Client: Bridgford plc (Phil Soar, Irving Scholar, Nigel Wray)
PR Team: Nina Gardiner and Associates
Campaign: Takeover bid for Nottingham Forest Football Club
Timescale: October 1996 - February 1997
Budget: pounds 15,000
In September 1996 Nottingham Forest FC found themselves with a
pounds 5 million debt growing to pounds 8 million in February
1997. Despite the big bucks being ploughed into football
elsewhere, Forest’s constitution meant that renewed investment
was difficult unless the club could be sold; but the club could
not be sold unless 75 per cent of its 209 pounds 1 shareholders
could be persuaded that the takeover was in the best interests of
their club.
Objectives
To gain the shareholders’ trust and persuade them to vote for
Bridgford plc, rather than one of the number of other groups
bidding for Forest.
Tactics
This was an unusual and precisely targeted campaign since, as
long as they didn’t affect the opinions of the shareholders, the
views of the general public were irrelevant: only the 209 votes
counted.
The campaign was carried out on two fronts: an election style
’meet and greet’, shaking hands offensive, combined with a
campaign in the popular press to ensure that the shareholders
were surrounded by people advising them to vote for the
Soar/Scholar bid.
Secret lunch meetings were arranged in Nottingham pubs for small
groups of shareholders where they were introduced to the
consortium and any fears about the consortium were allayed. The
meetings helped to humanise the consortium, while Scholar’s
passion for football and Soar’s Nottingham roots were stressed.
Price Waterhouse, employed as advisers by the Forest board, along
with most of the fans, backed a rival bid from Sandy Anderson,
boss of the Derby based Porterbrook Group, which again put
Soar/Scholar at a disadvantage. However the consortium knew that
if they kept up their personalised grass roots campaign, they
would win the trust of the shareholders.
The campaign’s other thrust was conducted through local and
national press. Soar and Scholar knew that shareholders would
seek advice from colleagues and friends about who to vote for,
and these other constituencies could not be completely
discounted. The takeover received huge coverage in both financial
and sports pages as the takeover battle became increasingly
bitter and convoluted. When Soar and Scholar’s main financier,
Lawrie Lewis, pulled out, a frantic search ensued to find a new
funding source.
Eventually they found it in high profile millionaire
property-to-television tycoon, Nigel Wray.
Results
Wray was portrayed as Forest’s saviour in the Sun and other
papers as the battle came to a close in January. The PR team had
built close relations with the Daily Mail, the Express and the
Sun, and as the final shareholders’ meeting loomed the press had
been won over after five months of campaigning.
In frustration at the stalemate, and the desperate need for new
finance, the shareholders voted by 189 to 7 in favour of
accepting the Bridgford consortium’s offer.
Verdict
NGA’s campaign was the only one to focus on the group that
mattered: the shareholders. During the takeover battle the joke
in Nottingham was that 97 per cent of the city were against the
Bridgford bid, but the three per cent who were for it were the
shareholders. The press coverage was extensive and largely
positive which helped to overcome the initial anti-Scholar
feelings. The combination of face-to-face meetings and patient
lobbying of press and public paid off and the end result was a
landslide victory.
