The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[Dave]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

So you don't accept the professor that he studied uder at Harvard saying that his education record at Harvard and MIT is exactly as it was represented as being a fact?

Not really. A (seemingly very credible) source on social media saying that he's had an email from his teacher is certainly very good to hear, but it certainly falls short of what I'd consider to be a fact.

[Walmley_Villa]

My one nagging concern is the involvement of Samuelson - potentially Executive Chairman, I just hope the Chinese element is not a front for more of his supposed shenanigans. Never convicted but surely no smoke without fire?

[passport1]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

So you don't accept the professor that he studied uder at Harvard saying that his education record at Harvard and MIT is exactly as it was represented as being a fact?

You don't take a sale certificate showing they've recently sold a company for £430m as a fact?

What constitutes a fact in your world?

Straws?

Oh dear

[PaulWinch again]

My one nagging concern is the involvement of Samuelson - potentially Executive Chairman, I just hope the Chinese element is not a front for more of his supposed shenanigans. Never convicted but surely no smoke without fire?

I think he works for a company who facilitates takeovers, I don't think he has any direct involvement with the Recon Group.

[paul_e]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

So you don't accept the professor that he studied uder at Harvard saying that his education record at Harvard and MIT is exactly as it was represented as being a fact?

Not really. A (seemingly very credible) source on social media saying that he's had an email from his teacher is certainly very good to hear, but it certainly falls short of what I'd consider to be a fact.

What would it take for you to accept that as a fact?  Said source is a journalist who seems to have put comfortably the most effort into fact-finding of anyone so I don't know what more will be needed, will it be when others report the same?  How will their source be verified and how will it be more valid?

[aev]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

You don't take a sale certificate showing they've recently sold a company for £430m as a fact?

Which newspaper article was this in?

The Mail on Sunday, the article is linked on here somewhere, good luck finding it though.

Ah yes - "Tony Xia, Aston Villa’s owner-in-waiting, chuckles when asked if he is a dollar billionaire.
I think it’s rather more than that,’ says the 39-year-old Chinese businessman, explaining that just a few months ago he sold one of his companies, Teamax, for £430million, which is sitting in a bank account waiting to be spent, in part on Villa."

I have had a quick look on Bloomberg and I cant find anything about this sale - there is a Teamax Smart Technology that is listed (with a softto website that I can't get to load up), last traded at 19.50 cny today.

There are no recent company news stories or events.

[Chico Hamilton III]

Dunno if this has been posted or even adds anything new to what we already know?


South China Morning Post


May 22, 2016 Sunday

Is Xia Jiantong the man to save Villa?;
An attempt to find out a bit more info about the little-known Chinese businessman's background raises a few red flags

BYLINE: James Porteous


After 10 years of stagnation and finally relegation under American owner Randy Lerner, the news that he had sold storied English club Aston Villa for £60 million (HK$676 million) to China's Tony Xia Jiantong was greeted with fervour by fans. Xia declared that he wanted Villa to become the best known team in China, "even the best well-known in the world - in less than 10 years." His football credentials - he's a fan of Villa and played at college! - were given the seal of approval. A wild notion that he had a fortune of £27 billion started doing the rounds, before common sense prevailed. But the reaction among those without a vested interest in the club's future was "Who?"



"Like most of the world, I've never heard of the guy or any of his companies," a CEO of a sports-related investment firm in Beijing told me when I tried to find out some info. Reports in British - and notably Chinese - media simply cut-and-paste the bio from Aston Villa's official statement.


A bit of digging turned up some dubious-looking tales, notably a collection of anonymous posts on the 'New Threads' website set up by Fang Zhouzi, who campaigns against pseudoscience and fraud in China. They claim Xia said he was a professor at Harvard when he was actually a teaching assistant, may have exaggerated his academic credentials, and treated his ex-wife shabbily. Not exactly hanging offences, especially in mainland China, but not hallmarks of probity. Harvard did not respond to emailed enquiries.


Xia is chief of Recon Group, whose website is somewhat light on concrete detail as to how the company actually makes money. "Smart economy" and similar buzzwords are thrown around with abandon. One of the main businesses, it seems, is making monosodium glutamate through listed subsidiary Lotus Health, which lost the equivalent of around HK$600 million last year (though shares rocketed on one day when it was announced Xi Jinping's cousin was going to join the board).


