Baggies in advanced takeover talks

Football finance guru Kieran Maguire reports that West Bromwich Albion are 'in advanced talks with Florida businessman Shilen Patel over potential takeover. Patel understood to be the preferred bidder at this stage. No timescale on a deal, but this is ongoing/moving forward.'

A Chinese consortium led by businessman Guochuan Lai bought a majority stake in Albion, then a Premier League side, for £175million in 2016. It was a price tag that seemed steep at the time but now looks like the high-water mark of English football’s Chinese investment boom, a period of irrational exuberance .

Under his ownership, Lai’s lads have been relegated to the Championship, promoted out of it and then relegated to it again. They have also consistently lost money, a situation not helped by his unfortunate habit of borrowing money from the club on terms that are very friendly to him but not so sensible for West Brom.

Anyway, with Albion no longer in receipt of parachute payments (the money clubs receive for three years following relegation from the Premier League), strict controls on the flow of money in and out of China, and loans to settle, Lai has been trying to sell the club for two years.

The story of that process, if that is the right word, is similar to the processes that have taken place at other Chinese-owned sides across European football: unreasonable expectations, too many cooks, lots of time-wasters (see also Birmingham City, Reading, Southampton and Wigan Athletic).

However, it seems matters are finally coming to a head, with three credible bids in the mix and Lai now entertaining more realistic prices for his shares.

The frontrunner remains the group put together by Manchester-based lawyer Chris Farnell and Egyptian investor Mohamed Elkashashy, who have teamed up with local businessman Alex Hearn, owner of domestic heating firm Warmfront. Other investors are involved, too, but their names remain under wraps for now.

Hearn has become involved in the project because in 2021 he lent Lai £2million, which was secured against 2.35 per cent of West Brom’s shares. That loan is due for repayment next month and is now worth considerably more than £2m. In the event of a takeover, Hearn is happy to convert that debt into equity.

The second suitor is Armenian entrepreneur Roman Gevorkyan, the owner of the Noah Football Group, a multi-club venture that includes a stake in Paris FC of the French second division. Gevorkyan has been looking for an English team for some time and has previously made bids forCharlton Athletic and Reading.

The final bid is the most unusual in that the family who would provide the cash have never been linked with a big investment in sport before, but they certainly have the money and seem to be the horse backed by MSD Partners, the investment firm linked to American IT billionaire Michael Dell that happens to be West Brom’s biggest creditor. Having loaned the club £20million in December 2022, MSD gave them an additional £7m in November.

The fact MSD likes Shilen Patel, the Florida-born son of Indian-American cardiologist-turned-entrepreneur Dr Kiran Patel, gives his bid a reasonable shot of success should the Farnell-Elkashashy-Hearn group falter. Having owned several businesses of his own, Shilen now runs the Patel family office, which claims to have over $2billion in assets under management.

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion. Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs. An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance. Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected. “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.” He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...

The Political Economy of Football V2

Search This Blog