Birmingham City already have a challenge on the playing side in their first season back in the Barclays Premiership. The defence has been hit by an injury crisis and their first game is away at Old Trafford. Manager Alex McLeish has frankly admitted that they are not ready for the new season. But what makes matters worse is that the club may face another lengthy period of uncertainty about a takeover bid. The Birmingham board is atempting to flush out Carson Yeung’s latest takeover bid by demanding that he bank a non-refundable six figure sum as proof of intent.
Birmingham City already have a challenge on the playing side in their first season back in the Barclays Premiership. The defence has been hit by an injury crisis and their first game is away at Old Trafford. Manager Alex McLeish has frankly admitted that they are not ready for the new season. But what makes matters worse is that the club may face another lengthy period of uncertainty about a takeover bid. The Birmingham board is atempting to flush out Carson Yeung’s latest takeover bid by demanding that he bank a non-refundable six figure sum as proof of intent. The Hong Kong businessman already owns a 29.9 per cent stake in the club. Birmingham have yet to receive an offer from Grandtop International Holdings, the company owned by Yeung, which is considering a £70m offer to secure a majority shareholding in the club.
UPDATE – Just Show Us The Money – 22/08/2009
Carston Yeung is confident that he will pass the fit and proper person test that will allow him to acquire Birmingham City FC despite having a conviction against his name. Given that the Premiership takes a relaxed attitude to foreign businessmen taking over clubs if they can show they have the readies, he is probably right. The Hong Kong-based businessman was prosecuted five years ago by the Securities and Futures Commission for failing to declare his interest in a company. He was fined, but it is understood that breaches of financial services regulations are not that regarded that seriously, credit crunch or not. Blues supporters may be less concerned about this than the fact that his investment vehicle, Grandtop International Holdings, is using a bridging loan to raise the £57m needed to buy the St.Andrews outfit. This will be a short-term measure, it is claimed, as the loan will be repaid once a share issue is completed at Grandtop. Fans may, nevertheless, not be thrilled about that club being saddled with debt, even if it is just a temporary arrangement.
Grandtop has confirmed that Birmingham’s long-term co-owners, David Sullivan and Ralph Gold, have agreed to sell their combined 50 per cent stake for about £40m, taking Yeung’s shareholding to just short of 80 per cent. The offer document will be sent to Blues shareholders in the next fortnight. Whether managing director Karen Brady, one of the few women in a top exexcutive position in football, will stay on under the new owners remains to be seen. Supporters see Portsmouth’s ownership problems as a warning. ‘I don’t think there’s excitement on the terraces, more apprehension after what happened in 2007,’ commented Linda Goodman, chair of the Birmingham branch of the supporters club. ‘I think Blues fans would like more information on where [Yeung’s] getting his money from, considering he’s willing to pay £20m more than he was two years ago, since when his company’s struggled.’ Grandtop, which mainly invests in sportswear and entertainment companies, said it hoped the acquistion would earn the club more fans in Hong Kong and China while promoting football across Asia.
Mr Yeung, who started off buying hair salons before making most of his money from property and casinos in Macau, was also chairman of Hong Kong Rangers football club. Birmingham City moved out of the red last year when it recorded a pre-tax profit of £4.3m in the 12 months to August. Once the sale of the Blues is completed, half of the Premiership clubs will be in foreign ownership. Four are American owned (Aston Villa, Liverpool, Manchester United and Sunderland) while the one top four club still in domestic ownership, Arsenal, is backed by US investor Stan Kroenke. All of what would generally be regarded as the smaller clubs in the Premiership are still in domestic ownership (Blackburn, Bolton Burnley, Hull, Stoke, Wigan and Wolves).