Skip to main content

Uncertainties surround Birmingham City takeover

Although long suffering Birmingham City fans have been heartened by the prospect of new owners, many uncertainties surround the completion of the deal.

Birmingham Sports Holdings (BSH) has owned 75 per cent of the club since 2016, with a British Virgin Islands-registered company called Oriental Rainbow Investments owning 21.64 per cent.

According to the official paperwork, BSH’s majority owner is a Chinese businessman named Paul Suen, while Oriental Rainbow’s beneficial owner is Vong Pech, a Chinese-Cambodian businessman. Very little is known about either of them, and neither has been seen much at St Andrew’s.

The Athletic, however, understands that the Lopez and Richardson offer breaks down into an up-front payment of £25million to acquire the 21.64 per cent, full operational control of the club and Birmingham City Stadium Limited, the company that owns and operates the stadium.  The remaining payment will then come when BSH hands over its shares.

Their most recent set of accounts, which deal with the 2020-21 season, show Birmingham lost almost £5million. Not bad, you might be thinking, considering that was a season played behind closed doors because of COVID-19 restrictions on crowds gathering and the club’s turnover fell from £22.8m to £13.7m. But then you remember this is the financial year which includes £26.5m in Jude Bellingham-inspired player-trading profits and that the club lost £18m in 2019-20.

They would have lost even more the year before that, but the owners used the then-legal loophole of selling the stadium to themselves, turning a £25m deficit into an £8m loss. This enabled them to avoid breaching the league’s financial fair play rules for a second time. Birmingham had lost £37m in 2017-18.

The Athletic has spoken to several people who have had preliminary discussions about bids for Birmingham. One source, who asked to remain anonymous, said the situation was “hopeless”, with the club losing more than £500,000 a month, £8million needed to repair the stadium, a threadbare squad and not much else to come in terms of transfer instalments.

 


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Threat of financial calamity removed from Baggies

West Bromwich Albion had effectively been in decline ever since the club was sold to a Chinese consortium in August 2016, paying a figure north of £200m to buy former owner Jeremy Peace’s stake. Controlling shareholder Guochuan Lai’s ownership was fairly disastrous for the club, but his unloved tenure finally came to an end after Bilkul Football WBA, a company ultimately owned by Florida-based entrepreneur Shilen Patel and his father Dr Kiran Patel, acquired an 87.8% shareholding in West Bromwich Albion Group Limited, the parent company of West Bromwich Albion Football Club. This change in ownership was urgently required, due to the numerous financial problems facing West Brom, including growing high-interest debt and serious cash flow concerns, following years of no investment from the former owner. Indeed, West Brom’s auditors had already rung the alarm bell in the 2021/22 accounts when they cast doubt on the club’s ability to continue as a going concern without making player s
1 comment
Read more

Gold standard ground boosts Tottenham's income

The gold standard in European football grounds is the Tottenham Hotspur stadium in north London, a £1bn construction project completed in 2019. Its impact on the club’s finances has become increasingly clear as the effects of the pandemic have faded. Previously, the average fan would spend less than £2 inside the ground on a typical match day, but now that figure is about £16, thanks to new facilities including the longest bar in Europe and an on-site microbrewery. Capacity has gone up from 36,000 at the club’s previous home of White Hart Lane to 62,000.  The new stadium — built on land adjacent to White Hart Lane — has opened the door to a broad range of other events that have helped to push commercial income up from €117mn in 2018 to €215mn in 2022. Last year, Tottenham hosted US singer Beyoncé for five nights on her global Renaissance tour, two NFL matches, as well as rugby games and heavyweight boxing bouts.  Money brought in from football has gone up too. Match day income is
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs to sell minority stake

Tottenham Hotspur is in talks to sell a minority stake in a deal that could value it at up to £3.75 billion and pave the way for Joe Lewis and his family to sever ties with the Premier League football club. Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is seeking an investment that values the club at between £3.5 billion and £3.75 billion, including debt. While the terms of any deal have not been finalised, City sources expect Spurs to sell about 10 per cent. The club is being advised by bankers from Rothschild on the sale. Tottenham wants to raise fresh capital for new player signings and to help fund the development of an academy for its women’s team, as well as a 30-storey hotel next to its north London stadium. The financier Amanda Staveley, who brokered the deal for Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund to take over Newcastle United, is understood to be among the parties to have expressed an interest in Tottenham. Staveley’s fund, PCP Capital Partners, has raised about £500 million to depl
Post a Comment
Read more