(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund is in talks to buy Newcastle United F.C., the Premier League soccer team owned by British billionaire Mike Ashley, for about 340 million pounds ($445 million), Dow Jones reported.

A final deal for the northeast English soccer club could be days or weeks away, DJ said citing unidentified people familiar with the discussions. The potential buyer is the Public Investment Fund, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s key investment vehicle, along with a group of investors led by British financier Amanda Staveley.

Ashley, who founded Frasers Group Plc, is a serial buyer of ailing U.K. high street names from House of Fraser to Evans Cycles. He bought the soccer club in 2007 for 134 million pounds and has been struggling to offload it in recent years.

He put it up for sale as early as 2008 with fans of the soccer club quickly souring on him following the departure of manager Kevin Keegan.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rebecca Smith in London at rsmith599@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sunil Kesur at skesur@bloomberg.net, Andrew Davis, Sara Marley

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