Ownership
West Ham United was owned by Terry Brown until 2006, when Eggert Magnússon and Björgólfur Guðmundsson bought the club. Soon after, manager Alan Pardew was sacked and ex-Charlton Athletic Manager Alan Curbishley was hired. In a bizarre twist of fate, Pardew replaced Les Reed as Charlton manager a few weeks later and the two managers met each other in a relegation battle where the Hammers lost 4–0 to their South-east London rivals. However, West Ham eventually stayed up and Charlton were relegated. Terry Brown was criticised by some sections of the fans (including pressure group Whistle specifically formed for this purpose) due to a perception of financial and staff mismanagement. On 18 September 2007, it was announced that Magnússon would step down as executive chairman but would still retain the role as club non-executive chairman overseeing a new management structure, and would keep his stake in the club.
However on 13 December 2007, it was announced that Magnússon had left West Ham and that his 5 per cent holding had been bought by club majority owner Björgólfur Guðmundsson.
On 8 June 2009, Icelandic CB Holding which is 70% owned by Straumur-Burdaras bank and 30% owned by Icelandic based banks Byr and MP took over Hansa Holding, which only had West Ham United as their asset and filed for bankruptcy protection. Straumur was one of Hansa Holding's largest creditors. Straumur appointed one of their directors, Andrew Bernhardt, as the new chairman. In January 2010, David Sullivan and David Gold acquired a 50 percent share in West Ham, from CB Holding, given them overall operational and commercial control.
At the end of May 2010 both David Gold and David Sullivan purchased a further 10% stake in the club at a cost of £8million (£4m to CB Holdings LTD, £4m towards club debts). This took their controlling stake to 60%, they also announced that in the near future they may open up shares for fans to purchase. On 9 August 2010, Gold and Sullivan increased their shares up to 30.6% each with "minority investors", (which included former owner Terry Brown), purchasing a further 3.8% of the club at a cost of around £3-4million leaving Straumur Bank owning 35% of the club .
Read more about this topic: West Ham United F.C.
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