The beleaguered 5-a-side football chain Goals Soccer Centres is closing in on a sale that will see it plunge briefly into administration and cast doubt on the repayment of a multimillion pound tax liability.
Sky News has learnt that Inflexion Private Equity, which has backed companies including Jack Wills and On The Beach, has teamed up with Soccerworld, a Scottish leisure group, to buy Goals’ assets.
A cut-price deal involving a pre-pack administration of Goals is likely to be struck in the coming days.
If completed, the transaction would cap a miserable end to Goals’ 15-year stint as a listed company although it would save hundreds of jobs at its sites across the UK.
Its shares, which were suspended in March after the emergence of an unpaid £12m VAT bill, were delisted at the end of last month when it became clear that the company’s accounting crisis was potentially far more serious.
Earlier this week, Sky News revealed that Goals had submitted a dossier of evidence to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO).
The auction of the football pitches operator attracted bids from the private equity tycoon Guy Hands and Mike Ashley’s Sports Direct International, its biggest shareholder.
Deloitte was hired earlier this year to oversee the process.
Mr Ashley, who pulled out of the bidding last week, lambasted Goals’ decision to hand evidence to the SFO as “far too little too late and a deliberate case of closing the stable door long after the horse has bolted”.
A takeover of the business backed by Inflexion would give Soccerworld the financial firepower to expand its existing portfolio of a handful of 5-a-side venues in Scotland and the North East.
Soccerworld is run by Barry McDermott, who has previously been involved in the sector.
Goals operates about 45 venues in the UK, and has a joint venture in California with City Football Group, the owner of Premier League champions Manchester City.
Goals’ red card from the London stock market came after it began investigating what it described as “improper behaviour on the part of a small number of individuals historically within the company”.
The accountancy firm BDO subsequently produced a report alleging that Goals’ former chief executive and chief financial officer colluded to produce fictitious invoices.
Keith Rogers, Goals’ former chief executive and the architect of its stock market flotation, has previously denied any wrongdoing and did not respond to an approach this week from Sky News.
Bill Gow, the former finance chief, has not commented on the allegations raised in the BDO report and could not be reach.
It is unclear whether the SFO intends to launch a formal probe into the accounting issues at Goals, which are already understood to be the subject of an investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority.
Throughout the six-month period in which its shares were suspended, it insisted that trading was robust.
Nevertheless, the protracted uncertainty about its finances and the scale of its outstanding tax bill, is understood to have made it impossible for Goals and its advisers to secure a buyer on a solvent basis.
A pre-pack administration, which is a commonly used – if sometimes controversial – insolvency process, enables a buyer to cherry-pick a distressed company’s assets while leaving its liabilities behind.
Mr Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United FC, had lambasted Goals’ directors for failing to appoint Kroll, the corporate investigator, to probe the apparent wrongdoing at the company.
Goals‎ had a market value of £20m when its shares were suspended in March, although it is unclear what the company might trade for in a pre-pack sale to Inflexion and Soccerworld.
People close to the company, which employs about 700 people, said it remained cash-generative.
Goals’ chief executive, Andy Anson, who had only been in the job for just over a year, resigned several months ago to run the British Olympic Association (BOA).
He had said he would remain with Goals until next month to assist with resolving the accounting crisis.
Goals and Inflexion declined to comment on Wednesday evening.
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