2024-05-07 04:00:00
CIS businessman Mikhail Lomtadze became the owner of the English football club Wycombe Wanderers. His company Blue Ocean Partners Ltd bought 90 percent of the shares from the previous owner, the American Rob Kuhig. What awaits the team now?
In addition to Wycombe’s shares, Lomtadze received a seat on the club’s board of directors. It now also includes his business partners Eduard Vishnyakov and Daniel Rice. At the same time, Kuhig, despite the sale of a significant block of shares, will remain chairman of the board of directors – this is the request of the new owner. Vishnyakov will be responsible for finances and Rice will be responsible for staffing the team and resolving transfer issues.
The deal has been under discussion since September last year. Its financial aspects are not specified. But Lomtadze intends to seriously invest in the club.
“Our goal is to achieve long-term success on and off the field, while simultaneously creating a financially stable club,” Lomtadze said in an interview with Wycombe’s press service.
Mikhail Lomtadze was born and raised in Georgia, but has lived in Kazakhstan since 2007. At the same time, he worked within the Russian fund Baring Vostok Capital Partners. He successfully made money there as a manager and then as a partner. Mikhail was also the head of the Russian leasing company Europlan.
Lomtadze became famous thanks to the Kaspi.kz application, popular in Kazakhstan – it combines an online store, a network of banking products and an analogue of state services. According to Forbes, Lomtadze’s fortune is estimated at $5.7 billion. The 48-year-old businessman occupies 532nd place in the ranking of the richest people in the world, and also occupies the first place in Georgia and one of the first in Kazakhstan.
Wycombe Wanderers, also known as Wycombe (their original name is Wycombe Wanderers), play in the English Premier League – this is Foggy Albion’s third highest division. In the 2023/24 season, the team finished in 10th place, scoring 65 points in 46 matches.
Established in 1887, Wycombe have never progressed beyond the Championship, but have previously made a splash in the FA Cup. In the 2000/01 season, the Blues sensationally reached the semi-finals, where they narrowly lost (1:2) to Liverpool.
Wycombe’s total value, according to Transfermarkt, is €8.4 million. The most expensive player is central defender Nigel Lonwijk, 21, of Dutch nationality and Smile. Its price is exactly one million euros. At the same time, he plays at Wycombe on loan and will leave the club at the end of May to return to Wolverhampton. Therefore, Nigel is unlikely to see the changes that will come to the team with the arrival of Lomtadze.
The new owner can expect the boldest moves to promote Wycombe. It’s unlikely he wants to hang around in the swamps of English football forever. To remedy the situation, Lomtadze invited to the club Daniel Rice, who had previously worked in the management of Arsenal, Everton, Southampton and Fulham. With such a specialist and all the investment, provincial Wycombe can be expected to enter the Premier League in the next five to seven years. At least his fans have the right to hope for such a development of events.
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