Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[TheEgo]

Just now, terrytini said:

Ok. Well just on the off chance we have I’d like to get my next couple of years Posts in now...

So glad/bitter we got those new owners they are far better/ worse than the Doc/ that pillock.....it just proves all the critics/ doomomgers/ optimists/ neutrals that they were right/ talking out their backsides.

At last/ again we have owners who will build/ destroy the Club and make us proud/ ashamed to be a Villa fan.

I hope they invest heavily/ tread carefully in buying experience/ young talent and, ideally predominantly British/ continental.

I am confident/ suicidal about our future.

Perfect. Close the thread, it's all covered .

[VillaChris]

4 hours ago, WaccoeOnline said:

Its not clear why anyone thinks that Xia has significant cash.  It’s like the stupid arguments that were had at Leeds about how much cash Massimo Cellino when  loads of the fan base took as fact he was “a billionaire” and therefore “knew what he was doing”.  When simple observation and a bit of basic fact checking suggested that - at most - he had a few million to his name.  But even at the end when it was clear he didn’t have the cash to take us forward (let alone the sanity) there were those who bought into the myth of his supposed amazing wealth and thought things would work out ok.  The same was true with the gulf bank that bought us that turned out to be bankrupt sharks.  But loads just saw Arabs and wouldn’t believe they were as dishonest and skint as they turned out to be (essentially running a sharia Ponzi scheme as far as could be worked out).

As far back as 2016 serious people were warning about Xia - like this bloke, a staff writer on Forbes https://www.forbes.com/consent/?toURL=https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2016/05/24/aston-villa-and-tony-xia-are-looking-like-ac-milan-with-mr-bee/

A better question is why did any of you ever think he had sufficient money to run you (as opposed to run you into the ground)?  How did so many of your fan base buy into the delusion that he has much cash at all.  Mind you, the same happened with us. Humans and hope and all that...

But why do some people continue to believe in the face of black and white evidence that you are facing a cash flow crisis (at the very least) at a time when it turns out getting cash out of China isn’t actually a big deal.

I think after what happened with Lerner a fair few of us were sceptical about Xia and so there's been a more of wait and see to him than in the early years under RL when everything good he did was lapped up as the second coming of Christ.

Worth remembering though the fit and proper owner test by FL did take longer than usual. I remember he agreed the sale in mid May 2016 yet was only officially confirmed in late June 2016, it took over 6 weeks.

Not sure why it dragged so long but would guess FL were concerned more by some of the names associated in the takeover, Samuelson and even Keith Wyness. Reports at the time said FL did wonder where the money was coming from but apparently Xia deposited a fair chunk into a UK bank so it must've run out in the two years since.

Anyway I've always felt the Fit and proper test is a bit of a joke and not strict enough. Didn't Cellino actually fail it yet he kept on appealing and still got Leeds.

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, TheEgo said:

Odd compared to what? There were initially 83m and he's added 57m, if you mean by paper valuations and Xia's supposed asking price then yes. He can sell his shares for whatever he likes/can get for them, so in the bigger scheme of things, not so odd. 

That only makes £140m (pedant alert). No odd, because it seems a lot for Villa.

[VillaChris]

2 hours ago, WaccoeOnline said:

If you want a proper laugh about terrible owners out of their depth.  When GFH - the skint dishonest Arab bank owned us, one of their hapless senior executives Salem Patel - joined Waccoe, our equivalent of VillaTalk under the very secret username “Melas” pretending to be an ordinary fan asking questions like “if you were the owner of the club what sort of players do you think you would buy?”

They were too cheap to employ people who knew anything about football so we’re reduced to asking a messageboard what they should be doing...

Oh how we laughed...Of course within a year when they couldn’t pull off the flip they were hoping for post takeover they were stripping cash and assets  and sending them back to Bahrain.  But we did laugh at the time...

Wonder if Tony has a secret account on VillaTalk?  And which poster he might secretly be.

Was that at the time Warnock was your manager? I remember in his excellent book he said Ken Bates appointed him and the next week sold the club and the next owners barely had any money although I don't know Leeds ownership line of succession to know if that was GFH.

Always struck me as odd the success Warnock had in the past and now at Cardiff and yet he did nothing at Leeds the 18 months he was there and eventually the Leeds fans were chanting for him to be sacked.

Pretty similar to Steve Bruce!

[TheEgo]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

That only makes £140m (pedant alert). No odd, because it seems a lot for Villa.

£57,123,543 new shares if you want precise figures. He can sell those shares for a quid if he wants. It's meaningless until we know what he's doing with them. Value of club, plus debt is my thinking. Roughly 60m he paid + 82m ish debt = what is odd. It's housekeeping at this point and hopefully preemptive of a sale.  

[DCJonah]

39 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Matt Scott was a cockwomble last year, maintained his cockwombleness through 2017 - 2018, and in the future will remain a cockwomble.

Haha. Why? Because he did his job? And was right? 

Is it just a natural reaction to insult people who question Xia?

