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The 2016 Takeover Thread


Sam3773

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2 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

But when you point this out you get berated by others and informed of his 32 years experience at KPMG. Well did they teach buffoonery at KPMG? Although to be fair, having worked in that industry, I think I can safely say that the answer to that question is yes. 

Way upthread I made a similar comment about having had dealings with KPMG, and 'buffoon'  was one of the words I used. The other one was 'shyster'. 

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21 minutes ago, Rob182 said:

So to summarise again:

- The Official Site said that Recon own 5 listed companies instead of 1 (note 'listed companies', was the area of error. Recon still own a LOT of other companies).

- Hollis incorrectly said that Xia was involved in the Bird's Nest Stadium.

- Chris Samuelson is strongly rumoured to have some involvement, as 'Samuelson' was on a shirt photographed with Xia and we believe he is one of the people in a blurry photo of Xia at Villa Park.

Those are the only, as far as I'm aware, issues that have cropped up so far. The first two can be put down to simple miscommunications or misunderstandings. The third point is the main worry, and yet none of us know what, if any, involvement Samuelson could have moving forward (if it is even him).

From what I've read, Samuelson has never been convicted of anything, although he has been subject of a number of money laundering investigations. I've read that he was the main spokesperson for Anton Zingarevich's takeover/attempted takeover of Reading, which resulted in Zingarevich's investment vehicle becoming subject to a Premier League investigation and the Reading fans have a lot to say about that era and the people involved. Samuelson is surely not going to be the spokesperson for Xia? Xia seems clever enough and happy enough to do the talking at the moment. Keith Wyness also appears to be involved, and again would be more qualified to do the talking than Samuelson.

I've also read that Samuelson has been massively involved in the process of helping clients hide or disguise assets. But, is this practice illegal? I don't know. When you're competing against other businesses, your 'disguised assets' would surely become an advantage. We all know this too well, with the old 'don't tell them your transfer budget!' rule.

I suppose the biggest concern right now, is that Samuelson has some sort of financial involvement in the deal. But we're all guessing and, rightly or wrongly, jumping to some giant conclusions.

For me, the positives of what Xia have said around investment, his enthusiasm, the future and his ambition have far outweighed the two 'solid' negatives (the OS incorrect info and the Bird's Nest comment by Hollis) that we have seen so far. The third negative isn't exactly solid, as we don't know whether Samuelson is involved at all, we don't what role he could possibly play and we don't actually know what impact him being involved could even have. For all we know, he could have simply assisted in the purchase and will then be no longer needed.

Stay positive folks! The doom-mongering feels a little premature, when we know so little, so far!

UTV

Agree with this. Regarding point two, I read somewhere that one of Recon's companys (XWHO) did design the Beijing Olympic Forest, situated next to the Bird's Nest Stadium. To be honest, I can imagine Hollis embellishing that information and saying 'Yeah, Tony was involved in the Bird's Nest Stadium."  I think a lot of the issues may have been caused by Hollis' keenness to "sell" the new owner to us in his interviews and statements, rather than any real issues.  From what I can see XWHO have done a vast number of projects related to land development, urban planning, landscape design, and architectural design (see link).  I imagine this is where a lot of the money comes which ties in with the OS statement that "Recon Group has been at the forefront of this giant urbanisation development".  In short, I am still feeling pretty optimistic about Xia - Samuelson I am not so sure about.

http://www.xwhodesign.com/en/project.asp?li=4&bigclassname=&smallclassname=2&page=7&c=2

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1 hour ago, ThunderPower_14 said:

Ultimately if we win I couldn't care less if we were owned by Lex Luthor

I keep seeing comments like this. I would like to think they are PFE/trolling. 

Sadly, I don't think they are. 

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The Financially learned.....should be the ones guiding us on the validity of this deal.

The average fan like me with very limited knowledge of the corporate business world, will only have to wait and see what every day football substance comes out that we can appraise with any confidence.

fingers very firmly crossed.

