History
As an amateur club, Royal Arsenal FC, Arsenal started out as a mutually owned club but after turning professional, converted to a limited liability company in 1893. The company struggled in the club's early years, with its location in industrial Woolwich resulting in low attendances. The club was liquidated and reformed in 1910, and taken over by the owner of Fulham FC, Henry Norris. Norris owned the club for the next nineteen years, moving it to Arsenal Stadium in Highbury in 1913. Norris however was forced to resign as chairman and leave Arsenal in 1929 following an expenses scandal,.
By the time of World War II the majority of Arsenal shares were held by Samuel Hill-Wood and Sir Bracewell Smith, the MP for Holborn and a future Lord Mayor of London. In those days the shares were not considered to be valuable and have never paid a dividend, and were largely as a charitable exercise to provide recreational entertainment for the working people of North London.
After his death, the shareholding of Sir Bracewell Smith was divided between his son and daughter and ended up in the hands of his grandchildren, Sir Charles Bracewell-Smith, Clive Carr (Life-President), Richard Carr (still a director) and Sarah Carr, now Lady Phipps-Bagge. Samuel Hill-Wood's shared passed first to his son Denis and then his grandson and current Arsenal chairman Peter Hill-Wood; he sold much of his family's shareholdings in the 1980s to David Dein, who sold some of them on to Danny Fiszman (a London diamond dealer). In the early 2000s the club sold a 9.9% stake to Granada Holdings Ltd, a subsidiary of ITV plc, and a significant stake was also bought by hedge fund Lansdowne Partners.
Read more about this topic: Ownership Of Arsenal F.C.
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