Wanderers up for sale at £25m starting price

Bolton Wanderers Football Club has been put up for sale with bids invited for £25m and above.

The Macron Stadium club, which currently props up the second-tier Championship league table, is offering investors a 94.4% majority stake in Wanderers’ parent company, Burnden Leisure Ltd.

The deal would include total ownership of the stadium, the club’s 40-acred training facility at Lostock and Whites Hotel and Premier Suite.

The club is currently owned by chairman Ken Anderson’s Inner Circle Investments which, initially completed a joint-takeover in March, 2016 with former Bolton striker Dean Holdsworth’s Sports Shield.

He took full control in May last year before completing a deal at the end of August to acquire shares from the liquidator appointed after SSBWFC was wound-up. The company failed to repay a £5m loan from BluMarble Finance.

According to reports, Wanderers have enlisted the help of Maidstone-based Inspire Finance to act as a touchpoint for investors.

For the club to be sold on debt free, financial obligations are due to BluMarble along with Michael James – a lifelong fan whose company Prescot Business Park Ltd entered into a commercial arrangement at the start of 2016 over land at the Macron Stadium – and former vice chairman Brett Warburton, said The Bolton News.

The club has not commented officially but has said a glossy eight-page document was produced to showcase the assets available to prospective buyers or investors.

Fans’ website thelionofviennasuite, named after the nickname of the club’s greatest ever striker Nat Lofthouse, posted pictured of the glossy document and said: “We’ve long heard rumours that Bolton Wanderers chairman Ken Anderson wants to turn a buck, sell the club and move on.

“Well now it seems that we can mark that rumour down as being correct.

“Wanderers have put together this prospectus to send to potential investors.”