Often Partisan

Chinese Media – Debts and Yang Yuezhou

Yesterday, I linked the news from China that Yang Yuezhou had loaned BIH around £6mil, and had taken the vice-chairship of the board, as well as installing two placemen. Unfortunately, I’ve now seen in the press the reason for this infusion of cash – and the bad news is BCFC aren’t going to see a penny of it.

Ming Pao reports that there was a rather large loan owed by BIH that had to be paid back yesterday – and amazingly, the amount of this loan is precisely the amount that Yang Yuezhou has lent to BIH. Effectively, he’s bailed them out of the brown stuff, and taken the debt on himself.

James Nursey mentioned on his twitter feed that he had heard “from the top” that there was a massively rich new investor coming online with BIH/BCFC. Couple this with the last sentence of the Ming Pao report which goes on to talk about how the money lent to BIH is a “drop in the ocean” compared to what BIH are supposed to owe – and that they await Mr Yang’s next move with interest – and there is a possibility.

The fact is there have been rumours (as reported here) for a while of someone coming into BIH. Is Yang Yuezhou BCFC’s saviour, complete with big fat chequebook and a predilection for signing expensive footballing talent? That, I do not know. I will admit that right now my fear is that Blues are ripe for the picking, cheap. If we get bought out, are you sure the next owners will be buying us out to rebuild the team, or to truly asset-strip us (using the correct definition of the term)? Needless to say, interesting times are ahead.

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39 Responses to “Chinese Media – Debts and Yang Yuezhou”

  • Mulv says:

    Not good news for Blues fans, but not BAD news either.

  • Bluropa says:

    F*ck em, we’ll take on all comers. We are the boys in Royal Blue. We’ll still be here supporting our club long after the current owners, the next owners, the owners after that are history. We are the club! We are the lifeblood!
    Keep Right On whatever happens! Bri

  • emlyn says:

    OP – When you mention the worrying words ‘asset strip’ surely HSBC would have some sort of say in this would they? Do they not own the land? But like Bluropa says above, whatever happens, we’ll always be here to pick up the pieces.

  • Wingman Blue says:

    Looking at the tags alongside reminds me just how much things have changed. Financially, we are looking down the gun barrel, but until the transfer window opens again we at least can get on with the game. As for the board… nothing would surprise me now.

  • bluesbot says:

    what are BIH supposed to owe considering BIH are 97% BCFC ? – they surely havent been giving that much money to our cause !!!

  • Bluenosesol says:

    One positive perspective, is that if BIH had to go to external investors to pay off a 6 mill liability, then they couldnt be siphoning BCFC revenues.(Could they??) On the negative side, CY’s personal assetts are frozen and BIH have had their shares suspended, none of which should prevent BIH from going about their business, so if BIH have had to go around with the begging bowl, what does that say for the state of our parent company’s finances? Also where are our (BCFC’s) revenues sitting??

    • almajir says:

      BIH weren’t forced to suspend their shares, they did so voluntarily.

      Also, I believe Carson is in court next week re the freezing of his finances. I am still sceptical that they have been frozen.

  • prewarblue says:

    Forgive the lack of understanding regarding finance but I seem to remember Yeung raised money on his property to the tune of £6 mill and loaned this to BIH, now they have gone outside by raising a loan of £6 mill to repay a loan of £6mill to an unkown person, which to my way of thinking is robbing peter to pay paul who owes peter the money.
    New faces on the BIH board just means more carrion crows picking over the carcass to try and find some juicy titbits left.
    I agree the fans will still be there long after this and any other board are gone but fear the way things are working out only the name of the club will be left after the asset stripping has finished

  • glyn rees says:

    I am totally lost with this it is way above my head. How can we owe so much money, it just does not make sense to me. We can always start again, how about Alvechurch that would be nice and handy for me. But could we get all our supportes in, Come on Birmingham city mark11 . Almajir for chairman Kro

  • WUB says:

    Not sure if this been picked up on before but he was elected the Secretary General of Qinghai Real Estate Association in 2009, elected a member of the 11th Committee of the Qinghai Youth Federation in 2007, and elected a member of the 10th CPPCC National Committee from Qinghai Province in December 2007. Whatever that means.

    http://www.chinesestock.org/show.aspx?id=132145&cid=28

  • Mark says:

    We are bluenoses why all this negative for god sake we have a very good manager better than the last one who showed no loyalty only to himself. Remember the kumars!!! Come on everyone please . What matters for any bluenose is what happens on the pitch not in the board room….
    What make a successful team is the manager and the players and they must want to be at birmingham…………… I have bluenose for 30 years and we all enjoy our ups and downs but for now we need to show our support and get behind possibly one of the best manager to come to St.Andrews and try to bring attacking football regardless of what is happening around him.
    Any body would buy blues, its about success on the pitch C’mon you bluenoses. 27600 to watch blues European tie………………… To be honest am not bothered about the finances they eventually take care of their selfs

  • chris says:

    you’ve all sumed up what most of us are thinking and as John said we’re all fed up with this now.
    all we want is some clarity and this is something that pannu and yeung are failing miserably at and the longer it goes on it seems deliberate.
    this latest loan and board additions just adds more confusion and seems to dilute responsibility from the board members.

  • chris says:

    Almajir
    what’s your take on the football league fitness test of owners concerning our new deputy chairman / executive director.
    Shouldn’t they be asking questions about these changes, because each month yeungs holding is shrinking and he is nowhere near to being the owner he was.
    whereas new major shareholders are appearing and the board members changing.

    • almajir says:

      I’m not sure how it works; from what I know they look at major shareholders and directors of the club. Carson’s share hasn’t really diminished at all – he’s held a fairly steady 25% in BIH since around March. Yang Yuezhou has an interest in 14% of the shares, but he doesn’t actually own them until he converts his loan. I think that if and when that happens, he’ll probably have to go through the “FPP” test.

