Who is John Flanagan? The leader of the Adam Shaw-linked consortium that has bid for Sheffield Wednesday
Amid continued off-field turmoil at Hillsborough, Flanagan’s name landed in the public domain earlier this week when he was named as a BBC Radio Sheffield interviewee as a member of the consortium, to the widely-held interest of Wednesday supporters.
The Star understands that Flanagan, 36, has lead the consortium in two approaches to buy Sheffield Wednesday and that his was the name on the correspondence expressing bids to buy the club earlier this year, both of which were turned down by Owls owner Dejphon Chansiri. Another known name within the consortium is that of Adam Shaw, a Sheffield-raised, US-based individual who has spoken publicly about a desire to be involved in the purchase the club.
Shaw and Flanagan are believed to be long-time friends and associates, with the latter acting on the board of some of Shaw’s existing business interests in the US. Not a great deal of public-facing information is known on Flanagan, who is believed to be the figure at the heart of pulling those on the consortium together, rather than himself being a central source of funding behind the proposed takeover.
The Star is told his background is in raising capital and managing money. Having started out at Axa, where he rose from a sales associate position to become a regional vice-president, Flanagan started his own businesses and is also listed on LinkedIn as a Director of Investor Relations at Connecticut-registered development and asset management company White Roan, who specialise in the high-end hospitality sector. The Star is told that Flanagan is not a salaried employee at the firm, rather that he works with them in raising capital for projects across the globe. It’s stressed that White Roan do not play any part in the consortium.
Sources within the consortium claim Flanagan has raised somewhere in the region of $1bn in capital across a range of different projects, including those based in the real estate industry and with med-tech companies in the US.
