Swansea’s takeover by an American consortium has been completed. The group led by Steve Kaplan and Jason Levien has bought a 60% stake in the Premier League club.
The reported £110m deal, which received Premier League ratification on 1 July, was completed on Thursday night after a press conference to announce the purchase earlier in the day was postponed because of a dispute between two minority shareholders.
In a joint statement, Kaplan and Levien said: “We recognise this club means so much to so many people and we take the responsibility as owners very seriously.”
Confirmation of the deal comes a year after Kaplan and Levien, who have extensive experience of being involved in sports in the United States, first set their sights on making a Premier League investment.
The pair said they studied other top-flight clubs but felt investing in Swansea – who have been in the Premier League for the last five seasons – was the right choice.
“A number of people have asked us why the Premier League and why Swansea City? Quite simply we believe the Premier League is the greatest football league in the world,” said the Kaplan and Levien statement.
“It has the greatest collection of players and, most importantly, it is the most competitive league, where on any given day any team in the league can beat another. We love the passion and the physical style of play.
“Once we decided on the Premier League, we looked for a club that possessed a particular style of football on the pitch that we believe will give rise to sustainable long-term success.
“We also wanted to be a part of a club that was at the very heart and soul of the community in which it plays. Over the course of a year we looked at a few clubs, but as we dug down deeper, our focus always returned to the Swans.”
The Swansea chairman Huw Jenkins will remain at the Liberty Stadium in an executive role and be in charge of the daily running of the club.
The shareholding of the Swansea Supporters’ Trust, which owns 21% of the club, remains unchanged. The Trust this week expressed its disappointment at the lack of engagement by the consortium during the takeover process, but the joint statement made a point of hailing the “historic and powerful relationship between the fans and the club”.
“We were attracted to the team’s distinctive style of play and we loved the intensity of the relationship between the fans and the football team,” it read.
“Backed by the Supporters’ Trust, no other team’s support base is as strong as Swansea’s.”
This development brought an end to what had been a confused day at the Liberty Stadium. A press conference had been called for 4pm to announce confirmation of the deal, but the club said an “existing legal dispute between two minority shareholders” finally saw its cancellation two-and-a-half hours later.
Swansea will now stage a press conference on Friday morning where Levien and Jenkins will outline the deal further.