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18 hours ago, CarewsEyebrowDesigner said:

Recon Group is a multinational conglomerate operating in six core business sectors and has taken advantage of China's economic growth over the last two decades as the Government has carried out a programme of moving 500 million people from rural to urban living

Impressive! But of no relevance to us whatsover. Why is it in the statement?

 

That sounds like a euphemism for land clearances to me.

There would be serious moral questions which would need to be asked if Chinese peasants were forcibly removed from land they had traditionally farmed, in a land grab which friends of the government exploited for their own profit.

Spending those profits on providing circuses for spoilt westerners would be morally repugnant.

We have a responsibility to face up to these questions which go far beyond Villa's status as a club.

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I'd piss myself if he failed the fit and proper persons test. That would be just typical of Villa this year and top off a purely wonderful season :lol:

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Just thought it was worth reminding ourselves that Lerner (who starved the club of funds and oversaw our complete demise to become one of, if not, the worst premier league team ever) has gone and we are being replaced by someone with a grand vision for the club.  Nobody knows what he will achieve but I would bet the future would be worse with Lerner.  So welcome Tony Xia and your crazy impossible vision......

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/may/19/tony-xia-revamp-aston-villa-top-three-world-owner?

Tony Xia hopes revamp will turn Aston Villa into one of top three clubs in world

Xia said he was preparing to embark on an extensive revamp of the club in an effort to secure immediate promotion back to the Premier League. Once that was achieved he would fight to turn Aston Villa into a global footballing force. “My ambition is to bring Villa to the top six in less than five years and I hope it can be one of the top three in the world – even the best well known in the world – in less than 10 years,” Xia told the Guardian in one of his first face-to-face interviews since the deal was announced. “At least [until] now what I have planned [in my career] everything has been achieved. Nobody believe in the beginning but I made it happen no matter how many years it took.” Asked for his message to Villa fans, Xia said: “Forget the past and think we are going to enter into a new age.” However, Aston Villa’s new chairman admitted his immediate challenge would be fighting a way back to the top flight. “The first priority is to get promoted. The incoming manager would be given transfer funds of between £20m and £50m, depending on how many players he believed were needed, Xia said. “For now, I am confident. I think we will add six to seven players in maybe six or seven positions [before the start of the season] and we are going to bring some young talented people from the academy to play in the first squad … I think a lot of them can play very well in the Championship.”......Xia promised to pump significant funds into the club but said he would not attempt to copy what he called the “money-burned” model of teams such as Manchester City. “I don’t think that’s a healthy model and it can’t last long,” he said. Xia said he would return to Birmingham in the next fortnight in order to start the rebuilding process and engage with the fans. “They need to know that I am one of them,” he said. “I will do whatever I can to promote the club.”
 
Xia said he made his fortune working on infrastructure projects across a rapidly urbanising China and had taken over Recon Group, the Beijing and Hangzhou-based holding company behind the purchase of Aston Villa, in 2004.
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Just now, KHV said:

I'd piss myself if he failed the fit and proper persons test. That would be just typical of Villa this year and top off a purely wonderful season :lol:

And we would be right back in the shit. Wouldn't that be great.

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9 minutes ago, KHV said:

I'd piss myself if he failed the fit and proper persons test. That would be just typical of Villa this year and top off a purely wonderful season :lol:

And you call yourself a Villa fan, shame on you wanting negative things to happen! 

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Personally, I think this going to turn sour. 

If I were an incredibly wealthy and intelligent individual (rather than just the latter!), I wouldn't employ the services of someone who has been involved in at least two previous 'takeovers' that went wrong. 

The involvement of Samuleson in any capacity is a massive red flag for me (and should be for the people involved in these 'fitness' tests.)

If the good doctor has the cash and business acumen we are being told he does, why is Samuleson involved at all? 

Samuleson and Banfill are the issue here. 

Have a look at the recent takeover of RCD Mallorca, another one of their deals. Tried to buy Rangers, Levante and Getafe (all bids rejected for reasons largely unknown), before RCD accepted. 

It's starting to stink. 

