Amanda Staveley

Amanda Louise Staveley (born 11 April 1973) is a British business executive. She is notable chiefly for her connections with Middle Eastern investors. She helped a Saudi consortium take over Newcastle United in a deal completed in October 2021 and has joined the board of directors.

In 2008, Staveley played a prominent role in the investment of £7.3 billion in Barclays by the ruling families of Abu Dhabi and Qatar, and by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund.

Staveley's firm, PCP Capital Partners, acted for Sheikh Mansour Bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the Abu Dhabi royal family, who invested £3.5 billion to control 16 percent of the bank. The deal was reported to have earned PCP Capital Partners a commission of £110 million, which, after paying advisers, represented a profit of £40 million.Waples, John
"Golden girl Amanda Staveley paid £40 million by Barclays"
''The Sunday Times'' (London), 2 November 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2011.Thompson, James
"Staveley banks a £40 million bonanza for brokering Barclays' Abu Dhabi deal"
''The Independent'' (London), 3 November 2008. Retrieved 11 March 2011. Staveley was also involved in Mansour's high-profile purchase of Manchester City F.C. in September 2008.

Staveley has also attempted on two occasions to buy a stake in Newcastle United, first in 2018 and again in 2020 as part of a group led by Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund. The takeover was completed on 7 October 2021 with Staveley owning 10% of the club, Reuben Brothers owning 10%, and Public Investment Fund (PIF), Saudi Arabia's sovereign wealth fund, owning 80%.

Early life and education

Staveley was born near Ripon in Yorkshire.Robinson, James
"Amanda Staveley: Flying fixer of the Square Mile"
''The Observer'' (London), 25 January 2009. Retrieved 20 February 2011.Teather, David
"Interview: Amanda Staveley"
''The Guardian'' (London), 7 November 2008. Retrieved 21 February 2011. She is the daughter of Robert Staveley,"Profile: Amanda Staveley, the new Queen of British football"
''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), 4 September 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2011. a North Yorkshire landowner who founded the Lightwater Valley theme park, where Staveley waitressed as a child; her mother, Lynne, was an occasional model and champion showjumper."Profile: Amanda Staveley"
''The Times'' (London), 9 November 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2011.

Staveley was educated at Queen Margaret's School, York. As a child, she competed in showjumping and athletics. At the age of 16, Staveley left school and enrolled at a crammer, winning a place to read modern languages at St Catharine's College, Cambridge. As a student, she supplemented her income by working as a model. Staveley abandoned her degree after suffering from stress following a family bereavement.

Business career

Early career and creation of Q.ton

In 1996, Staveley borrowed £180,000 and bought the restaurant, Stocks, in Bottisham between Cambridge and Newmarket. Through the restaurant, Staveley came to know members of Newmarket's racing community, in particular those associated with the Godolphin Racing stables owned by the Al Maktoum family of Dubai, as well as people from Cambridge's high-tech businesses. Through the late 1990s she started dealing in shares and became an active angel investor, especially in dot com enterprises and biotech firms such as Futura Medical.Bond, David
"Amanda Staveley fronts DIC's Liverpool bid"
''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), 5 March 2008. Retrieved 22 February 2011.

Staveley closed Stocks and in 2000 opened Q.ton, a £10 million conference centre and facility developed in a joint venture with Trinity College, Cambridge on Cambridge Science Park. Investors in Q.ton were believed to include King Abdullah of Jordan.Waples, John and Box, Dan
"Staveley faces £62,000 bill and bankruptcy"
''The Sunday Times'' (London), 6 June 2004. Retrieved 20 February 2011.

