Never mind buying a monochrome football club, the winner of tonight’s EuroMillions national lottery jackpot could receive enough to buy a well-known high street retailer.
An estimated £172mln could be won if the winning ticket number is held by a single individual, reports suggest.
That would make it the biggest UK lottery win of all time, surpassing the £170mln won by someone (who wished to remain anonymous) in October 2019.
The £172mln would be enough to buy Card Factory (LSE:CARD) PLC, valued at £167mln, outright. The new owner could then make a few bob selling “Congratulations on your lottery win” to friends and relations hoping to share in the winner’s good fortune.
No celebration is complete without cakes, so how about acquiring Cake Box Holdings PLC (AIM:CBOX) for £150mln?
Results from the specialist retailer of fresh cream cakes this week were very well-received but never mind the financial performance of the group; just think about getting first dibs on the cakes!
If pastries are more your thing, Finsbury Food Group (AIM:FIF) PLC comes with a £121mln price tag.
Alternatively, for a different sort of celebration, The City Pub Group PLC looks a snip at £123mln while Petra Diamonds (LSE:PDL) Ltd is only slightly more pricey at £152mln.
Virgin Wines UK (AIM:VINO) PLC at £106mln is cheaper but there is always the danger that owning it would entail meeting Richard Branson at some point …
Some lottery winners get extremely nervous after coming into so much money. I say "extremely nervous" rather than the phrase I'd prefer to use but you’ll get the gist when I say that Accrol Group Holdings PLC (AIM:ACRL), the toilet roll maker, might be a worthwhile purchase at £158mln.
Who knows? Another panic buying session of loo rolls might be just around the corner.
Moving into a big house in a swanky new area and then moaning that you never see any of your old friends is a must, so acquiring Foxtons (LSE:FOXT) Group PLC, the £152mln-valued estate agents would be almost logical.
Once ensconced in their new house the winner could nab Topps Tiles PLC (LSE:TPT) for £125mln for the inevitable bathroom upgrade.
If the winner is really set on buying a British football club then there really is only one choice. That’s not a tribal football reference; it’s a statement of fact relating to the paucity of London-listed British football clubs.
Having said that, the club is a former winner of the European Cup and there are not many British clubs that can say that.
So, if the lottery winner is from the green half of Glasgow, perhaps a takeover of Celtic PLC, valued at £100mln or so, is not so implausible as some of the other suggestions in this list.