The American businessmen who own Liverpool Football Club have hired heavyweight City advisers to oversee an auction of part or all of the Premiership outfit, I have learned.
Tom Hicks and George Gillett are on the verge of appointing Barclays Capital, the investment bank, to handle a sale process that will begin shortly by inviting new offers for the club.
It's the latest chapter of an ownership saga that has angered Liverpool fans in recent months as they've seen their team knocked out of the Champions' League and fall away surprisingly early in the Premiership title race.
The owners hope that recruiting Barcap will inject fresh impetus into their quest for new investment, although their preference is now for an outright sale rather than to find an investor prepared to buy a minority stake.
"This is almost certain to be an exit process," a person close to the situation told me tonight. Notwithstanding that, Hicks and Gillett have no intention of selling on the cheap and will rebuff offers for the club that they believe fail to reflect its value. Equally, they may decide to sell only a minority stake if that offers the best immediate value available to them.
As I understand it, Barcap will therefore advise the owners on all options open to them, not just an outright sale.
To provide reassurance for potential buyers that the auction is a genuine attempt to sell the club, Martin Broughton, the chairman of British Airways, will be confirmed as Liverpool's chairman in the early part of next week. His appointment, which is not quite certain yet but which is overwhelmingly likely, will mean Hicks and Gillett stepping down as co-chairmen.
Broughton's role at Liverpool will effectively be that of an interim chairman given that I understand he will play a key role in overseeing the sale of the club.
He would seem to be a well-suited candidate for such a role, given his deep personal interest in sport (he's a keen Chelsea fan and a former chairman of the British Horseracing Board) and his experience of handling challenging corporate situations.
The perception among potential investors that Hicks and Gillett are at loggerheads has played a significant role in frustrating the search for new money.
Rhone Capital, a US private equity firm, did table a proposal several weeks ago that would have seen it acquire a minority equity stake (that would have included management control) in Liverpool for about £100m. Hicks and Gillett were not keen on the idea, and the offer has now lapsed.
There's certainly other interest out there too, including from Middle Eastern and Indian investors, although there are no further firm proposals on the table yet. However, the prospect of full ownership is likely to whet the appetite of many buyers given the possibility of a move to a new stadium and the latent commercial potential of the club.
Liverpool needs an injection of capital to meet the demands of its main creditor, Royal Bank of Scotland, that it reduce its debt by about £100m.
Given that RBS is majority-owned by the British taxpayer, it's unlikely in the extreme that it would want to take control of the club.
That said, the bank is determined to see Liverpool refinanced in the short term.
This news about Liverpool increases the likelihood that English football's three most famous clubs will change hands, given a potential takeover bid for Arsenal from Stan Kroenke and the Red Knights' plans to bid for Manchester United.
Liverpool and its owners declined to comment this evening.
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