Stan Kroenke on the verge of Arsenal takeover bid

Stan Kroenke's long drawn-out pursuit of Arsenal looks to be finally reaching its denouement, as the American billionaire acquired another 427 shares in the club yesterday to take his holding to 29.6 per cent. The 62-year-old spent £3.6m buying up shares from the estate of British industrialist Ernest Harrison, and is now just 0.3 per cent away from reaching the level at which he would have to make a takeover bid.

The Arsenal board appears to still be relaxed about Kroenke's intentions for the club. At last month's AGM Peter Hill-Wood, the chairman, helped the American to fend off questions from the floor that demanded to know whether Kroenke planned to take over the club.

Had he been forced to answer, it would have had implications for when he could have bought the club. [Under the Takeover Panel's rule 2.8, anyone who makes an unambiguous statement about their intentions towards a company is prevented from making a formal move for it within six months.]

Others involved in the club are similarly unfazed by Kroenke's approaches, perhaps seeing him as the lesser of two evils (mysterious Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who owns just over a quarter of Arsenal, being the other).

The Arsenal Supporters' Trust said in a statement yesterday that: "We believe in plurality of ownership... We have repeatedly stated that we are generally opposed to a takeover and would fight any plans that require the club to incur debt to pay for a takeover, as has happened at Manchester United and Liverpool.

"Two red lines that cannot be crossed are the use of debt secured on the club's assets to fund a takeover and an ownership structure which excludes small shareholders. Arsenal is too important to be owned by any one person. The AST has a good relationship with both Stan Kroenke and members of his team at Kroenke Sports Enterprises (KSE).

"We have stressed to them the importance of custodianship and that the club will be stronger if it has supporters directly involved in its ownership model." It concluded: "While we cannot vouch for their future actions, we are encouraged that they have said they see the AST having an important role to play at Arsenal."