      In saying that, bearing in mind what happened to Notts County, and what is happening at Plymouth, I have very little faith in the FPP test.

  • John King says:

    The asset stripping thing surely does not hold a lot of water…..St Andrews is owned by the banks not BIH or BCFC, most of the assets on the playing side have already gone, I would imagine the current squad is maybe valued at 10-15 million with a fair wind behind it……Wast Hills I believe is on a 99 year lease….What else would there be for a financial vulture to pick over? Maybe for once in our turbulent history it will be good news and the potential new owner WILL be a footballing person….Agree 100% that we ALL have to get behind the team and the name of the club….The current owners are now insignificant in my eyes.

    • glyn rees says:

      HSBC hold a loan against Stans but if somebody paid that they could then sell the land.For how many million?The Chinese have no alegence to us or tradition or football. If they have been reading some of the coments on some sights well God help us Kro

  • Berkshire Blue says:

    One of the things that worries me about BIH is that it’s business interests extend beyond football – mainly ,as far as I understand into land and property development. The 3 new people on the Board seem to have interests in these areas rather than football. Again as far as I understand BCFC is the only part of BIH generating any income. If BCFC were to make a profit (!) would the money be ploughed back into the club or used to invest elsewhere in BIH. Perhaps BIHs non-football activities could be a part of your CY 101 blog pieces in future, Almajir?

  • viperblue says:

    I now officially give up,I love the team but can not understand how from a realative sound
    finacial postion 1 year ago we managed to shift 25m worth of players & wages and are in
    a worst postion.
    Some one some where knows the answers

  • Martin Liveley says:

    Almajir, different topic, but do you know if chris wood’s had his loan extendid?

  • joe67 says:

    ive said this befre and theres not been any comments on it 25M in from sale off players parachute of 15M an 5M off uefa 14Moff wage bill and now we find out the 6.3m was instantly paid out ? but where is that money £59M ???? GONE/GOING ???

  • joe67 says:

    Comment to berkshire blue if you look at link yesterday on company accounts money appears to be used allready for property development in china ??

  • joe67 says:

    finally till later on, ref the communist party new investments in or from china nearly always have government i.e communist party involvement most deals done are with tri parthied investment arrangements i.e private investment, regional investment, and government investment all been involved with business transactions its still a comunist state.

  • alexjhurley says:

    All this financial speculation is getting very tiresome. But I’m going to have my 2pennorth regardless anyway, thus:

    1. CY/PP & our former manager overstretched us and got us in to too much debt. With hindsight, we can all criticise them but let’s be honest nobody moaned at the time we were splashing the cash.

    2. CY hasn’t got enough of his own money to cover the debts so he has to borrow it from his Chinese contacts – a crap business model, but there’s sod all us lot moaning about it will achieve.

    3. Under the circ’s PP’s done the right thing – sell assets and cut costs. This has probably got us on an even keel – othewrwise I doubt we’d have paid fees this week for players, kept Ridgewell or Carr AND have a relatively strong and expericned squad of 22 players. For the “where’s the money gone” brigade, see the accounts to June 11 which will be due soon (although I doubt you’ll understand them).

    4. Going forward I reckon our playing wage bill will be in the region of £10M per annum and turnover btween $15M and £20M so that’s OK. CY didn’t become a rich man by being stupid so a. He’ll learn from his mistakes and b. He’s got his own money in the club, he needs the share price to go up not down so he’ll want success on the pitch us much as we do.

    In summary, we were right in the sh1t, we’re less in the sh1t now, and either way we can do sod all about it. Let’s focus on the many positives – Europe, challenging for the play offs, playing attacking football and being able to get into Stans without needing a 2nd mortgage.

    Here endeth the rant.

    KRO & SOTV.

  • BeeGeeBlueBoy says:

    Spot on Alex.

    Elsewhere mentioned but needs correcting I believe:

    Stans – HSBC don’t own it but it’s been mortgaged to them
    as collateral for the overdraft

    BIH are responsible for paying the debts of BCFC if BCFC hasn’t got the cash. BIH has been funding BCFC capital outlay mainly players but is also spending money of speculative land deals using loans. BCFC is now being asset-stripped to keep BIH afloat IMO

    BCFC is now stripped enough now to be sold off by BIH at a decent price

  • Eric Jones says:

    I think I would prefer Brit owners even if I have to watch the team in the Conference.

    • alexjhurley says:

      that makes you at best a zenophobe and at worst a racist

      • Eric Jones2 says:

        So the media reporting that we should have an English manager for the national team are all racists are they?

        I prefer British beef – does that make me a racist too? (albeit racist against foreign cows!)

        Your comments make you at best ignorant and at worst a moron.

        PS. It’s xenophobe you twonk – from the Greek Xenos ‘stranger’ and phobos ‘fear. Ironic that xenophibia is from a foreign language ain’t it :-)

        • alexjhurley says:

          Aaaaaah, I get it now. Thanks for helping me out by explaining what the word means. I bet you knew the Greek off the top of your head and didn’t need to look it up, eh ? In fact you’ve so brilliantly argued your case as a non zenephobe by correctly pointing out that our gutter press are in no way jingoistic (look it up, let me know if I’ve misspelled it) and telling me what you eat, that I have to say I agree with you – I am clearly a Moran, exposed by your superior intellect.

          Although I can’t help pointing out that at no point did you deny being zenophobic. Which clearly you aren’t. Even though you clearly imply youd rather not have any foriegners involved in bcfc. Which isn’t zenophobic in any way of course.

  • junit says:

    Alexjhurley just got merked!!!!


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