CELTIC SHARES SOLD: A SIGN OF IMMINENT CHANGE?
- BY LIAM CARRIGAN
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
There’s been quite a few headlines over the last couple of days regarding the sale of some Celtic shares by the club’s second largest individual shareholder.
That shareholder is Lindsell Train, an investment firm with an estimated value of £13 billion. With that kind of money in their accounts, one has to wonder, what is the significance of selling ￡750,000 worth of Celtic shares?
Well, it’s all a percentages game, and the lack of transparency around all of this should be a cause for concern.
Celtic Shares Sale Highlights Glaring Lack of Transparency
Lindsell Train reduced their Celtic shareholding by around 0.7 percent. This means their new shareholding sits at 15.7 %. On a side note, the fact that nobody in the Scottish press seems to know anything about this company beyond their market value and the identity of its two founders is worrying.
Lack of transparency can often lead to innuendo and accusations of improper conduct.
Now, I am not alleging any impropriety here. However, I will simply state the fact that, at every Celtic AGM, Lindsell Train has consistently voted in line with Celtic’s largest shareholder (not our owner) Dermot Desmond.
Desmond currently holds a 34.6% stake in the club.
So, a quick bit of maths will tell you that, even after the current share reduction, Desmond’s shareholding, paired with that of Lindsell Train still puts their collective shareholding at 50.3%.
In other words, so long as Lindsell Train maintain their current stance of never opposing Dermot Desmond when it comes to voting on board decisions, our absentee landlord can continue to lord it over Celtic and act is if he is our owner, despite only owning a little over a third of the club’s shares.
Again, I want to emphasize, regardless of what speculation you may read elsewhere online, there is no evidence of direct collusion or backhand deals involving either party here.
It’s undeniable though that Dermot Desmond enjoys far more power than a shareholder of his standing should, thanks largely to the unconditional backing of Lindsell Train.
So, why would they reduce their shareholding by such a paltry amount, and why do it now?
Put simply, its business. They are not interested in Celtic as an emotional investment. Their stake in Celtic is purely financial. People don’t usually invest in football clubs to make money. Most people who buy large stakes in football clubs, as Desmond did more than 20 years ago, do so because they have some emotional connection to the club, or in some cases they just enjoy the feeling of power it gives them.
I’ll leave it to others to judge which of the two attitudes stated above applies to Dermot Desmond. Suffice to say, I have my own opinions on the matter.
There is a theory, and one which, given my admittedly limited knowledge of finance, but my extensive knowledge of PR I think has some merit, as to why this small Celtic share sale has happened now.
It is likely that Lindsell Train are aware of current fan unrest, and the subsequent impact it has had on Celtic’s commercial revenue streams. Frankly they’d be negligent if they weren’t aware of it.
Failure to qualify for the Champions League despite having a seemingly very easy path also adds to this financial impact.
It also has the knock-on effect of ensuring that Celtic’s route back into the Champions League, assuming we continue to win the league each season, will only get more difficult as time goes on.
This doesn’t just represent “managed decline” in the eyes of many fans, it also represents diminishing returns, and narrowing scope for commercial expansion if you’re a Celtic shareholder, especially one as significant as Lindsell Train.
Now, so long as they still hold 15.7%, and continue to support Dermot Desmond at future AGMs, nothing significant will change at boardroom level.
However, the majority of their combined stake in Celtic has now been slashed to just 0.3%.
In other words, if Lindsell Train decided to make a similar sale tomorrow, even if they continued to, on the face of it, back Desmond at the AGM, he would be vulnerable, in the unlikely, but still possible event that all other Celtic shareholders united to vote down any motions approved by Desmond that they didn’t like.
This small, seemingly insignificant dumping of a small, seemingly insignificant portion of their shares is such that it seems, on face value, inconsequential. And indeed, that may well be the case.
However, if they are trying to pressure Dermot Desmond into altering the current course he has plotted for Celtic, then this might just be a gentle nudge to remind Desmond that despite his attitude of supremacy, he isn’t a dictator and he doesn’t own Celtic entirely.
The Celtic Fans Collective will soon, probably later today, announce the next phase of their own action plan to force change at the club. Maybe this little bit of corporate maneuvering is meant to serve as a polite reminder to those currently on the board that its not just the fans who are currently displeased. Dermot Desmond may not be as safe in his position as he likes to think he is.