Five-a-side football company Powerleague is recommending a 52p cash bid from major shareholder Patron Sports Leisure.

Five-a-side football company Powerleague is recommending a 52p cash bid from major shareholder Patron Sports Leisure.

Patron Sports, which is indirectly owned by £1.5 billion private equity and property investment concern Patron Capital, has been considering its options at Powerleague ever since buying 29 per cent of the North London-based five-a-side football centre operator. Now Patron, founded and headed by transatlantic financier Keith Breslauer, has reached agreement with AIM-quoted Powerleague’s executive chairman Claude Littner and his board over a cash offer pitched at a 40.5 per cent premium to its price before talks started in April and 16.9 per cent above yesterday’s close — though some 30 per cent below levels reached last year.

Acquisitive Powerleague saw pre-tax profits slip nearly 25 per cent to £3.7 million in the year to July, after deducting £770,000 for accounting standard adjustments, on turnover 17 per cent up at £30.9 million, and did not recommend a dividend. Patron Sports argues taking the company into private ownership will enhance its growth prospects by giving it access to ‘a wider range of funding options’ than are available to it as a public company.

Patron says it will finance its proposals by providing £29 million of equity funding, with £1.2 million coming from the biddee’s management, including chief executive Sean Tracey and finance director Sheena Beckwith, in exchanging their Powerleague shares for ‘B’ shares in Patron Sports. The enlarged group will repay Powerleague’s existing borrowing facilities with £36 million of senior debt facilities and a £2 million revolving credit facility arranged and underwritten by NSBC and Lloyds Banking Group.