ViewFromT2

4 minutes ago, sidcow said:

He did meet Birmingham City Council, there were pictures and a statement.

The rest of what you say I agree with.

Even Birmingham City councillors probably weren't dumb enough to believe his rubbish!

According to Reuters.com. This is the business of Teamax Smart City Technology, of which Xia is chairman:

Add to this the Lotus Health Group that he is involved with, manufacturing MSG....that company is failing miserably aswell......dunno how he managed to gain that docterate at Harvard 

1 minute ago, hippo said:

Recon group is at the most 5 smallish companies - most of which are clocking losses.  RECON is just a front to be honest - it is nothing.

Teamax sit above recon and that is a bigger deal - but Xia owns a 18% stake in that company ....and thats it.

It isn't quite as bad as Carson Yeung who turned to be a hairdresser - but xia , recon, smart cities is out that ilk. 

Sorry JV - but we have been had. Big time.

Spot on fella...Don't forget....he apparently sold Teamax to fund the purchase of Villa....more bullshit!

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

You know that was/is one of the main operations of Recon Group right?

Also, you realise this would make them more money than a football club yes?

You do realise Recon Group has been losing money hand over fist for 3 years....right?

You do realise it's all bullshit.... right?

There is no wider plan....!

2 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

OR it could have been backup plan in the eventuality we lost, to be able to offset finances just as we have seen?

It is not always the conspiracy theory ya know.

Why "do one" if we were promoted when we would have huge income coming in and he would be able to further his smart city ambitions etc?

Smart City ambitions?....wow.....I truly didn't realise people fell for that bile? 

3 minutes ago, WaccoeOnline said:

Suggests he was ready for a quick flip if Villa had gone up, realising his gain and letting someone else in to sort the finances.

The problem was losing that game.  Left a bunch of unnecessary shares and no way to finance the ongoing cash needs of the business.

Think the share issue means less in terms of where you are now than the Macquarie deal does.  Hard to see why anyone would want to buy Villa until the owner was as distressed as possible.  There may be a lot more pain before you get there.

I hope you're wrong, but fear you are totally correct.

Issuing the shares before the final makes no sense at all in terms of what we have discovered since. He clearly intended to do one if we went up!

1 minute ago, hippo said:

Except the price per share.

Don't follow. Thought Ordinary shares are always listed as £1 aren't they?

This is where a lack of in depth knowledge trips me up 

Not sure if it's been mentioned at all....but  allotment of 57m shares was made on 25 May, as were the 69.5m shares in Recon Group UK.

This being THE DAY BEFORE the play off final?......clearly that game was actually irrelevant to whatever Tony is planning?

2 minutes ago, TheEgo said:

60m plus 22m overdraft so 82m ish, which explains the initial share allocation of 83m (so 83m I guess) Not sure about the Recon Group part, will take a look now

Got ya...I remember (and just checked) an article on sky that stated he bought us for between £60m-£70m. Wasn't some of that deferred though on the back of going up inside 2 years? or was there an additional payment to be made on top of this figure if we had gone up?

Recon Group UK is showing 69,459,889 shares. It was 1 share before.

Didn't Xia buy Villa for around this £69m mark?....probably grabbing at straws and hoping beyond all hope that all this means he is selling up.

1 hour ago, villa89 said:

I have the same problem. I can't get any of my money out of China either, because I don't have any, just like Dr. Fraud. 

Actually just laughed out loud in the office....received a few stares!

That is funny!

36 minutes ago, hippo said:

I've been sceptical from day 1. But when he initially came in and splashed the cash I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Early on I said to bloke who I sit next too ...."I still wouldn't be surprised to wake up one morning and find out he has disappeared"  People want to believe - (hey there are some who think Scott Hogan will come good ! ) 

I think he is done here - I wouldn't be surprised if we can't get a sale than someone else from recon actually performs the CEO role and we never from Tony again.  Players report back for training next week  that might give us some pointers as to anyone at the club knowing WTF is going on....

