Tony Xia (no longer involved with AVFC)

[Jareth]

Here's a question, today's shares are Tony swapping debt owed to him into shares - but there is also the sense that Tony hasn't got any money or spent any of his own money, just the parachute payments. Which one is true?

[TheEgo]

23 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Here's a question, today's shares are Tony swapping debt owed to him into shares - but there is also the sense that Tony hasn't got any money or spent any of his own money, just the parachute payments. Which one is true?

Purely a paper exercise in accounting, nothing has changed material and monetary wise. 

[TheEgo]

28 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Here's a question, today's shares are Tony swapping debt owed to him into shares - but there is also the sense that Tony hasn't got any money or spent any of his own money, just the parachute payments. Which one is true?

The lender converts a loan amount or a loan amount represented by outstanding bonds into equity shares when it's converting debt to equity. No actual cash is exchanged in the debt-to-equity swap.

Debt-to-equity swaps are common transactions in the financial world. They enable a borrower to transform loans into shares of stock or equity. Most commonly, a financial institution such as an insurer or a bank will hold the new shares after the original debt is transformed into equity

https://www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-a-debt-to-equity-swap-1290541

This may help, its something like this

Edited June 26, 2018 by TheEgo

[Fowlersrs]

Tony has spent parachute payments on a gamble to get us promoted which hasn't paid off more like, this wasn't taking into account the massive operational cost of the club which is now apparent.

In my eyes Tony has no money, never really has or we wouldn't be in this predicament. 

If he's now turning debt into shares he's making sure he will get a return should he find a buyer or worst still he's borrowing money against the club..

 

Still looks bleak to me... and even worse if it goes wrong as the club would be liquidated if there's no value in it as you have already borrowed against it??!

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Fowlersrs

[TheEgo]

2 minutes ago, Fowlersrs said:

Tony has spent parachute payments on a gamble to get us promoted which hasn't paid off more like, this wasn't taking into account the massive operational cost of the club which is now apparent.

In my eyes Tony has no money, never really has or we wouldn't be in this predicament. 

If he's now turning debt into shares he's making sure he will get a return should he find a buyer or worst still he's borrowing money against the club..

 

Still looks bleak to me... and even worse if it goes wrong as the club would be liquidated if there's no value in it as you have already borrowed against it??!

 

I'd agree on all that with the exception of liquidation, with the playing staff, we have a fair amount of cash we could bring in. Administration would be more likely imo

[tinker]

My guess .He's generating shares so he can raise money against those shares. Guess he would use the money to borrow more time for us or to make some money before he runs back to China. With the CEO gone he can do all sorts of questionable things with little or no come back , that's why Wymen had to go, he wouldn't let him do it as it's corrupted. I think he brought us and used us a leverage in other attempted aqusissions, trying to build a paper empire based on the illusion he owns a big football club called Aston Villa . 

Whatever happens hes still a shit owner. He's absent when we appear to be in crisis, his silence is now deafening. We need information more than ever, start of a new season, should be attracting season tickets renewals , sponsorship deals and keeping players happy and aquring new ones.

Business decisions have been terrible from day one. 

 I will be relieved when he's gone but suspect we will be sold to the highest bidder. 

[WaccoeOnline]

53 minutes ago, tinker said:

My guess .He's generating shares so he can raise money against those shares. Guess he would use the money to borrow more time for us or to make some money before he runs back to China. With the CEO gone he can do all sorts of questionable things with little or no come back , that's why Wymen had to go, he wouldn't let him do it as it's corrupted. I think he brought us and used us a leverage in other attempted aqusissions, trying to build a paper empire based on the illusion he owns a big football club called Aston Villa . 

Whatever happens hes still a shit owner. He's absent when we appear to be in crisis, his silence is now deafening. We need information more than ever, start of a new season, should be attracting season tickets renewals , sponsorship deals and keeping players happy and aquring new ones.

Business decisions have been terrible from day one. 

 I will be relieved when he's gone but suspect we will be sold to the highest bidder. 

Leeds experience is that when you’re on your uppers financially, the club doesn’t go to the highest bidder but to the bidder most willing to purchase with limited due diligence and/or with minimal indemnities against any possible hidden liabilities turning up in the future.  

From the point of view of the exiting bad owner, they just want the last bit of cash out and no comeback ever again.  The value of the club vs debt is probably close to negative, particularly if retention’s against potential future liabilities are taken into account.  But the bad owner wants/needs cash and the ability to get away fast (and - if they are particularly greedy - undertakings as to a share of any upside if the next owner somehow turns it around).  No responsible business person would ever agree to this so the only potential bidders willing to trade on the terms of the bad owner are people even more reckless, criminal or stupid than the guy selling.  Which is not a good trajectory for any club.

We were eventually saved because a combination of FA/FL personal bans, fan unrest and potential prison in Italy made Cellino a willing seller before he could wreck things in the way he seemed set on.  The cycle of wrecking that started with Bates picking us up when we were in a similar situation to the one you’re in now was broken.  But only after 15 years of wrecking and disaster.