Q.ton and EuroTelecom

In 2000 Staveley sold a 49 per cent share in Q.ton to the telecoms company EuroTelecom for £2 million. Staveley joined the firm as a non-executive director. A few months later EuroTelecom went out of business in the collapse of the dotcom boom. At the time it was claimed that Q.ton owed EuroTelecom £835,000 and that Staveley had agreed to buy back the company's stake, only for the money not to be forthcoming.Tomlinson, Heather and Nisse, Jason
"Rescue plan as EuroTelecom intrigue grows"
''The Independent'' (London), 8 April 2001. Retrieved 21 February 2011. Staveley denied having agreed to any payments and hired Kroll Inc. to investigate the members of the EuroTelecom board.

Staveley bought EuroTelecom's stake in Q.ton from the firm's administrator PricewaterhouseCooper, a deal that led to a discontinued petition of bankruptcy against her when payment was delayed. She began raising £35 million from private investors to roll out the Q.ton concept throughout the UK and Europe. However, the company failed. Staveley agreed an Individual Voluntary Arrangement and in 2008 was paying back her creditors, including Barclays.

PCP Capital Partners

Background

After the failure of Q.ton Staveley moved to Dubai, cultivating connections centred on Abu Dhabi but extending across the Middle East.

In 2008 the ''Financial Times'' described her firm, PCP Capital Partners, as really amounting to Staveley and her legal partner, Craig Eadie, and explained that, although based in Mayfair, London,Thomas Jr, Landon
"A Friendship’s Paying Off for British Banking Giant"
''The New York Times'', 21 November 2008. Retrieved 22 February 2011. the company acts "via offshore private equity affiliates" as a vehicle for the investment of Middle Eastern money, with Staveley acting as an adviser on those deals.Blitz, Roger
"Dealmaker is aiming high to tap Middle East wealth"
''Financial Times'' (London), 7 November 2008. Retrieved 20 February 2011.

Barclays

These contacts brought Staveley to a new level of prominence at the end of 2008 with the investment of Middle Eastern funds in Barclays as the bank sought to recapitalise by raising money privately rather than accept a bail-out from the British government following the financial crisis of that year. Staveley earned a fee of £30 million for her role in the transaction."Revealed: The truth about Barclays and the Abu Dhabi investment"
Euromoney In 2010, ''The Daily Telegraph'' reported that Mansour's disposal of his stake in Barclays had made him a profit of about £2.25 billion.Armitstead, Louise
"Barclays saviour Sheikh Mansour makes £2.25bn from sale of bank stake"
''The Daily Telegraph'' (London), 8 October 2010. Retrieved 15 June 2011.

On 8 June 2020, Staveley's firm filed a £1.5 billion lawsuit against Barclays, claiming that the bank offered her client, Abu Dhabi, "manifestly worse" terms than those offered to Qatar. The Barclays legal team claimed that Staveley inserted herself into the capital raising while Staveley countered that the PCP was not a "facilitator" as Barclays claimed, but rather led the investment syndicate. A judgement was reached in February 2021 with Staveley losing the case despite the judge ruling that the bank was "guilty of serious deceit" towards PCP Capital Partners. Judge Waksman’s ruling described Staveley’s deal for Sheikh Mansour as "excellent" and found that Barclays had made false representations to PCP, but dismissed PCP’s claim to compensation. In March 2021, Waksman ruled that Barclays was responsible for its own legal costs as the bank had made a "financial benefit as a result of its fraud". In April 2021 Staveley launched an appeal against the verdict, which she lost in June 2021.

Manchester City and Liverpool

The Barclays deal followed Sheikh Mansour's £210 million purchase of Manchester City F.C. in September of the same year through the Abu Dhabi United Group, a transaction reportedly worth £10 million in commission to PCP Capital Partners. At the same time Staveley was involved in extended negotiations by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's Dubai International Capital to buy a 49 per cent stake in Liverpool Football Club, although the deal, which would have given Staveley a place on the club's board, eventually foundered.Milmo, Cahal
"The girl from Doncaster who became the toast of Abu Dhabi"
''The Independent'' (London), 3 September 2008. Retrieved 21 February 2011."Hicks ends talks with Dubai group"
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