It is fanciful to think a deal of this size would simply be Peace plus advisors. I cannot imagine any organisation paying that much money without a very significant due-diligence process. At the very least that would involve some detailed knowledge of previous years financials plus commercials arrangement including contracts, player dealings, Facilities, HR etc. I would imagine that a small cohort of people from the club must be involved - it might be FD plus HR. Having bought and sold 24 businesses in the last four years I have yet to experience one where the owner has been able to completely exclude key members of staff. Once JP gets through legals its possible he would work on the SPA on his own with his legal advisors - and it is also possible that the buyers used third parties like Deloittes for the DD with his internal team.That said they'd still be aware it was been sold - even if they didn't have any idea who the buyer was.
The buying & selling of a football club is a lot simpler than buying any other business. You just need a head coach to motivate & maximise the assets & a financial/legal exec to control budgets. In our case we've also got a development exec to develop home grown assets. With the exception of the technical side of the business JP is allegedly pretty "hands on". Can't see why he would need to involve anybody else.
I can see why HR would be a big issue in a "normal business", especially things like design, manufacturing, marketing & sales, financial control, & strategic planning etc, but football's a lot simpler than that.
Having said that, I could see that JP might want to include Richard Garlick, Mark Jenkins, Nick Hammond & Tony Pulis in the latter stages, as a matter of courtesy.
Does anyone know what's for sale? According to the Official site West Bromwich Albion football club is owned by West Bromwich Albion Holdings which in turn is a member of the West Bromwich Albion Group. So if it's just West Bromwich Albion Football Club that's for sale, it's entirely feasible that JP is the only one with intimate knowledge of the progress of the sale, if indeed, a sale is actually taking place.
Just as a matter of interest, do you think it's likely to be sold to Chinese?