TAKEOVER COMPLETE - H & G Finally Jibbed!
by Reg » Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:27 pm
Kenneth Huang's non-bid exposes the poverty of Liverpool's options
Five months after being appointed chairman of Liverpool, Martin Broughton appears no closer to solving the apparently intractable problem of the club's ownership.
Daily Telegraph 25 Aug 2010
Employed at the behest of the Royal Bank of Scotland to find a replacement for Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Broughton seems certain to miss his aspiration of selling Liverpool by the end of the transfer window, and is already considering the far more pressing deadline of Oct 6, when the owners' financing on £237 million of debt with RBS expires.
Unless a new owner can be found before then – and on Tuesday night sources suggested that was unlikely – the state-owned bank faces an invidious choice. RBS either unseats the Americans and takes control of the club, with all the PR problems that would entail, or extends more financing, a move that would prompt a backlash on Merseyside and may simply prolong the impasse.
Since April, Broughton and BarCap have discovered what Merrill Lynch and Rothschilds learned in the previous two years when they were trying to sell the club. Namely that reconciling the demands of the owners – who still believe that Liverpool are worth well in excess of the £237 million they owe RBS – with the requirement for investment in players and a new stadium, is nigh on impossible.
The result is the poverty of options before Broughton, of which there is no better illustration than the fact that Chinese-American businessman Kenneth Huang found himself billed as a front-runner to buy the club despite not even making a formal bid.
Last night Huang's American business partner, Marc Ganis, confirmed to Telegraph Sport that, despite weeks of speculation, they did not enter a formal bid. "There was never a formal proposal submitted by us to the club and we have been very clear about that."
Ganis's admission will fuel the suspicion that the Huang bid was motivated by publicity, though he denies this. He acknowledged that the acres of coverage had led to uncertainty over the credibility of their proposal, but said ultimately it was not of their making.
"I am not going to dispute how it looks from the outside but we had nothing to do with the publicity, and when the first stories about us appeared we had not submitted a single piece of paperwork [to Liverpool].
"We wanted to stay under the radar and do this quietly, but that wasn't possible. We have now withdrawn from the process, which is the end of the matter as far as we are concerned."
Huang's interest became public three weeks ago, amid claims that he was backed by the sovereign investment arm of the Chinese government, the China Investment Corporation (CIC).
He withdrew from the process last Friday after a blaze of publicity sparked by off-the-record briefings he has since disowned, public statements and interviews in which he talked about his plans for the club.
Huang offered no explanation for his withdrawal, but sources close to Ganis and him have told The Daily Telegraph that publicity around the bid led their anchor investor to pull out. Ganis has previously maintained that the CIC was not formally involved as an investor.
According to the source, the investor's withdrawal left the Huang bid seeking fresh investment in the middle of negotiations with BarCap and Broughton, a change in circumstances that prompted doubts about their ability to fund a bid.
The source also said that the Huang camp had become disillusioned with the sales process, believing that the American owners were opposed to their involvement. For their part, the owners have never accepted that Huang was a live contender, citing as evidence his failure to sign a non-disclosure agreement, considered a precondition of formal negotiations.
Huang is generally described as a dealmaker with an increasing presence in sport, acting as a bridge between Chinese companies and American franchises, and has brokered sponsorship deals between Chinese sponsors and NBA and MBL franchises.
He also owns Chinese assets include a semi-professional basketball league and a fledgling baseball league, a basketball magazine and a charitable foundation, all through his company QSL Sports. There was nothing on the scale of owning and running a Premier League club, however.
Scrutiny of his background also raised confusion over claims he made under oath about his assets and business background. The claims arose in evidence Huang gave to a Miami court earlier this year.
Huang was defending himself against a $2.9 million lawsuit from his former partners in a deal to import Chinese-manufactured cars to the United States and South Africa. Huang won the case and was awarded $300,000 in costs and damages, but his testimony was contentious.
In his evidence, a transcript of which has been passed to Telegraph Sport, Huang claimed to be a board member of the Bank of Communications, a major Chinese bank. The bank disputes this claim.
"I'm sitting on the board of Bank of Communications, assets management, which is the fourth largest bank in China," Huang told the court.
In a statement released on Tuesday, however, Eric Pan, a senior executive at the bank's Shanghai headquarters, said: "I'd like to confirm that Mr Huang is not or has never been a member of our bank's board or any advisory board."
Ganis maintained that in fact Huang was a member of the advisory board of an investment fund set up by the bank's international division, the Bank of Communications International Greater China Fund, that Pan may not have been aware of.
