Swans “Controlling Interest” claimed again but its just another LLC investment?

The situation of the club ownership has been a subject of supporter debate going right back to when the deal was signed back in 2016 that saw the controlling interest – and majority voting rights – pass to a hedge fund fronted by Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien.

The difficulty for all supporters to overcome is the fact that there has never been total clarity on how many investors sit in the main ownership group of the club that now has Jake Silverstein added to the names of Kaplan and Levien as people who own more than 10% of the club.

The uncertainty has grown in recent weeks with Chairman Andy Coleman claiming he has made a “significant investment” in the club yet we know that it is not a direct investment as it stands and certainly not more than 10% of the club as he is not listed on the ownership statement on the official website.

Nigel Morris has recently been added to the ownership statement with more than a 19% shareholding and there is still an expectation that he will be joined shortly by Brett Cravatt who is also reported to be making a sizeable investment into the club.

The Supporters Trust (themselves custodians of an 11% shareholding in the club) have never been able to get transparent clarity on who exactly has invested into Swansea LLC and whilst the three main players are clear the rest remains a mystery, even now seven years on since the takeover of the club.

Aside from the uncertainty as to the exact make up of the investment group in recent weeks we have seen Jake Silverstein run down manager Russell Martin via private messages on social media, a video where one of the LLC investors was trying to give away his shares and of course Andy Coleman complaining about leaks from the club over the imminent (and immediately not correct) departure of Josh Marsh from the club.

The Trust are regularly asked questions by supporters regards the investment into the club and often reply with statement around “we are aware” but often hide behind confidentiality agreements which will only ever serve to increase the cynicism that surrounds the ownership make up of the club especially given the lack of visibility of the main players in the club although it is widely known that Kaplan and Levien in particular are very much involved in the key decisions that surround the club.

So when further investors (in the LLC) come to light it is natural that the questions start again.   And that was the case over the weekend when a Twitter profile came to light.   Now the name of Jim Blakeman is actually pretty irrelevant when you consider the screen grab because of his minor investment in the Albemarle Group.   However, it is the Albemarle Group that he claims “has controlling interest in Swansea City AFC” which can only lead us to conclude that they are an investor in the LLC.   Surely that can be the only natural conclusion?

The Albemarle Group “has established strategic relationships with an industry leading GROUP of partners and clients in the delivery of complex commercial, mixed used and residential development projects in the Washington, DC Metropolitan area.”

There seems little doubt from this that they have some level of investment in the LLC although – again go back to the ownership statement of the club – there is no single person from this side who holds more than 10% shareholding in the club.   You would assume therefore that they own a minority share in the LLC but clearly their own minor investors are claiming this to give a controlling interest.   Which I suppose can be claimed as true as that is what the LLC have but it is a tenuous link at best!

We’ll be back. https://t.co/Sv6omVwbeK

— Jim Blakeman (@JRBlakeman) April 28, 2023

Of course all of these questions could be easily be answered if indeed the ownership group want transparency which is evidently not the case.   The Supporters Trust can claim “confidentiality” but that statement goes out of the window when some of the shareholders (of the LLC) openly discuss it on social media platforms.   As, an 11% shareholder in the company there are many rights here that could (and should) be assumed to give that transparency and prevent the questions largely going unanswered.

There is certainly nothing to be alarmed about from the Twitter biography or – we assume – nothing about to change in the day to day running of the club although the point remains, the longer the transparency is invisible then the more times these kind of questions will be asked.

Add to this and the recent “significant” investment from Coleman that is certainly not significant enough to have a registration at companies house and the questions keep coming up and the lack of full support for the main ownership group of the club seems to remain.

It feels like its time the Trust stood up and got these answers and shared them with the fanbase after all it cannot be that hard to just find out who owns all the shares in the LLC or will it forever be one of the great unanswered questions of this Swansea City generation.