 

I got into heated debate on TBAR when Xia came in, arguing with a numpty over there that was convinced Xia had the backing of the chinese government 

I ended up getting booted out and barred from the forum 

Even when he first took over there was so much doubt about him. None of this is a surprise to me....well actually that's not strictly true....I'm surprised how quickly it has happened. It's the "can't get his money out of china" bollox that annoys me the most!

14 hours ago, Jareth said:

Did ney stop HMRC leaking...

Pretty sure that leak would of come from Wyness....the HMRC don't 'leak' information to the press

12 minutes ago, TheEgo said:

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, however imo the 'asset' stripping has already taken place. i wouldn't say with any ill intent, however everything we have (excluding VP) has been borrowed against to keep the club running. The only money spent is the parachute payments. I don't believe to this point Xia has spent any of his OWN cash, as he doesn't have any. If you look at Companies House and read the charges against assets, that is FACT. So I appreciate you think its at the 'hysterical end' I'd say we are totally right to be concerned and worried. We're not talking about a shade of claret or a sponsor here, but very real problems keeping the club trading. I don't believe anyone has said 'liquidation' that's very different to 'administration' We can all believe what we wan't I see no benefit is creating camps or labeling others views as 'hysterical'  As you've said a few times, nobody knows for sure...............so there for I'd say it's fair game to be worried or not. 

Totally agree with this. That's exactly what I've read and heard from reputable (in my opinion trustworthy) sources. Pretending it isn't going to happen cos were 'Aston Villa' won't make it go away.

This idiot has took us to the brink.....does anyone trust him to sell the club for the good of the club, or is he likely to ensure he saves some face in China by not making a loss?

As you say, the list of charges against the club is bloody horrific!

6 minutes ago, Ingram85 said:

Omg, I wish people would stop saying “you’ll hear more soon”, “trust me”, “I know people at the Villa”,“believe me”, “it’ll get worse” etc... you all know sweet f*** all so stop trying to sound like Detective Frost with your ‘definitive’ posts.”My cousins mate knows Howard Hodgson” so what? I once met Mark Bosnich and Doug Ellis on the same day. The link? We both know nothing about what’s happening inside Villa Park. 

It could very well go that way but trust me and believe me, you don’t know for sure that it will and you all sound like dozy self important twonks.

Not really got your head round the principle of a 'discussion forum' have you? 

8 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

I'm quite close to a few people at the club and whilst the tax bill is obviously the most concerning, there is a whole host of people we haven't paid.
There is absolutely no money and I genuinely don't think anyone knows how this will play out. Looking past his charming smile, Xia, by all accounts, hasn't got any money and is a complete moron.

This will get a lot worse before it gets better. 

 

There are quite a few people saying the same thing. What makes it worse is the fact he appears to have vanished since the playoff final.It's not unheard of in China for businessman to simply vanish for a length of time....detained by the local authorities whilst being investigated. Would not be surprised is this is what has happened to Xia.

The owner of Fosun has 'disappeared' a couple of times in the past few years.

Is there any relevance to the fact Howard Hodgson has also gone missing since he tweeted about trying to help the club when all this broke? I'm certain he will be connected to one of the interested parties, as he was when Lerner was selling.

12 minutes ago, omariqy said:

I think Tony is frantically trying to get some money out of China as we speak. If he doesn't I imagine he will have to sell. The next 2 or 3 weeks could be massive for this club.

I think Tony is frantically trying to find some money in China as we speak. If he doesn't I imagine he will sell anything that we still own. The next 2 or 3 weeks could be the end for this club.

Alternate wording 

If anyone's interested, I came across this blog late last night:

https://villaleaks.com/

It's written by the bluenose that created a similar blog uncovering the depths of crap that Blues have been in since Carson Yeung took over. To be fair, he really seems to know his stuff when it comes to chinese business. No idea who he is, but I would stress that in my opinion he isn't wallowing in our downfall or taking the piss, it's a genuine blog and I think he may well uncover some information over the coming weeks. He has removed the comments feature for obvious reasons.

3 articles on there so far, all very interesting.

