Above comment on this Athletic article describing the Yank scramble to use the Chelsea sale to milk English football sums it up
The Chelsea bidders: The Ricketts family and Ken Griffin – proven, ready but unpopular
Matt Slater and Liam Twomey 4h ago 28
There are four bids shortlisted to take over Chelsea from Roman Abramovich, led by Todd Boehly, David Blitzer and Josh Harris, the Ricketts family and Ken Griffin, and Stephen Pagliuca.
The Raine Group, the New York-based bank running the selling process, is aiming to complete their section of the deal by the end of April, at which stage they will take their preferred bidder to the government and Premier League.
The Athletic will profile the four bidders, starting with the Ricketts family and Griffin…
If the race to buy Chelsea really has entered the beauty parade part of the process, there is no argument about which of the four finalists needs a makeover.
On the face of it, the bid led by the Ricketts family ticks every box: they are rich, they are backed by somebody in Ken Griffin who is even richer, they have experience of running a big sports team from a major city, they have developed that team’s historic home and created an entertainment district adjacent to the stadium, and they have enjoyed sporting success.
The bid’s frontman is Tom Ricketts, the 55-year-old chairman of the Chicago Cubs, one of Major League Baseball’s oldest and most famous teams, but he is joined on the ticket by his two brothers, Pete and Todd, and Laura, his sister.
Cubs, Ricketts
Laura, Tom and Todd Ricketts (left to right) throw the ceremonial first pitch before a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Wrigley Field in 2017 (Photo: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports)
Tom has run the Cubs for the family since they bought the team (in a contested auction) in 2009, and his siblings have all held positions on the board. Tom is also the chairman and co-founder of Incapital, an investment firm that specialises in corporate bonds, and he was a member of the American consortium that owned Derby County between 2008 and 2015.
Pete is the governor of Nebraska — the family’s home state — and youngest brother Todd is another prominent Republican, as he is the finance chairman of the party’s national committee. The family Democrat is Laura, a lawyer and campaigner for women’s rights and LGBT issues.
So, it is easy to see why some observers of this most unusual takeover tale, including sources close to rival bids, believe Raine wants to sell Chelsea to the Ricketts and their backer Griffin. The rationale is that they are proven, ready and well-connected.
Unfortunately, they are also the only bidding group that a large section of Chelsea’s fanbase has actively campaigned against. If this was a popularity contest, the Ricketts would not have got any further than the public auditions.
They are in this hole because of some ugly comments made by Joe Ricketts, their father, in a cache of private emails. They were sent between 2009 and 2014 but not leaked until 2019, when the left-leaning news and opinion website Splinter published them in a story titled: Here Are The Racist Conspiracy Emails Rotting Right-Wing Billionaire Joe Ricketts’ Brain.
Joe, now 80, elevated his family into the sports franchise-ownership classes by co-founding a stockbroking business in Nebraska in 1975. Twenty years and a couple of acquisitions later, it had become the first company to offer retail investors an electronic trading platform. Two years after that, it floated, making Ricketts and his original partners very wealthy men.
In 2011, aged 70, he stood down from the board. By this point, Ameritrade had bought Toronto-Dominion Bank’s US brokerage arm and rebranded as TD Ameritrade. The company has subsequently been bought by American financial services giant Charles Schwab Corporation and remains a major player in its field.
Retirement gave Joe more time to pursue his passion for American history, philanthropy and funding politicians who agree with his vision for low taxes, small government and traditional American values.
Ricketts
Joe Ricketts campaigning for son Pete in October 2014 (Photo: AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
If Joe had left it at that, we would now be moving on briskly to a discussion about how the Cubs broke their 108-year World Series drought in 2016, why they have not won another one since and whether they can turn Chelsea Village into a place families might want to spend some time and money, as opposed to being a very average hotel tacked onto a football stadium.
But Joe did not leave it there.
In the emails published by Splinter, Joe Ricketts wrote, “Islam is a cult and not a religion”, “Muslims are naturally my (our) enemy” and “we cannot ever let Islam become a large part of our society”. He also shared conspiracy theories about former US president Barack Obama and passed on several “joke” emails based on racial slurs.
Once published, Tom Ricketts issued a statement to distance himself, his siblings and the Cubs from his father’s “racially insensitive” comments.
“Let me be clear: the language and views expressed in those emails have no place in our society,” said Tom Ricketts, who also pointed out that Joe was not involved in day-to-day operations at the club.
“These emails do not reflect the culture we’ve worked so hard to build at the Chicago Cubs since 2009,” he added.