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, TheEgo said:

£57,123,543 new shares if you want precise figures. He can sell those shares for a quid if he wants. It's meaningless until we know what he's doing with them. Value of club, plus debt is my thinking. Roughly 60m he paid + 82m ish debt = what is odd. It's housekeeping at this point and hopefully preemptive of a sale.  

We've got £82 mill debt?

[Jareth]

Just now, DCJonah said:

Haha. Why? Because he did his job? And was right? 

Is it just a natural reaction to insult people who question Xia?

Simply how he looks, I've taken against his face. I assume by your logic you'll be purchasing a Matt Scott T-shirt / sex doll?

[Tayls]

Where are people seeing this stuff because the last thing I can see on companies house is Keith being given the boot... 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Tayls

[Baldricks Cunning Plan]

Just now, TheEgo said:

£57,123,543 new shares if you want precise figures. He can sell those shares for a quid if he wants. It's meaningless until we know what he's doing with them. Value of club, plus debt is my thinking. Roughly 60m he paid + 82m ish debt = what is odd. It's housekeeping at this point and hopefully preemptive of a sale.  

The shares have been allocated haven't they? If the Sanchez deal has been sold to Macquarie then I'd say that no fresh cash has come into the club. I'd say that all of his £5m loans that it has been reported that he was putting into the club on a month to month basis have been converted into share capital.

[DCJonah]

Just now, Jareth said:

Simply how he looks, I've taken against his face. I assume by your logic you'll be purchasing a Matt Scott T-shirt / sex doll?

My logic?

You insulted him because he questioned Xia. Xia also insulted him.  Once again amazingly similar to trump and his supporters in response to journalists doing their job well. 

[TheEgo]

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

We've got £82 mill debt?

I'm trying to add the figures up that look odd to you. I don't know as of today what the debt is. I've said above at this point it's meaningless until we know what's next. I wouldn't be surprised if debt was at that level though as loans are levied against everything pretty much. If he proposes to absorb it though in a sale and take a loss then.........

@snowychap and @Risso have a good grasp on the figures, they'll maybe no more about this. It is NOT pretty though which is why people are worried.

[Jareth]

1 minute ago, DCJonah said:

My logic?

You insulted him because he questioned Xia. Xia also insulted him.  Once again amazingly similar to trump and his supporters in response to journalists doing their job well. 

When an analogy falls dead the first time, wise man no use analogy again.

[TheEgo]

3 minutes ago, Tayls said:

Where are people seeing this stuff because the last thing I can see on companies house is Keith being given the boot... 

Try beta companies house. I can't link as I can't quote an extract.

[Jareth]

Just now, TheEgo said:

I'm trying to add the figures up that look odd to you. I don't know as of today what the debt is. I've said above at this point it's meaningless until we know what's next. I wouldn't be surprised if debt was at that level though as loans are levied against everything pretty much. If he proposes to absorb it though in a sale and take a loss then.........

@snowychap and @Risso have a good grasp on the figures, they'll maybe no more about this. It is NOT pretty though which is why people are worried.

For once there's no sarky git subtext to my questions, just curious what the figure means, like you. Over to others to hazard a guess...

[TheEgo]

3 minutes ago, Baldricks Cunning Plan said:

The shares have been allocated haven't they? If the Sanchez deal has been sold to Macquarie then I'd say that no fresh cash has come into the club. I'd say that all of his £5m loans that it has been reported that he was putting into the club on a month to month basis have been converted into share capital.

Yes allocated to himself as only shareholder. He can now do as he pleases with 142m shares.

[PieFacE]

5 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

My logic?

You insulted him because he questioned Xia. Xia also insulted him.  Once again amazingly similar to trump and his supporters in response to journalists doing their job well. 

Looks this way to me. we should have all taken more notice of what the "cockwomble" said. 

[mykeyb]

I agree that the shares probably equate to what Xia has put into the club + purchasing it at roughly a pound a share. 

He can sell them as part on an investment or as part of selling the club.

If he sells the new shares created for a pound each he or his holding company will get the money, so why would you buy some shares, not have a controlling interest and then sink further cash in to help right the good ship AVFC?

[terrytini]

9 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Simply how he looks, I've taken against his face. I assume by your logic you'll be purchasing a Matt Scott T-shirt / sex doll?

I’m with you there. Irrational dislike based purely on a face. It’s Ernie Els the golfer for me. 

[TheEgo]

1 minute ago, Jareth said:

For once there's no sarky git subtext to my questions, just curious what the figure means, like you. Over to others to hazard a guess...

I don't profess a massive financial knowledge. I'll look back at the losses reported back in the last accounts, but could be very different today. If we choose the positive view, he's doing a Lerner and absorbing the debt (although RL's debt was his own anyway) making a sale more straightforward. Worst case for me is he finds money from Recon suddenly and tries to go on. I say this as if the money was there, why let things get so bad, why take loans to cover future monies owed etc!! I'd be highly suspicious of that being even more loans/debt. Best all round he sells imo. 

I think we here a statement clarifying later this week