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47 minutes ago, Dr_Pangloss said:

They aren't trolling, just ignorant. 

Dude, can you just explain what you believe that Samuelson is going to do to villa in this takeover? Can you lay out what it is that worries you other than just the mention of his name? What do you think is his relationship to Dr Tony? I am very curious to know what it is that has made you a nervous wreck.

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2 hours ago, AndyC said:

You are correct, there will be many examples of dodgy Chinese business deals and men, just the same as the UK, USA, Spain, France etc etc. Every country in the world has a cess pool of white collar criminals, that does not make the whole country corrupt though.

For the time being we have to put our faith in Hollis and the fit and proper test.

I was in the business sector for 50 years, including 20 years with my own practice, and working only with businesses in the UK. I was astounded, particularly when I had my own company, at the amount of bribery, corruption and dodgy dealing that went on. I now have a totally jaundiced view of politicians, public officials and businessmen/developers. We, in this country, are not clean enough that we can sling mud at other countries.

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Just now, Jareth said:

Dude, can you just explain what you believe that Samuelson is going to do to villa in this takeover? Can you lay out what it is that worries you other than just the mention of his name? What do you think is his relationship to Dr Tony? I am very curious to know what it is that has made you a nervous wreck.

Go and have a read. Google is your friend. 

Previous takeovers falling through, links to fraud investigations, can't see any evidence of anything he has done involving people with actual cash money. 

All fronts with no funds. 

The dodgy Russian Reading deal 

Failed to produce funds for Everton deal (loads of bullshit excuses)

The recent RCD Mallrca takeover (after trying and failing to buy 3 clubs with the same people) 

My gut tells me that anyone with any real money wouldn't need these individuals involved. They seem to specialise in smoke and mirrors deals. 

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Only on VT could we be getting excited about Lerner finally selling us to being excited in an entirely different way about our new owner.

As we have seen from our new poster on another thread, and a fact we probably already knew, business in China is run completely differently. I think we have to trust the process here. It's highly likely that there is Chinese government backing either in terms of money or approval, probably both, behind all this. My take on that is that the last thing that their government would want is a 'scandal' in the future particularly as its clear that they want to be a force in world football. What is happening in the Chinese Super League tells us all we need to know in that regard.

Hollis is a well respected business man who, as I said very early on 'his' thread, would not come to Villa unless there was something in it for him. That's not money as I am sure he has plenty, but more about boosting his reputation. Similarly the last thing he would want would to be associated with a dodgy mess as that would harm his reputation. I would be astounded if he deliberately misled the fans and the media about who is buying Villa.

Unless Dr Tony fails the fit and proper test which I doubt I think we all need to sit back and wait and see and perhaps be a little more positive.

 

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I'm astounded people are worrying considering we have only just been taken over and was clearly in a downward spiral under Randy which was worrying.

I'm looking forward with some excitement and hope for the first time in years.

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Just now, wazzap24 said:

Go and have a read. Google is your friend. 

Previous takeovers falling through, links to fraud investigations, can't see any evidence of anything he has done involving people with actual cash money. 

All fronts with no funds. 

The dodgy Russian Reading deal 

Failed to produce funds for Everton deal (loads of bullshit excuses)

The recent RCD Mallrca takeover (after trying and failing to buy 3 clubs with the same people) 

My gut tells me that anyone with any real money wouldn't need these individuals involved. They seem to specialise in smoke and mirrors deals. 

Already have  - he is a financier, the reading deal was not good for reading as it turned out but their board went into that eyes open, the everton funds scenrio were later explained to be a tactic to oust another board member so was never intended to happen, failing to buy 3 clubs with Phoneix consortium because that consortium are not an attractive purchaser (where is the crime there?) - why wouldn't Wyness use someone he has had a business relationship with since 2004 for his latest project?

I just don;t see how Samuelson's past dictates that this takeover is rotten - this takeover is not in the slightest bit similar to any of the above examples. That loan shark everyone keeps mentioning, that also is not similar - they lend to existing clubs who want some extra funds for players - they do not provide finance for takeovers. 

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