Joe Ricketts also published a short statement on his personal website.
“I deeply regret and apologise for some of the exchanges I had in my emails,” he wrote. “Sometimes I received emails that I should have condemned. Other times I’ve said things that don’t reflect my value system. I strongly believe that bigoted ideas are wrong.”
The condemnation of these remarks was rapid and widespread, with senior Democrats in the Chicago area, whose opponents had sometimes been funded by Joe Ricketts, leading the charge.
But then… not much, really. The Cubs worked hard to repair relations with the Muslim community in the city, Joe kept his head down on his ranch in Wyoming and the storm passed.
It seemed that most sports fans in the city decided Tom and his siblings were not responsible for their father’s views and should be judged on more traditional measures such as the price of tickets at Wrigley Field (on the high side) and why the Cubs’ best players kept leaving for other teams.
Normal, typical, everyday stuff for billionaire owners of sports teams to deal with or ignore, as they see fit.
That probably explains why the Ricketts family were so spectacularly blindsided by the reaction to Joe Ricketts’ emails from Chelsea fans. And why they have, so far, been completely unable to get past it.
Despite their rivals for Chelsea all having their own issues to tackle, only one bid has provoked a trending hashtag on Twitter — and #NoToRicketts is not a vote of confidence.
An initial attempt to address the concerns of Chelsea fans has arguably made things even worse. Last week, the Chelsea Supporters Trust (CST) stated it had met representatives from the bid in London and was grateful for the opportunity to do so.
“However, our concerns about their ability to run an inclusive, successful club on behalf of our diverse supporter base around the world have not yet been allayed,” the trust said.
“It is for the Ricketts family to demonstrate how they will address supporter concerns — especially concerning inclusivity, given both past and recent statements by members of the family, and they have not yet done that.
“They must do so publicly and they must do so urgently. If they are unable to do this and gain the confidence of Chelsea supporters, the CST board does not believe it would be in the best interests of our members and Chelsea supporters for their bid to succeed.”
This forced an immediate response from Tom Ricketts, who said although he and his family were very grateful to the fans who had come to listen to them, it was obvious there was more work to be done.
“It is now up to us to redouble our efforts and lay out a vision for our stewardship of the club with diversity and inclusion at its heart,” Tom Ricketts added.
If they fail, the Ricketts can forget about ever running a club that employs N’Golo Kante, Antonio Rudiger and Hakim Ziyech, just three of the Muslim members of staff at Stamford Bridge, or one that has so many Muslim fans around the world.
In fact, they can probably forget about ever running any English football club, as their father’s comments are now by far the most famous thing about the family on this side of the Atlantic. And this would be a significant blow for Tom Ricketts, in particular, as one of the reasons his bid looked so good a few weeks ago is that he has been trying to buy a football team for several years. He had already looked at Chelsea, thereby reducing the amount of due diligence needed now when time is so short.
Due diligence, of course, should be a two-way street. It is therefore a shame that nobody pointed out that English football fans — particularly ones upset about the idea of swapping arguably the most generous benefactor in football history for Americans who will expect a return on their investment — can be very hard to win over once they have made their minds up about something.
If the Ricketts family are the divisive face of this Chelsea bid, Ken Griffin represents the formidably deep pair of pockets.
Griffin, 53, is the founder and CEO of Citadel LLC, one of the biggest financial service companies in the world. It consists of two main businesses: the Citadel hedge fund — which he started soon after graduating from Harvard with a degree in economics in 1990 and now manages approximately $39 billion (£30 billion) in assets — and Citadel Securities, one of Wall Street’s biggest market-making firms that accounts for 40 per cent of all shares traded by individual investors in the United States.
Both are majority-owned by Griffin, who is estimated by Forbes to have a net worth of $28.4 (£21.7) billion. For some billionaire context, that number is more than three times the estimated net worth of Roman Abramovich and almost twice that of Jim Ratcliffe, the Monaco-based British industrialist who bought Ligue 1 club Nice in August 2019 after mounting a prolonged, public bid to acquire Chelsea.
In many ways, Griffin stands as the archetype of the successful American capitalist. As a university student, he put a satellite dish on the roof of his building so he could inform his earliest trades with real-time stock quotes. Soon after moving to Chicago, he began building Citadel from an upstart investment firm that targeted distressed assets into a company that now employs 1,150 people at its 37-storey headquarters, 1,000 more in New York and has 16 offices worldwide.
“Business is business,” Griffin told The Wall Street Journal in 2015. “I don’t manufacture cars, but we do manufacture money.”
