The Takeover Thread - Recon Group - NOW WITH NEW POLL

[Stirchley Villain]

Who is Hook?

[peter w]

Oh, he was this chancer pirate geezer who lost his hand to a crocodile. A tic tic croc if you please. Anyway, this kid could fly and shit and tried to stop Hook being well, a pirate. You can't support child beating but the kid wore ridiculous outfits and was a bit of a twat. Although, you know, flying is seriously cool. Hook is a bit of a bumbling buffoon so gets what he deserves. And his crew hate him and most have deserted him apart from one old fella.

Anyway, why you ask?

[Ads]

Hook is the name on the other shirt in the Xia dressing room snap.

[peter w]

He supports Villa? Go on my son. Well stands to reason with Peter Twat Pan at The Shit Hook was always going to be a Villa fan. I will now watch Jake & The Neverland Pirates with renewed vigour.

[pauliewalnuts]

£500m?

Yeah, right. From a bloke that even Google's previously never heard of, who's in league with a couple of "businessmen" who Google certainly have heard of, but for all the wrong reasons.

I really, really hope I'm wrong about all this, but just about everything stinks.

Agree. Sadly.

Totally happy to see a single trace of evidence that I'm being doomish. In fact, I wish I could see such evidence.

[Dave Javu]

This is just gnawing away at me. I've stayed up too late looking at stuff about Reading FC and the involvement of Samuelson and Hitchens in the 2012 takeover.

Apologies if any of this has been covered before. I haven't kept up with this thread too much over the past few days.

First observation: The so-called "fit and proper" test took four months to complete at Reading, so good luck with June 15th.

"The requirements for owners and directors of clubs, formerly known as the "fit and proper person test", are that anybody on the board or owning more than 30% of a club must not have unspent criminal convictions for dishonesty, be bankrupt or have been involved in the insolvency of two football clubs since 2004. Both leagues now also require proof that the money is there, as committed, to buy the club, and to see a business plan which shows the club will be able to remain solvent and fulfil its fixtures for the season ahead. Both leagues now employ corporate intelligence companies to gather information, mostly from public sources and press coverage, about prospective owners. The Premier League also makes inquiries of the Home Office and Foreign Office to ask whether the government has relevant information about prospective owners." (Guardian, David Conn 2012)

So who is the owner? Is it our Tone? In which case can we ask where he got his dough from? Is it Recon, in which can we take a peek at some accounts? (clue:There aren't any) Will we really ever know who the owner(s) of Villa truly are? No, because we're being bought from a secretive jurisdiction. So just who will the test apply to and will it be the right person they are checking?

Samuelson and Hitchens presumably won't own 30% so presumably nobody's going to ask about Hitchens' persistent accounts no-show from his various companies or Director Samuelson's UK company which is about to be struck off for (I think and don't quote me on this) not filing accounts (Companies House)

I then found this piece, written in October 2013 - a year after the Zingarevic /Thames Sports Investments takeover. Burning questions for Reading fans at this time included: Who exactly owns Reading? Why was the purchase done from a secretive jurisdiction? What exactly do Samuelson and Hitchens actually do at Reading? and finally an observation that "Cor, shouldn't the club have filed it's accounts by now?"

So how did the story pan out? TSI never came up with the second and final installment to complete the purchase (Good luck Randy with that promised £40m if we do somehow manage to claw our way back up). Some Thai investors did come in in September 2014. John Madjeski said at that time these new owners have "taken on a substantial amount of debt" which had built up at the club (Good luck us with our "up to £50m" investment in the squad"

Reading finished 17th in The Championship last season.

One more thing from that blog:

"...sadly, a complete lack of financial transparency seems to be the standard way things are done in football these days, with supporters at so many clubs denied access to details of their club’s financial health or even not knowing for sure who actually owns their club.  Countless sets of supporters are kept in the dark about the inner workings and key financial details of the clubs that are so much a part of their life. In fact, the attitude of those in positions of power, both within clubs and the football authorities themselves, towards supporters who want to know such matters about the clubs often tends to be little more than a figurative pat on the head and an unspoken, “You just keep buying tickets to the matches and don’t you worry your pretty little heads about things like money.”

[Ron Manager]

This is edging towards the unacceptable. What was Steve Hollis doing reccomending these people to Lerner.Xia has some very strange and doubtful bedfellows.

Even someone like Randy must smell a rat here.

[Ads]

If Hitchens was binned as a director of the UK Recon getting on for two weeks ago, I'm not sure why he'd be involved with us if he isn't anything to do with the parent company.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to equate everything that happened at Reading as some forerunner for what will happen at the Villa. Previous takeovers are a warning, good or bad. Let's wait and see what happens here.

As for the £500 million, isn't that a typo from the article that stated £50 million was in escrow to complete the purchase.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

I think he meant Jamie Banfill, Samuelson's partner. Banfill seems to prefer to let Samuelson represent both their interests.

[aev]

In one of the articles the Doctor laughed when he was asked if he was worth x amount, saying it was a lot more than that.

[Stirchley Villain]

Hook is the name on the other shirt in the Xia dressing room snap.

Yeah but who is he?

[Clampy]

If Hitchens was binned as a director of the UK Recon getting on for two weeks ago, I'm not sure why he'd be involved with us if he isn't anything to do with the parent company.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to equate everything that happened at Reading as some forerunner for what will happen at the Villa. Previous takeovers are a warning, good or bad. Let's wait and see what happens here.

As for the £500 million, isn't that a typo from the article that stated £50 million was in escrow to complete the purchase.

Precisely. Just because Reading finished 17th, it doesn't mean we will.

[Rudy Can't Fail]

So who is the owner? Is it our Tone? In which case can we ask where he got his dough from? Is it Recon, in which can we take a peek at some accounts? (clue:There aren't any) Will we really ever know who the owner(s) of Villa truly are? No, because we're being bought from a secretive jurisdiction. So just who will the test apply to and will it be the right person they are checking?

It was reported on Caixin.com

Recon Chairman Xia Jiantong, whose company's five subsidiaries do business in a variety of fields from monosodium glutamate production to IT services to alternative energy autos, said the deal was a bargain.

"Seventy-five million pounds is not a big investment," Xia told Caixin.

To raise the cash, Xia said, privately held Recon tapped the bank accounts of two subsidiaries: Shanghai-listed Lotus Health Industry Holding Group, and Shenzhen-listed Teamax Smart City Technology Corp. Ltd

Teamax Smart City Technology Corp. Ltd was sold to Softto for just under £7m back in early April.

[Ads]

He owns Softo as well doesn't he?

[Rudy Can't Fail]

No idea, Ads. Your guess is as good as mine.