Huang also said he was the owner of a 15 per cent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers, an NBA franchise. "I am a leader of an investment group that has 15 per cent of the ownership," he told the court.
In fact he never had any investment in the Cavaliers, though he did front a consortium that tried and failed to take a stake in the club. A spokesman for the Cavaliers told The Daily Telegraph: "Mr Huang is not a 15 per cent owner of the Cavaliers, he never has been and he was never projected to be."
Ganis said that confusion over Huang's comments may have been a result of English being his third language, but said a press release issued in April made it clear that Huang and QSL Sports had no stake in the Cavaliers.
++
Looks like Kenny's dead and buried then. Told you he was a spiv!
Five months after being appointed chairman of Liverpool, Martin Broughton appears no closer to solving the apparently intractable problem of the club's ownership.
Daily Telegraph 25 Aug 2010
Employed at the behest of the Royal Bank of Scotland to find a replacement for Tom Hicks and George Gillett, Broughton seems certain to miss his aspiration of selling Liverpool by the end of the transfer window, and is already considering the far more pressing deadline of Oct 6, when the owners' financing on £237 million of debt with RBS expires.
Unless a new owner can be found before then – and on Tuesday night sources suggested that was unlikely – the state-owned bank faces an invidious choice. RBS either unseats the Americans and takes control of the club, with all the PR problems that would entail, or extends more financing, a move that would prompt a backlash on Merseyside and may simply prolong the impasse.
Since April, Broughton and BarCap have discovered what Merrill Lynch and Rothschilds learned in the previous two years when they were trying to sell the club. Namely that reconciling the demands of the owners – who still believe that Liverpool are worth well in excess of the £237 million they owe RBS – with the requirement for investment in players and a new stadium, is nigh on impossible.
The result is the poverty of options before Broughton, of which there is no better illustration than the fact that Chinese-American businessman Kenneth Huang found himself billed as a front-runner to buy the club despite not even making a formal bid.
Last night Huang's American business partner, Marc Ganis, confirmed to Telegraph Sport that, despite weeks of speculation, they did not enter a formal bid. "There was never a formal proposal submitted by us to the club and we have been very clear about that."
Ganis's admission will fuel the suspicion that the Huang bid was motivated by publicity, though he denies this. He acknowledged that the acres of coverage had led to uncertainty over the credibility of their proposal, but said ultimately it was not of their making.
"I am not going to dispute how it looks from the outside but we had nothing to do with the publicity, and when the first stories about us appeared we had not submitted a single piece of paperwork [to Liverpool].
"We wanted to stay under the radar and do this quietly, but that wasn't possible. We have now withdrawn from the process, which is the end of the matter as far as we are concerned."
Huang's interest became public three weeks ago, amid claims that he was backed by the sovereign investment arm of the Chinese government, the China Investment Corporation (CIC).
He withdrew from the process last Friday after a blaze of publicity sparked by off-the-record briefings he has since disowned, public statements and interviews in which he talked about his plans for the club.
Huang offered no explanation for his withdrawal, but sources close to Ganis and him have told The Daily Telegraph that publicity around the bid led their anchor investor to pull out. Ganis has previously maintained that the CIC was not formally involved as an investor.
According to the source, the investor's withdrawal left the Huang bid seeking fresh investment in the middle of negotiations with BarCap and Broughton, a change in circumstances that prompted doubts about their ability to fund a bid.
The source also said that the Huang camp had become disillusioned with the sales process, believing that the American owners were opposed to their involvement. For their part, the owners have never accepted that Huang was a live contender, citing as evidence his failure to sign a non-disclosure agreement, considered a precondition of formal negotiations.
Huang is generally described as a dealmaker with an increasing presence in sport, acting as a bridge between Chinese companies and American franchises, and has brokered sponsorship deals between Chinese sponsors and NBA and MBL franchises.
He also owns Chinese assets include a semi-professional basketball league and a fledgling baseball league, a basketball magazine and a charitable foundation, all through his company QSL Sports. There was nothing on the scale of owning and running a Premier League club, however.
Scrutiny of his background also raised confusion over claims he made under oath about his assets and business background. The claims arose in evidence Huang gave to a Miami court earlier this year.
Huang was defending himself against a $2.9 million lawsuit from his former partners in a deal to import Chinese-manufactured cars to the United States and South Africa. Huang won the case and was awarded $300,000 in costs and damages, but his testimony was contentious.
In his evidence, a transcript of which has been passed to Telegraph Sport, Huang claimed to be a board member of the Bank of Communications, a major Chinese bank. The bank disputes this claim.
"I'm sitting on the board of Bank of Communications, assets management, which is the fourth largest bank in China," Huang told the court.