Underpinning the rise of Citadel has been Griffin’s burning desire to win, his intolerance of failure and, above all, his ruthless pursuit of profit that has taken the company down some unsavoury paths.
In 2005, as the south-east United States reeled from the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, Citadel saw an opportunity for returns in the realm of catastrophe reinsurance — the business of insuring insurers hit hard by the disaster — and founded a Bermuda-based reinsurer called New Castle Re to tap into expected price rises. This move, part of a broader shift from hedge funds and private equity firms, paid dividends as insurance premiums increased by 100 to 200 per cent for the Gulf Coast.
Chelsea, Griffin
Griffin during The New York Times DealBook Online Summit in November 2021 (Photo: Ryan Muir/Getty Images via The New York Times)
Two years later, Citadel provided $110 million (£84 million) in convertible loans to China Security and Surveillance Technology. The company, which used the money to acquire 10 of the 50 biggest surveillance companies in China, has been accused of providing much of the surveillance infrastructure for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, including technology used to alert police of possible unsanctioned protests and monitoring of internet cafes to track down democracy advocates and dissidents. Citadel declined to comment when the New York Times reported the loans.
The financial crash of 2008 put Citadel in dire straits. Its hedge fund lost 55 per cent of its assets, forcing Griffin to restrict investor withdrawals to prevent the company’s collapse. Once the initial storm had been weathered, he responded by moving to scoop up the best traders jettisoned by banks adjusting to a more regulated environment.
Traders are given significant autonomy at Citadel but are also held relentlessly accountable, and Griffin sets a Darwinian tone for the culture. “If you do well you’re rewarded, and if you don’t, you’re fired,” Jack Woodruff, a trader who left the company to set up his own hedge fund, told the Financial Times last year. “It’s not a political place at all. It is capitalism in its purest form.”
Others have been less generous in their assessment. In an email sent to Griffin in 2005, rival hedge fund manager Dan Loeb likened Citadel to a “gulag” (a system of forced labour camps in the Soviet Union) and added: “You are surrounded by sycophants, but even you must know that the people who work for you despise and resent you. I assume you know this because I have read the employment agreements that you make people sign.”
Asked about Citadel’s culture in an interview with Bloomberg’s business channel in 2017, Griffin made a topical comparison: “It’s, in some sense, like a professional sports team, and if you’re no longer on your game we don’t have room for you on that team,” he explained.
Citadel now places wagers on markets rising and falling worldwide to limit the risk of catastrophic losses, and the expansion into trading securities for others has helped power a spectacular recovery — but one that has also made the company and Griffin himself magnets for controversy.
Griffin’s public criticism of the wave of gun crime in Chicago in recent years jars with the fact that Citadel has invested millions in Storm Ruger & Co and Smith & Wesson Brands Inc, two of the leading manufacturers of guns seized by Chicago Police, as well as every major manufacturer of ammunition in the US. Citadel also invests in GEO Group and CoreCivic, private prison operators that run immigration detention centres, despite other US financial institutions cutting ties with both.
When questioned about these investments by WBEZ last month, a Citadel spokesperson said Griffin doesn’t have a role in the company’s stock choices, adding that the investments make up less than 0.01 per cent of the company’s portfolio and therefore that linking them with violent crime in Chicago is “quite a stretch”.
The global pandemic shutdown was a lucrative period for Citadel and Griffin’s net worth grew by $5 billion (£3.8 billion). He personally funded the US State Department’s rescue of hundreds of US citizens from Wuhan, China in January 2020 and donated $45 million (£34 million) to community initiatives. But Citadel also made millions by shorting the stocks of European airlines, cinema chains and UK supermarkets Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.
Citadel also significantly increased its investment in pharmaceutical companies Moderna, Pfizer, AstraZeneca and NovaVax in the weeks before then-president Donald Trump announced Operation Warp Speed, pledging $10 billion (£7.6 billion) of government funds to COVID-19 vaccine development.
Early last year, Griffin was summoned before Congress, where he denied accusations of a conflict of interest between Citadel’s hedge fund and securities trading operation in the GameStop trading scandal. Shares in GameStop plunged by as much as 55 per cent in January 2021 after trading platforms curbed the purchase of them and major hedge funds had bet billions of dollars the shares would fall.