4 minutes ago, TheEgo said:

Samuelson was mean't to be Vice Chairman and Jamie Banfill a director, but they both failed the owners and directors test, so were removed as directors (initially from Villa and stayed in one of the other companies, but eventually left those too) 

As for China, this is where it gets murky. Xia apparently only owns 18% shares and is Chairman, but not owner.....According to @Deisler123 this company was sold and Teamax is the 'parent' company and we have no idea who the investors are, not to mention all the holding companies above this as part of the 'Conglomerate' 

All clear? ha!! it's very very confusing, may be all ok and non dodgy, but Xia is just a front man with many other investors of unknown origin.

I can't believe we've ended up with Carson Yeung Mk. 2!

40 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

A) Yes.

B ) Yes.

C) No. As far as I'm aware, Company Check will just be getting their information from Companies House, where all 7 of those companies are registered, and neither Companies House nor any other sources will include Dr X's actual net worth. That figure will just be a combination of the different profits and losses that the website has been able to source. I can't imagine that figure being accurate, as it'll probably be mixing up accounts from different tax years.

 

If you want to do some digging for yourself then just go on the BETA Companies House website. It's free for everyone to use, and by clicking into the Filing History or 'People > Persons with significant control', you can easily find out all of the publicly available information. The problem is, that when people who don't know what they're looking at start reading into these things, they usually get carried away with what it all could mean. Christopher Samuelson's previous involvement being a big thing that many people have got their knickers in a twist about, even though his role was seemingly just around the purchase of the company, and soon after this his positions on companies house were terminated.

A few things that are available on Companies House for everyone to see: Wyness is now terminated as a Director, as expected. 2 million shares have been created in the name of Recon Football Limited (presumably for Tony to sell for a percentage share of the ownership). Many of the AVFC companies are not owned immediately by Tony, but instead they are 100% owned by Recon Sports Limited. However, when you look into Recon Sports Limited, the 100% owner is Dr Tony, so the ultimate owner of Villa is Tony, unless others know about some smoke and mirrors ownership. Last years accounts (the latest currently available) for Recon Sports Limited state that the ultimate controlling party is Mr J Xia. The only thing that could link Villa to other individuals overseas, from what I can see, is that Tony's ultimate ownership is documented as a result of him being the ultimate controlling party of Zhejiang Ruikang (Recon) Investment Co Ltd, who are a company based in China, which I can't publicly find ownership information about. Last year's accounts says that Zhejiang Ruikand (Recon) Invesment Co Ltd are the ultimate holding company for both Recon Sports Limited and Recon Group UK Limited. IF Tony had sold his shares in this Zhejiang company to other people, then they would become the ultimate beneficial owners of Villa instead, from what I can see.

 

There you go @ViewFromT2, do some digging on Zhejiang if you want.

Yeah I've been navigating Beta Companies House for a while....it's just a web of companies, so confusing!

I have stumbled over this article though, which shows why Tony has been in China for so long....looks like chinese companies are going tits up aswell....very worrying times indeed for us. I can only see one outcome to all this. If he doesn't sell us, we will eventually go to the wall.

http://westdollar.com/sbdm/finance/news/1349,20180524877236827.html 

In an earlier interview with the Securities Times e reporter, Xia Jiantong also stated that since taking over Lotus Health in 2014, it has already borrowed more than ten billion yuan from listed companies for a total of more than two billion yuan in total. The purpose is to resolve issues left over by history. , to enable the company to achieve transformation and development.

The two listed companies, Ruikang Holdings and Tianxia Smart, have also been active recently.

Ruikang announced on April 4 that RCC Holdings had a consideration of 1.446 billion yuan and transferred 100% of the controlling shareholder Hangzhou Ruikang Sports Culture Co., Ltd. to Shenzhen Shenliyuan Investment Group Co., Ltd., and the company’s actual controller was Xia Jian. The system was changed to Li Ming.

On the 27th of the month, Tianxia Wisdom also announced that Xia Jiantong resigned from the post of president due to his busy work and continued to serve as the director and chairman of the company's eighth board of directors.

14 minutes ago, RimmyJimmer said:

Which they never bought in the end...is that correct? 

 

believe so yeah. I read an article that the funding was coming from a hong kong based holding company that is owned by the cable company, or something like that.