In a statement released on Tuesday, however, Eric Pan, a senior executive at the bank's Shanghai headquarters, said: "I'd like to confirm that Mr Huang is not or has never been a member of our bank's board or any advisory board."
Ganis maintained that in fact Huang was a member of the advisory board of an investment fund set up by the bank's international division, the Bank of Communications International Greater China Fund, that Pan may not have been aware of.
Huang also said he was the owner of a 15 per cent stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers, an NBA franchise. "I am a leader of an investment group that has 15 per cent of the ownership," he told the court.
In fact he never had any investment in the Cavaliers, though he did front a consortium that tried and failed to take a stake in the club. A spokesman for the Cavaliers told The Daily Telegraph: "Mr Huang is not a 15 per cent owner of the Cavaliers, he never has been and he was never projected to be."
Ganis said that confusion over Huang's comments may have been a result of English being his third language, but said a press release issued in April made it clear that Huang and QSL Sports had no stake in the Cavaliers.
++
Looks like Kenny's dead and buried then. Told you he was a spiv!
Last edited by Reg on Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:32 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Reg - >> LFC Elite Member <<
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by Penguins » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:28 pm
Well, it is clear as crystal.
The vermin wants alot of money and every man and his dogs know the vermin are living on borrowed time and will not pay a single penny more than the debt. Time is on all the potential buyers side, not on the current owners or on the present state of the club.
But better paying 237 million and forfeit the season with 9pts off than pay 4-500 million and still no chance of changing much this season anyway.
Nothing will happen until October 6th.
The vermin wants alot of money and every man and his dogs know the vermin are living on borrowed time and will not pay a single penny more than the debt. Time is on all the potential buyers side, not on the current owners or on the present state of the club.
But better paying 237 million and forfeit the season with 9pts off than pay 4-500 million and still no chance of changing much this season anyway.
Nothing will happen until October 6th.
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by fivecups » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:51 pm
"I am not going to dispute how it looks from the outside but we had nothing to do with the publicity, and when the first stories about us appeared we had not submitted a single piece of paperwork [to Liverpool].
"We wanted to stay under the radar and do this quietly, but that wasn't possible. We have now withdrawn from the process, which is the end of the matter as far as we are concerned."
What a load of f'ucking balls - I've never seen a PR campaign like it - he was advised by someone with an intimate knowledge of the club, they even advised him to contact SOS and had reputable supporters promising us the world. Talk about being played! You called it right Reg.
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by fivecups » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:08 pm
burjennio wrote:I hate football.
Im going to start watching bowls instead. Im almost positive they'll be no Americans near it.
I hate it and everything involved with it - pile of sh'ite.
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fivecups - >> LFC Elite Member <<
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by burjennio » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:09 pm
fivecups wrote:burjennio wrote:I hate football.
Im going to start watching bowls instead. Im almost positive they'll be no Americans near it.
I hate it and everything involved with it - pile of sh'ite.
bowls or football?
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by Ciggy » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:34 pm
Nemeths agent: "Liverpool told us that it is not the question of quality but a financial decision. As it is with others out this season."
OUT:
Reira, Benayoun, Mascherano ( Kuyt?), Voronin, Dossena, Aqualini, Cavalieri who else have I missed?
In:
Jovanovich free
Cole free
Brad Jones 2 million
Poulson (deal probably agreed for Aqualini)
Danny Wilson 2 million.
Low key asset stripping going on here if they would have sold gerrard & Torres there would have been feckin murder !!!!
OUT:
Reira, Benayoun, Mascherano ( Kuyt?), Voronin, Dossena, Aqualini, Cavalieri who else have I missed?
In:
Jovanovich free
Cole free
Brad Jones 2 million
Poulson (deal probably agreed for Aqualini)
Danny Wilson 2 million.
Low key asset stripping going on here if they would have sold gerrard & Torres there would have been feckin murder !!!!
Last edited by Ciggy on Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
There is no-one anywhere in the world at any stage who is any bigger or any better than this football club.
Kenny Dalglish 1/2/2011
REST IN PEACE PHIL, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
Kenny Dalglish 1/2/2011
REST IN PEACE PHIL, YOU WILL NEVER BE FORGOTTEN.
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by fivecups » Wed Aug 25, 2010 9:42 pm
burjennio wrote:fivecups wrote:burjennio wrote:I hate football.
Im going to start watching bowls instead. Im almost positive they'll be no Americans near it.
I hate it and everything involved with it - pile of sh'ite.
bowls or football?
Both actally. Apart from the guy with the pipe - who may now be dead.
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fivecups - >> LFC Elite Member <<
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