The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[Monty]

I look forward to our new CEO, Mr. Al O. Pecia.


...I'm so sorry.

[UK Redsox]

Let's home that Tone isn't hair today and gone tomorrow

...I am also very sorry

[LeeS]

So have we concluded that he is a wrong'un again? I've lost track.

[UK Redsox]

So have we concluded that he is a wrong'un again? I've lost track.

Nothing's happening, so we're back to puns again

[mr underhill]

it's just a hair brained notion of a Walter Mitty type fantasist who might be Chinese and  Doctor Who

[Russ aka Big Nose]

So have we concluded that he is a wrong'un again? I've lost track.

Nothing's happening, so we're back to puns again

If it unravels, then maybe Tony Xia is not the hair apparent.

Perhaps the puns have merit - a distraction to stop wild speculation (positive or negative).

[Chico Hamilton III]

So he owns a company which sells slimming soap and anti-hair loss shampoo? Does he sell snake oil as well, by any chance?

[frank black]

Slimming soap and hair loss shampoo....face palm emoticon thingy......

Products designed to part a fool from his/her money.

[Pat McMahon]

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.

Interesting - this article picks up on a couple of the points my old teacher in Shanghai sent to me last week. I didn't post because I couldn't back them up from other sources.

Most people I have spoken to have never heard of him or Rui Kang.

[aev]

Slimming soap and hair loss shampoo....face palm emoticon thingy......

Products designed to part a fool from his/her money.

Let's hope it isn't a case of what goes around comes around.

[Clark W Griswold]

I just hope we can ressurect one of the other alleged buyers when 'dodgey Tone' is finally confirmed as the Chinese Michael Knighton.

[dave.woodhall]

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?

theyre not , i meant he has just signed a 12 month rolling contract , I think all clubs should go down that route

Except for Pearson. We're making a bit of a fool of ourself here, aren't we?

[Risso]

I'm still in the patient and hopeful camp.  For Xia to have got to this stage, he will have to have verified his wealth to Merrill Lynch and/or the new law firm handling the sale, plus Hollis and Lerner, and there's no way he can have done that without proving that he's got the cash available to do the deal.

I know lots of extremely rich people who you wouldn't be able to find out much about on the internet, mainly due to the fact that they don't want you to.  I hope Xia is one of those.

[Ger Regan]

I'm still in the patient and hopeful camp.  For Xia to have got to this stage, he will have to have verified his wealth to Merrill Lynch and/or the new law firm handling the sale, plus Hollis and Lerner, and there's no way he can have done that without proving that he's got the cash available to do the deal.

I know lots of extremely rich people who you wouldn't be able to find out much about on the internet, mainly due to the fact that they don't want you to.  I hope Xia is one of those.

If he is, then why is he now doing interviews to all and sundry?

[aev]

I'm still in the patient and hopeful camp.  For Xia to have got to this stage, he will have to have verified his wealth to Merrill Lynch and/or the new law firm handling the sale, plus Hollis and Lerner, and there's no way he can have done that without proving that he's got the cash available to do the deal.

I know lots of extremely rich people who you wouldn't be able to find out much about on the internet, mainly due to the fact that they don't want you to.  I hope Xia is one of those.

If he is, then why is he now doing interviews to all and sundry?

And suggesting to the Mail that he is loaded?