You cannot tell a UK Company to stop investing. No organisation can tell a company to restrict investment into its product. To bring that company up to the standard of your competitors you are going to have to invest heavily in top staff and your product, which in the short term will result in losses. If the owner wants to convert his investment into shares, it is perfectly legal. What they are proposing would take just one phone call from any football fan to the Office of Fair Trading to instigate an investigation. I can't believe any government would want to restrict investment in this country!