Belgravia confirms acquisition of Newcastle United Football Club

The speculations about the Belgravia Group’s plan to acquire Newcastle United Football Club have turned into reality when the investment company has confirmed on Monday that it was looking at the possibility of acquiring UK based soccer club Newcastle United Plc.

Headquartered in Jersey, England, the investment company Belgravia said in a statement, "The Belgravia Group ('Belgravia') confirms that it is examining the potential opportunity of acquiring Newcastle United plc, which may or may not lead to an offer for the company being made by Belgravia."

The statement follows the recent media reports in which it was stated that Belgravia had approached the Tyneside club and initial discussions had already taken place. In another report, a spokesman for the group was cited over the weekend as saying that Belgravia saw the potential acquisition of the St James' Park club as "an attractive opportunity".

The group's spokesman, however, added in the report: "It is at an early stage and nothing is finalised."

Belgravia's interest also comes after Newcastle's Premier League rivals Aston Villa, a week ago, agreed to a 62.6 million pound cash takeover by a group led by U.S. billionaire Randy Lerner.

It has been asserted that Belgravia have already held talks with former Magpies chairman Sir John Hall, who confirmed earlier this year that he had received "expressions of interest" in his stake.

Hall possesses 28.8% of the stock market quoted club while his son Douglas owns 12% of the company and current Newcastle chairman Freddy Shepherd owns a 28% stake.

Shares in Newcastle United rose 11.5 percent to 69.6 pence a share, valuing the company at close to 96 million pounds.

The investment Group has an array of businesses in which one is an "affinity marketing" consultancy, which helps clients such as Everton, Arsenal, and Mastercard develop products such as football-club-branded credit cards.

Besides, it has some more business interests including telecommunications and media, construction and hospitality, and aviation. The group, headed by Duncan Hickman, has about $2 billion (1.1 billion pounds) of assets, mainly in its Belgravia Asset Management division.