Introducing 'Mr Jersey' - Saints' new £253,000 investor (From Daily Echo)

Introducing 'Mr Jersey' - Saints' new £253,000 investor

7:56am Tuesday 3rd April 2007 in Sport By Simon Walter, Senior Sports Reporter

A butcher's son known as Mr Jersey' is the man behind last week's purchase of £253,000 worth of shares in Saints' parent company.

Tom Scott, a business associate of former Saints director Mike Richards, is believed to have bought 550,000 shares in Southampton Leisure Holdings plc at the end of last week.

Of those, 300,000 were sold by ex-Saints chairman Rupert Lowe's father, Patrick.

As the chairman of Channel Island Traders, the Channel Islands' largest company with a Stock Market value of around £230m, 62-year-old Scott is the most prominent businessman in Jersey with a reputation for ruthlessness.

Scott left school at 15 and is now worth £100m.

He made most of his money through the International Energy Group, which he sold for £200m two years ago.

Intriguingly, former Saints director Richards - a supporter of Lowe's during last summer's takeover battle - was chief executive of IEG.

Former Saints chairman Guy Askham, who also backed Lowe last summer, was a non-executive director of IEG before the Guernsey-based company was taken over by Australian venture capitalists Babcock and Brown Infrastructure in 2005.

Channel Island Traders has a monopoly on business in Jersey and Guernsey but a statement to the Stock Exchange last Friday revealed that it is the subject of a takeover offer.

If Scott was to relinquish his position as chairman of CI Trading, of which he is believed to own 17 per cent, he would have more time - and money - to focus on a new project . . . potentially Southampton FC.

He has been to St Mary's to see Saints in the past but is not the close friend of Lowe he has been reported to be in the national press.