St Mirren Football Club (SMFC) is seeking a new owner after several directors formed a consortium to sell a block of shares that will give any prospective buyer a 52 per cent stake in the club.

The consortium, which has put a combined total of 98,000 shares up for sale, includes current chair Stewart Gilmour, who has revealed that he intends to leave the Scottish Premier League (SPL) club after 12 years at the helm. Vice chair George Campbell; secretary Allan Marshall and directors Evelyn Purves and Bryan McAusland have also decided to sell their stake in the club, which is debt free after recently selling its former Love Street stadium to supermarket Tesco.

The Tesco agreement also involved the construction of a new home stadium for SMFC at Greenhill Road to meet SPL ground criteria, as well as a new training ground and youth academy at Ralston, Paisley. Gilmour said: "We believe it is now an appropriate time for us to move on, for someone else to take St Mirren forward and for the Club to benefit from an injection of new energy, new ideas and new expertise.

"We won't necessarily accept the highest offer. Before we sell to anyone, we will make sure the people buying a controlling interest have the good of St Mirren at heart and the resources and expertise to take the club forward." The consortium hopes a deal can be concluded by early January 2010.