Ken Griffin, Chelsea
Griffin appears virtually at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in February 2021 (Photo: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
But that was far from the most damaging brush with authority in recent times. Citadel has been fined 60 times by various US regulatory agencies with total fines adding up to more than $31 million (£23.7 million). This includes a fine of $22.6 million (£17.2 million) from the SEC (US Securities and Exchange Commission) to settle charges that the company hurt retail investors by not providing the best price when executing millions of trades between 2007 and 2010. Citadel Securities agreed to pay without admitting or denying the findings.
In February 2020, Citadel agreed to pay $97 million (£74 million) to resolve “alleged trading rule violations” in the Chinese stock market that had resulted in a company trading account being suspended for five years. A spokesperson for Citadel Securities said it had “worked closely with the CSRC (China Security Regulatory Commission) through the reconciliation process”, adding that resolving the matter was important to the company “as China continues to expand opportunities for foreign participation in its financial markets.”
Griffin’s status as the richest man in Illinois would have been enough to bring him to the attention of the Ricketts, but he has also emerged as a Republican Party megadonor in recent years, pledging $65 million (£49 million) to causes in the 2020 elections. The surprise in their partnership to bid for Chelsea is that until now he has shown relatively little public interest in sport, despite lavish spending on other hobbies: his art collection is valued at around £1 billion and in January 2019, he paid £95 million for a mansion near Buckingham Palace.
His broader approach to investment suggests he — for this is very much a private Griffin venture, not a Citadel one — may be relying on the Ricketts’ sports owner credentials with the Chicago Cubs as he prepares to enter the unfamiliar business of European football.
“What I find works well over time is having a deep expertise in the area in which you’re participating,” he told Bloomberg in 2017. “The core belief we have is that deep expertise is rewarded, so we organise our affairs where people specialise… it’s that deep specialisation that we think drives differentiated and superior returns.”
Despite his staggering wealth, everything in his professional history indicates Griffin will only spend on Chelsea what he believes he will get back in the long run.
What did you think of this story?
Mike W.m4h ago 30 likes
Yuk. Trumpers and corporate raiders wringing every dollar from Chelsea fans. And every dollar spent will enrich the worse of American billionaires cashing in on tragedy.
Jeremy K. 3h ago 12 likes
Ask Cubs fans if they even want Ricketts anymore. Can’t pay for players after stadium rebuild. Were competitive for about 3 years in all before letting the team atrophy. Not to mention the Rickett brother trying to outlaw abortion in Nebraska. Train wreck family and train wreck EPL owners if it happens. The less said about Griffen, the better. No To Ricketts!
Alexander O. 3h ago8 likes
As a non-Chelsea fan, some of these guys sound just as bad as Roman…if not worse.
They’re basically the Capitalist equivalent to whatever communist version of Billionaire Roman is.
Michelle S.8 h ago4 likes
Roman has been a wonderful owner. If your idea of communism is helping the community & the NHS, bring it on.
robbed and the number of sports washing he did, including helping to fund a war.
I bet you’re one of those people that can excuse Bill Gates enjoying Epstein’s island, just because of his philanthropic work.
The last paragraph sums it up perfectly. They are here to milk us. Their partnership with the Raine Group is a major conflict of interest, Cubs fans despise them. Let Todd Boehly and Co. win already.
Brendan C.3 h ago 14 likes
Living in Chicago, and a Liverpool fan. These are odious people. If you are a Chelsea fan, I feel massive sympathy for you, especially if these guys get their hooks into your club.
Tyler A.2h ago3 likes
@Brendan C. What a small world - Chelsea could very well be entering the Hicks/Gillett model of ownership that almost sunk Liverpool, and Martin Broughton is one of the finalists (though Harris/Blitzer/Ranidive/etc. are the money) competing for the club.
Just feels like with all the animus Rickets/Griffin have generated, one of the other choices would make this process easier, particularly if the "auction" is going to charity and the decision makers (and there is ZERO chance Abramovich isn't in on the back channels) are considering "non-economic" factors as part of this.
Fernando D.
3h ago
Insightful piece.
2 likes
This was a good piece, but for me the biggest "inside job" supporting evidence I've seen regarding the Ricketts and Raine Group is the fact they formed a SPAC in 2020 at around $325 million to look into a sports/entertainment acquisition, principally a team. While it doesn't look like they'll need the public markets at this stage (though the Glazers have done it with Manchester United) the business ties are there even if a SPAC isn't the vehicle of choice for this deal. That said, I'm guessing there are a finite number of banks who are really SPAC experts in the pro sports context, so maybe it's not the smoking gun I think it could be. http://www.yahoo.com/video/cubs-tom-ric ... 43706.html
Just feels like with the political heat Ricketts/Griffin are facing and the fact that Borughton's group (specifically Harris and Blitzer) and Pagliuca will have to extricate themselves from PL/European clubs to complete a deal that needs to move fast given the sanctions, Boehly/Wyss is the "cleanest" deal. Unless Griffin (who seems to be the biggest individual whale in the process, though maybe the hedge funds affiliated with other groups poney up) is ready to cut a massive check, Boehly seems to be the frontman with the fewest complications at this point.