26 minutes ago, RimmyJimmer said:

From my very limited research of Mr Xia's companies it looks like he doesn't have much substance behind all of his claims of wealth. 

That recon website looks like a promotional tool to appease anyone trying to delve into his business dealings. Nice shiny website, pictures him at villa park etc but if you read about the other companies he is supposed to be involved with, it all looks wafer thin....a lot of words to say not a lot about anything.

I googled the recon company stock exchange number....that brings up a much smaller company call recon cabling, not recon holdings. Now what scares me is that I've done that on my phone on my lunch break, and to me it looks dodgy as hell already. What do the EFL check on when doing due dilligence etc?

Yeah the cabling company is part of the Recon Group apparently. It was that company that was linked to buying the majority share in Millenium Films last year.

So just read this on Company Check (https://companycheck.co.uk/director/920918826/MR-JIAN-TONG-XIA/summary) :

Mr Jian Tong Xia holds 7 appointments at 7 active companies, has resigned from 0 companies and held 0 appointments at 0 dissolved companies. JIAN began their first appointment at the age of 41. Their longest current appointment spans 2 years, 0 months and 22 days at RECON GROUP UK LIMITED

The combined cash at bank value for all businesses where JIAN holds a current appointment equals £2.4m, a combined total current assets value of £218.7m with a total current liabilities of £677.8m and a total current net worth of £-396m. Roles associated with Mr Jian Tong Xia within the recorded businesses include: Director

A. Is this website current?

B. Is this website accurate/trustworthy?

C. I answer to questions A & B are both 'yes', are we now right royally f**cked?

11 hours ago, av1 said:

What a load of nonsense. 

Why?

Doesn't take an ITK to see that a lot of this is very plausible. 

Great news in my opinion. We would simply not of been able to replace him now the club is in financial meltdown!

Takes pay cut to finish his career here as his family are settled in the area.

Some striking familiarity here:

https://www.sportskeeda.com/football/football-owners-ac-milan-s-mysterious-chinese-owners-silvio-berlusconi 

Some extracts below. I think it makes interesting reading if nothing else. Clearly on a much bigger scale than Aston Villa, but similar story in many ways:

"After months of struggle, Berlusconi found a potential investor from China. At the time, Chinese President Xi Jinping, a massive football fan himself was beginning to be at the forefront of a Chinese footballing revolution. So, when a Chinese company Sino-Europe Sports Investment Management Changxing Co. bid over €700 million, it seemed that the club was the latest to join Xi’s footballing revolution.

At the centre of this saga was Li Yonghong, a Hong Kong-based businessman, who few had heard about before. The holding company looking to buy AC Milan sat atop a complex web of companies and state-backed investors. A year later, negotiations still dragged on due to a series of red flags, most notably whether the Chinese company actually had the money.

If AC Milan supporters thought they had got rid of their controversial owner, they were hugely mistaken. When International news agency Reuters investigated about the 8 companies, connected to the bid, they found that the shell company had lied about all 8 offices. The New York Times had also discovered that Li’s mining empire wasn’t as lucrative as he had claimed nor was it actually owned by him. There was also a separate issue of forged bank documents holding up the sale. But eventually, the transfer went through in 2017 to what is now known as Rossoneri Sports Investment group headed by Li Yonghong".

"Milan went on a spending spree of more than €200 million in the summer of 2017, buying Leonardo Bonucci, Nikola Kalinic, Andre Silva and Hakan Calhanoglu. To fund this spree, Li managed to secure a $354 million loan from Elliott Management, a controversial US hedge fund. Elliott is also known as a Vulture Fund i.e. a company that buys up bad government debt at low rates followed by fierce litigation to extract repayment".

"Around the time of Montella’s sacking, UEFA took a keen interest in Milan’s finances and the club’s potential lack of compliance with the Financial Fair play rules. In December 2017, UEFA’s investigatory chamber turned down AC Milan’s request for a voluntary agreement to be in accordance with FFP rules. In a statement, UEFA said that:

“There are still uncertainties in relation to the refinancing of the loans to be paid back in October 2018 and the financial guarantees provided by the main shareholder.”