Judging superficially, the purchase of the football club Aston Villa by Randy Lerner is not much different from the acquisition by the Glazer family of the club Manchester United. Like Glazers, Lerner intends to rid the club of the restrictions imposed on it by the status of an open company whose shares are traded on the London Stock Exchange and make it his personal toy. However, according to the consultants of the 44-year-old American, the similarity ends there.
As the owner of the Cleveland Browns club, which in 1998, at the time of its purchase by Lerner’s father, cost $ 530 million (and now 892 million), Randy has a sincere interest in the sports business.
Unlike the Glazers, who own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers team, he does not distance himself from the fans and prefers to watch his team play not from a comfortable VIP box, but from a press room. According to American sources, he plans to continue this practice and becoming the owner of Aston Villa, and subsequently can completely eliminate privileged places for the leadership of the team. He is supportive of fans, and since the Lerner family acquired Cleveland Browns, all tickets for her matches have been bought up, and her fan clubs have even appeared in such remote places as Sri Lanka, Mali, and the British county of Essex. Playing Cleveland Browns at home or away, she always enjoys the greatest support compared to other teams of the National Football League.
An interest in British sport came from Lerner, a graduate of Columbia Law School in New York, in the early 80s, when he studied for some time in Cambridge. However, this interest took on a real shape two years ago, when attracted by the growing popularity of the English Premier League, Lerner asked the former league chairman - head of Seymour Pierce investment bank Keith Harris - to find him a club to buy.
Since Lerner gained his first impressions of the game of English clubs in the early 80s, he looked closely at the teams most famous in those years: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal. However, Harris invited Lerner to opt for Aston Villa - this club was more accessible than the others and had the greatest potential.
Unlike the Glazers, who had to borrow a loan of 600 million to buy for 800 million pounds Manchester United, Lerner would pay only 62.6 million for Aston Villa - and exclusively from his own capital.
Lerner’s father died in 2002, and Randy, along with his mother and sister, inherited $ 2.5 billion (1.3 billion pounds). But he earned his billions on his own. Before heading MBNA, Lerner led his own investment company, founded in 1991, for 11 years. Heading the European branch of MBNA in 1999-2002, he spent a lot of time in Europe. He has a private jet, which he uses as a second office, and after acquiring Aston Villa, he plans to become a frequent guest at team matches.
© The Daily Telegraph, UK, 2006 David Bond
The material was published in the "Newspaper" No. 145 of 08.16.2006.