsequently claimed that the deal was “illegal” and had come about as a result of “an extraordinary swindle.”