The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[ciggiesnbeer]

Sorry, I'm confused. Are we now back at the point where we are saying that Dr. X has again turned into the equivalent of a Bond film baddie?

Even worse, bad shoes.

We've been here before; anyone not wearing Jeffery West shoes will ever get laid.  Is shoe quality part of the 'fit and proper person' test?

If it is, its a low bar.

[Pat McMahon]

To save you the time it's here.[/url

What has not has been mentioned at all as far as I can see, is that GB PLC seems to be involved in a trade/currency war with China which history has taught us is often a precursor to  the real thing, and the propaganda machine is on full ramp with events rapidly escalating in the South China Sea.

The Chinese see GB PLC as one of their allies in Europe. They are convinced the UK government will vote in favour of China gaining market economy status at the World Trade Organisation in December.

[john e]

Either he has 430 million in his bank account and owns another 80 companies in which case everything will be oK

Or he's been lying and the funding is coming from other bogus areas involving dodgy people

[Ron Manager]

Either he has 430 million in his bank account and owns another 80 companies in which case everything will be oK

Or he's been lying and the funding is coming from other bogus areas involving dodgy people

Hmm..... I do hope the League's legal bods are going through all this with a fine tooth comb .
Too many things  do not look right at all.

[onje_villa]

I've definitely been in the optimistic camp so far with the Xia takeover but there is an awful lot of smoke around this one. People with extremely shady backgrounds are all over this deal and you can certainly see Reading fans' point about having our fingers in our ears.

Of course we'll say let's wait and see and just because it happened there doesn't mean it will here but there is a certain whiff of dodginess about this whole deal. Perhaps it will be dodgy but there will be money and maybe we will be OK and successful, I suppose we'll start to find out in the next few weeks.

[mr underhill]

if these people are that suspect it won't get approval.

[aj2k77]

They have to be more than suspect.

The league won't bar a takeover involving them because Everton and Reading fans don't like them and previous deals fell through. They have to have done something wrong by league rules and as far as I can see and no one has said contrary to this, they haven't have they?

[pauliewalnuts]

They could quite easily pass the test (let's not forget, it is hardly stringent) and go on to do things which are perfectly legal but bad for the club.

What if they lumped the cost of buying the club onto the club itself? Not illegal but highly undesirable.

[john e]

They could quite easily pass the test (let's not forget, it is hardly stringent) and go on to do things which are perfectly legal but bad for the club.

What if they lumped the cost of buying the club onto the club itself? Not illegal but highly undesirable.

your last bit is what I'm am concerned about the most, why else have these guys around

[CJ]

They could quite easily pass the test (let's not forget, it is hardly stringent) and go on to do things which are perfectly legal but bad for the club.

What if they lumped the cost of buying the club onto the club itself? Not illegal but highly undesirable.

your last bit is what I'm am concerned about the most, why else have these guys around

Is this what would be known as a leveraged buy out, as per the Glazers at Man Utd?

[john2710]

Last week I'd heard that Samuelson approached Xia with the idea of buying us rather than the other way around. Hopefully the authorities will find anything of concern.

Given that 60% of Swansea is costing £100m buying a club like ours for £70m is a good opportunity to make some quick money, if they can turn things around quickly.

[old man villa fan]

They could quite easily pass the test (let's not forget, it is hardly stringent) and go on to do things which are perfectly legal but bad for the club.

What if they lumped the cost of buying the club onto the club itself? Not illegal but highly undesirable.

your last bit is what I'm am concerned about the most, why else have these guys around

Is this what would be known as a leveraged buy out, as per the Glazers at Man Utd?

The Glazers buy out was different to any potential buying of a club in our position.  With the income at Man Utd the profits would eventually pay off the loans and the Glazers would get the club on the cheap by using other peoples money to further their own investment.  Buying in to Villa using the same method would still have to rely on the same 'game rules' of making a profit if you are going to stay until it works or make the club an attractive purchase for somebody else.  The TV revenue is starting to make a difference but you are still looking to clubs to be run well to turn a profit.  Villa is only an attractive proposition as a going concern.  BH has no value other than what it is being used for or turning back to farming.  Villa Park is not on valuable land as the cost to make it ready for development would make it more expensive than similar land elsewhere.  This brings you to the playing assets.  On paper they are worth a lot but you have to keep on replenishing the asset with additional high running costs or you start to sink in the league.

Investing in football clubs is not big business when you compare it to business in general.  Therefore you are going to get quite a few 'fixers' in the market.  Top facilitating companies with international reputations are not interested in football when there are bigger deals in other business.  They will work on a consultancy basis to carry out set tasks but they will not be going out trying to put deals together.  The fixers generally do not come with good reputations as inevitably they have failed elsewhere at some time.  With football, failure is usually down to not getting the business model right on the level of investment actually required, both initially and ongoing.  Even with Lerner, when the investment was high, we still failed due to not managing that investment.  Reading the bit about Portsmouth, Keith Harris was mentioned and he was supposedly the 'bees knees' in this game 10 years ago and I think he was the guy that put Ellis and Lerner together.  Other than at the top end, most buy outs in football have failed due to, as mentioned above, level of investment (too much required to get profitable success) and limited number of clubs that can get success (winning something).

I do not imagine that Xia knew anything about putting together a football deal and putting all the people in place.  He needed a fixer and looks to have gone to Samuelson to do this.  I am not sure how many people are in the 'football fixer' business but, again, I imagine not many, as the same names seem to crop up.  A holding company registered in the UK was needed and it looks as though Samuelson has used people he knows that do this all of the time and then, having set the company up, these people back out.

I think we just have to see how this all goes as there is very little we can do to prevent two men doing a deal on selling/buying a private business.  The Leagues acceptance is the only hoop they have to jump through and that does not seem that difficult.  Shouting this and that is not going to alter the course this deal is taking.  We will only see how this pans out in, say, September when we see how much has been spent on players.  The more Xia invests, the deeper he gets into the club and the harder for a 'quick buck' to be made.

[CJ]

Another common (but pretty minor) thread which would suggest Samuelson is the source - when he was involved at Everton he said he'd 'supported them since he was a boy', quickly found to be bollocks, and at Reading he got the Russian to say he'd 'supported Reading since he studied in England'. Now we get Dr X to say he's 'supported us since he studied here'. Hmmm

[old man villa fan]

Another common (but pretty minor) thread which would suggest Samuelson is the source - when he was involved at Everton he said he'd 'supported them since he was a boy', quickly found to be bollocks, and at Reading he got the Russian to say he'd 'supported Reading since he studied in England'. Now we get Dr X to say he's 'supported us since he studied here'. Hmmm

Perhaps Samuelson was a friend of Randy too!

[kippaxvilla2]

Been out of the loop for a few days is this going wrong or what?  I can't quite tell from the last few posts?