Jamie Carragher admits he is surprised Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group are considering selling the club, but Gary Neville believes now could be the time to walk away.
FSG is working with two US banks to see how much the club is worth, with City insiders believing it could be as high as $5bn (£4.4bn).
A report on Monday suggested the US owners had produced a sales pitch and investment banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were helping the appraisal process.
FSG admit they are open to accepting new shareholders but have stopped short of saying the club as a whole is on the market, although they have not ruled it out for good.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Overlap, Carragher said: “I would imagine there is something there. How strong it is in terms of selling out completely or trying to bring money into the club, I’m not sure. I think FSG have done a great job at the club, and I don’t think they’ve ever claimed to have the funds of Manchester United, Chelsea or Manchester City.
“They were the owners who brought back the title, the owners who brought in Jurgen Klopp, the stadium has been transformed, the training ground has been transformed. They have almost been a model for clubs like Arsenal .
“I’m surprised. Will the club be as valued again as it is now? With Klopp as manager and the team having been so successful over the last few years? Maybe there’s something to that.
Image: City experts believe Liverpool could be worth up to £4.4 billion
“I thought with so many American owners coming into the league, I thought there was a power play in some ways where they might see something going forward given what we’ve seen in American sports, so I thought the owners would be here for a while.
“Maybe they woke up on Monday morning and read how much Manchester City have made commercially and thought, ‘you can’t stop it, can you?'”
FSG, who bought the club in a deal worth around £300m in October 2010, are believed to be considering a sale, although they would prefer to attract new investors by selling a minority stake.
Goldmann Sachs and Morgan Stanley have been asked to assess interest from buyers and the banks are expected to look into whether some of the shortlisted bidders who did not buy Chelsea are interested in investing in Liverpool.
Pressure has been mounting on FSG, led by principal owner John W Henry, this season as indifferent results have left Liverpool well behind their Premier League rivals.
Only last month, Klopp spoke of the difficulties of keeping pace with Manchester City, admitting the club could not compete with their financial strength and had to find other ways to stay in touch.
FSG has not been averse to seeking additional resources and in April last year, to help mitigate losses due to Covid, it sold a 10% stake to RedBird, a private equity firm , for 533 million pounds.
But this season the owners have come under fire for a lack of investment in the squad this summer.
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Liverpool assistant manager Pep Lijnders insists the club’s owners have made big decisions to take things forward and, amid speculation, the team are fully focused on their Carabao Cup tie with the Derby.
Earlier this year, Russian Roman Abramovich completed the sale of Chelsea to an investment group led by Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital in a deal advised by Goldmann Sachs that put the total value of the acquisition at £4.25 billion sterling
Neville told The Overlap: “I said about Manchester United four or five months ago that they have to sell partly because they need cash to do the things that Liverpool have done, like transforming the training ground and stadium
“But also, this valuation of Chelsea is only going to last 18 months to two years potentially before people realize that Chelsea are actually unprofitable and therefore where the money is going to come from these investment funds north- americans
“I think the sale of Liverpool makes sense – FSG don’t have the money to compete with the other top teams in the league, they’ve already developed the stadium, they’ve got Jurgen Klopp and now it’s a case of how long. around two or three years?
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Football finance expert Kieran Maguire claims Fenway Sports Group could get a return on its investment in Liverpool of up to 14 times if it decides to sell the club.
“If the sale of Chelsea at the moment sets the valuation, FSG are thinking that now is the time to get us out, because if we go down the league, if people think that Boehly has overpaid Chelsea, and he goes back a little. more than one fight over the next two years, they might think now is the right time.
“I think the Glazer family will be in a similar situation. I suspect they’ll both be looking for outs or part-outs. With the Glazers, I think a couple of them will want to stay, but with FSG I think they’ll put a Valuation of £3 billion to £4 billion in Liverpool when they raised money from Covid.
“They could probably pull it off at the moment, but they might not be able to pull it off in two years’ time. They certainly can’t compete financially with some of the other clubs in the league, so I don’t think it will be that big of a surprise when look at some of the tests.
“The question always comes, as happened with the Glazer family at Manchester United, who buys it next? Will it be a more aggressive and wealthy American investment fund or will it be a sovereign wealth fund or a nation-state.”