Bobby C.
2h ago
8 likes
I will refuse to spend money on anything Chelsea related if the Ricketts own the team.
They are Trump supporters, greedy, privileged and albeit they aren’t their father so I’m not sure it’s fair to say they are specifically racist but I doubt their views stray too far away from their father. I am an American and they embarrass me. Raine group listen to Chelsea fans. Our voice matters. Do not sell Chelsea to these people.
Patrick J.
2h ago
3 likes
sounds like a despicable family
Richard V.
2h ago
4 likes
The continuing journalistic hyperfocus on Joe Ricketts when Chelsea fans have dug up plenty of problematic comments made by the rest of the family baffles me.
Matt E.
1h ago
What comments were these please?
Alex W.
1h ago
My money’s on Boehly.
Matt E.
1h ago
1 like
As Chelsea fans I don't think we should kid ourselves into thinking that any bid will be funded by 'clean' money - every billionaire is morally reprehensible by definition in my opinion (and that goes for Roman too of course) - but it's a necessary evil to keep the club competitive.
That said, this bid represents the worst characteristics of the types of people who will end up running the club. The Ricketts are essentially racist Glazers, and Ken Griffin has made his money exploiting crises, fixing the books and worsening the lives of the under-privileged in society. Chelsea funded by Bobby Axelrod? No thanks.
So far I've been drawn most to the Boehly bid, but looking forward to the long read on each of the remaining candidates before making my mind up.
Jon T.
1h ago
I stand with our American brothers and listen when they say "don't touch these guys with a bargepole".
Andrew T.
54m ago
1 like
What do the Ricketts bring to this Ricketts-Griffin partnership? Their headline offering of islamophobia and inequality isn’t a great start. “We didn’t send those emails! It was dad!” Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree judging by the kids long standing and public support/funding of that paragon of equality – one D. Trump. Leaving that aside they aren’t providing any cash either. That’s all Griffin. So their role is on the sporting side and every briefing from them concerns the 2016 World Series win. The obvious retort being...so? Is one World Series in 13 years of ownership meant to impress and win over our fanbase? That kind of track record would be unacceptable at Chelsea.
So again – what are the Ricketts offering? If Griffin wants us why doesn’t he ditch the noise from the Ricketts and go on his own? The Ricketts are more trouble than they are worth and Griffin has the money to blow anyone out the water (including Roman). A simple takeover by one guy who’d leave the existing structure in place would win this race. What could the Ricketts do better day-to-day than Marina? Judging by their record at the Cubs the only thing they specialise in is incompetence and pissing off a fanbase.
Griffin’s almost unlimited funds have kept this bid in the running but from the outside it feels like the only reason he hasn’t won this race already is because he hitched his wagon to the worst possible partners. His campaign needs a new running mate. The quietly impressive Boehly bid might not have Griffin’s unlimited cash but it’s well ahead of this car crash partnership.
Daniel B.
51m ago
2 likes
On the other hand they have the money and some experience at running a sports team that won something for the first time in 100 years. That team broke up but it also radically underperformed (particularly the position players) post 2016 and some of the contracts offered - see Rizzo - have not been matched on the open market since.
Willing to give more of a chance than others here I guess. None of the money will be totally ethical - you dont become a billionaire without running a few people over. Many people have embarassing members of family that bring the whole lot into disrepute. Be interested to see the split of matchday going fans who are as loathing of the Ricketts bid as the Twitter mob - it wasnt too long ago the latter were falling over themselves for a Saudi group...
Tom B.
47m ago
Every single person connected to the bids will have some skeleton in the closet. The stuff about Griffin / Citadel seems very minor to me, it’s going to happen when you run a successful business. The emails from the Ricketts father are manifestly unacceptable, but he has nothing to do with this. Do we hold children liable for what their parents say? My major concern with them is that they don’t seem to be as committed to winning as Boehly does. So I would prefer him, ideally with the financial firepower of a Griffin alongside him.
WJin
42m ago
I don't want Ken Griffin even more than Ricketts
Jack G.
.I assume there will be part two on the other two bidders coming up?