Xia's mentor at Harvard's Graduate School of Design, professor emeritus Charles Harris, did give me a glowing reference. He was Xia's "host family" in Massachussetts, he said in an email. "As a result of knowing him 'almost as a son', I am pleased to say that from my first meeting with him, I realised that he had a very remarkable mind, a wide range of life experiences, and self-interests in many things," says Harris, who says he travelled with Xia to China in 1990 and met his family. "I expect to remain his life-long friend and am eager to follow his career as it continues to evolve. I hope to visit him in China within the next year or so."


Harris told him about a company he started in 1963 called RECON or Resource and Development Consultants, which he and his founders suspended in 1970. "I encouraged him to consider creating his own version of RECON with a possible initial base in both USA and China," he said. Thus the source for the "50 years of history" Recon and associated firms trumpet on their websites. One in the plus column then, though I'd still be far from confident were I a Villa fan.


The club said Recon "owns the controlling interest in five publicly listed companies on the Hong Kong and Chinese Stock Exchanges". I haven't been able to find a sign of the former, and the Financial Times reports that a spokesman for Recon told them Lotus was their only firm, though "acquisition deals for the remaining four companies are still being finalised and should come out soon".


That sentence has since been changed from "five publicly listed companies" to "several" on Villa's website.


Recon has a seemingly dormant urban planning firm called XWho and a "smart city" company called Teamax which was apparently listed in Shenzhen by dint of a reverse merger with a shampoo company, raising all sorts of red flags. These and other nuggets of information have been gleaned from SCMP colleague Xie Yu and Caixin business magazine, and blogger Mark Dreyer has summarised them well in English.


You wonder if they and other journalists have done more due diligence than Villa's board. Key members, including former Bank of England governor Mervyn King, resigned last month. Chairman Steve Hollis was quoted as saying that Xia was responsible for the Bird's Nest Stadium in Beijing, which even a cursory search would have revealed as nonsense.


Xia's takeover is not confirmed, with the Premier League seemingly doubtful and because the Football League has to run its notoriously pointless "fit and proper persons test".


The overwhelming feeling among fans seems to be "anyone's better than Lerner". Hopefully they're right.

[pauliewalnuts]

Disturbing.

[CJ]

With Moyes turning us down and the possibility the PL smell something fishy, I have a horrible feeling this is all going to go tits up

[Dave]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

So you don't accept the professor that he studied uder at Harvard saying that his education record at Harvard and MIT is exactly as it was represented as being a fact?

Not really. A (seemingly very credible) source on social media saying that he's had an email from his teacher is certainly very good to hear, but it certainly falls short of what I'd consider to be a fact.

What would it take for you to accept that as a fact?  Said source is a journalist who seems to have put comfortably the most effort into fact-finding of anyone so I don't know what more will be needed, will it be when others report the same?  How will their source be verified and how will it be more valid?

No, other people reporting the same claim wouldn't make it a fact. Why would it?

Just like if a journalist said the he had an email from his teacher saying his whole education claim was a pack of lies, I wouldn't treat that as a fact either.

Like I said, that doesn't make the information useless or even unreliable. If it's evidenced and corroborated then it can be considered a fact. Until then, it's a piece of useful second-hand evidence.

[conman]

I can just imagine the conversation.

"What length will my contract be?"

"Twelve months."

"That's not long. What happens if I win promotion?"

"We'll sack you and get someone else in." 

yes and thats the contract rodgers has just signed at celtic , but pearson should have a 3 year rolling over one

[HK Villan]

'Other than the fact '

There are no facts just opinions and as I stated some pretty significant straws in the wind.

So you don't accept the professor that he studied uder at Harvard saying that his education record at Harvard and MIT is exactly as it was represented as being a fact?

You don't take a sale certificate showing they've recently sold a company for £430m as a fact?

What constitutes a fact in your world?

What  a Daily Mail journalist (who already says he's a billionaire) has said on Twitter? 

A very questionable piece of paper the like I have never seen except in connection with scams and frauds?  Come on!

To respond to some previous comments the Telegraph report does repeat some things written before, but they are repeating serious questions which need to be answered, not just blindly repeating statements about his background many of which seem to be full of holes. 

[Percy McCarthy]

I can just imagine the conversation.

"What length will my contract be?"

"Twelve months."

"That's not long. What happens if I win promotion?"

"We'll sack you and get someone else in." 

yes and thats the contract rodgers has just signed at celtic , but pearson should have a 3 year rolling over one

What division are Celtic trying to get promoted to?

[Stirchley Villain]

If Moyes agrees to join us this week I think we can pretty much assume that the takeover deal's a good un.

Ah...

[conman]

If Moyes agrees to join us this week I think we can pretty much assume that the takeover deal's a good un.

Ah...

looks like moyes is quite clued up with the financial market in china