Lerner buys Aston Villa (MBNA, Cleveland Browns)

[northzax]

American billionaire Randy Lerner is poised to take over Aston Villa after the club announced they had accepted the terms of his offer.

Villa made a statement to the Stock Exchange this morning recommending that shareholders accept the bid from Cleveland Browns owner Lerner, which values the club at £62.6million.

Lerner's takeover will end the long reign of 82-year-old chairman Doug Ellis, who has run the club since 1982 and also had an earlier spell at the helm.

Ellis said: 'It has been my sincere pleasure to have been involved with Aston Villa these many years, both as chairman and as a substantial shareholder. The club has been an enormous and immensely enjoyable part of my life.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=375835&cc=5901

interesting, this makes two NFL owners who have Premiership teams (Malcom Glazer ownd ManU)

[Captain Hilts]

1. Same Lerner family that owns the Nationals? nt

[northzax]

3. no, this guy is the MBNA guy

the Lerners who own the Nats are Maryland-based Real Estate Developers.

[nickgutierrez]

2. "Hmmm... I'll buy Aston Villa for Michael Essien and Rio Ferdinand."

"Sold!"

62.6 million pounds? That's it?

[T_i_B]

4. So, any Browns fans here?

What's this guy like? Surely he's better then Doug Ellis, although I doubt that he's quite as ridiculously loaded as Roman Abramovitch.

[northzax]

5. well, the Browns still stink

but he's shown a willingness to spend money at times. But it's going to take a couple of hundred million pounds to get Aston Villa into the top 3-4, does he have that kind of money? probably not.

Abramovitch is absurdly rich, but in US sports that doesn't mean as much as it does in Footie (with hard salary caps, after all, even being owned by Paul Allen, who makes Abramovitch look a pauper, hasn't helped the Trailblazers or the Seahawks all that much.

[jakefrep]

6. He's a pretty low-key, unobtrusive sort.

He's not particularly meddlesome. Not as absurdly wealthy as Abramovich, but probably far less likely to get shipped off to Siberia for tax fraud.