Have to say it’s not looking good at the moment.  A lot rests on whether Xia has any moral compass at all or if he just wants to he away with a few quid in his pocket regardless of the consequences.  If his exit is a messy one it could get very bad indeed.  A professionally run Administration might be the least worst option if it enables you to shed the debt and be bought by someone moderately honest and competent.

[mykeyb]

1 hour ago, tinker said:

My guess .He's generating shares so he can raise money against those shares. Guess he would use the money to borrow more time for us or to make some money before he runs back to China. With the CEO gone he can do all sorts of questionable things with little or no come back , that's why Wymen had to go, he wouldn't let him do it as it's corrupted. I think he brought us and used us a leverage in other attempted aqusissions, trying to build a paper empire based on the illusion he owns a big football club called Aston Villa . 

Whatever happens hes still a shit owner. He's absent when we appear to be in crisis, his silence is now deafening. We need information more than ever, start of a new season, should be attracting season tickets renewals , sponsorship deals and keeping players happy and aquring new ones.

Business decisions have been terrible from day one. 

 I will be relieved when he's gone but suspect we will be sold to the highest bidder. 

Totally agree.

[JAMAICAN-VILLAN]

4 hours ago, ViewFromT2 said:

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....!

 

 

4 hours ago, hippo said:

Not sure if serious ?

Recon haven't built a city anywhere - I am not aware of any meetings with Birmingham city council about smart cities , HS2 and the commonwealth games briefly yes 

You do realise that smart cities isn't actually construction cities ? 

 

4 hours 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.

 

3 hours ago, DCJonah said:

IIRC there was no evidence to back up his claims of building cities. It was reported back when the takeover happened I think. 

Not sure why you're laughing, you are the one that has been cojvinced by his lies and continues to believe it. 

The claims about his wealth are clearly lies. All his business ventures are losing money. He made a huge deal about buying millenium films, believe it is still on the recon website, and the owner of millenium referred to the recon group as a bunch of time wasters. 

The guy is a looking like a fraud mate. 

I appreciate everybody's opinions.

Is it unheard of for businessmen to take large chances/gambles?

Yes it is our club so obviously we are emotional about it, but i doubt anyone buys a Football Club to fail. what would be the use?

Same as with Lerner, people started giving him all types of shite and abuse, WHEN we failed.

Being wealthy doesn't necessarily mean crippling your whole personal fortune (Or lack there of) on a Football club because that's what fans want.

If we got promoted would we be having this conversation?

We were backed to the hilt for 2 years, well knowing the risk of what the possibilities would be if we did not get promoted, WE WERE ALREADY MAKING HUGE LOSSES.

Shit businessman? Maybe. Fraud? I'm not so sure.

Just as with Lerner they are still humans and suffer unforeseen circumstances.

We do not know the full back story so should not pretend to.

If as some of you have pointed out, ALL of his other investments, including ours were simply failing, something would surely eventually give?

I think at worst he gambled/leveraged everything on promotion which would have probably been a springboard towards all of his other ambitions for the club/area.

The talk of clubs in other countries, buying the Film company and so on, surely it could not ALL have been lies?

Something obviously changed, or happened over the course of 2 years (aside from lack of promotion) to turn everything tits up for him.

If it eventually turns out that everything is a lie then so be it.

But I am hardly into the business of jumping on the bandwagon to crucify people just because we haven't gotten what we want. As I've said before, in addition, some should probably aim some of that vitriol at the people who were tasked with building the club and securing promotion.

No the "Rich" guy from China who took a gamble, as well as probably lost a shitload of money and reputation by doing so.

EDIT: FYI they spoke about Lotus and so on losing money from the very beginning and it seems, JUST LIKE US, he was probably trying to turn already failing businesses into winning ones and has also lost that battle.

 

Edited June 26, 2018 by JAMAICAN-VILLAN

[WaccoeOnline]

Wow

[snowychap]

7 hours ago, TheEgo said:

 

@snowychap and @Risso have a good grasp on the figures, they'll maybe no more about this.

'Ere, Ted... Don't go dragging me in to all of this.

There's professionals out there who'll surely no more than me.
Tbh, I spent so much time looking at all the accounts the other day that I'm not about to go looking again (at least for a while). Keep up your interest in it, though. At some point we'll find out what on earth's going on!

[TheEgo]

42 minutes ago, JAMAICAN-VILLAN said:

 

 

 

I appreciate everybody's opinions.

Is it unheard of for businessmen to take large chances/gambles?

Yes it is our club so obviously we are emotional about it, but i doubt anyone buys a Football Club to fail. what would be the use?

Same as with Lerner, people started giving him all types of shite and abuse, WHEN we failed.

Being wealthy doesn't necessarily mean crippling your whole personal fortune (Or lack there of) on a Football club because that's what fans want.

If we got promoted would we be having this conversation?

We were backed to the hilt for 2 years, well knowing the risk of what the possibilities would be if we did not get promoted, WE WERE ALREADY MAKING HUGE LOSSES.

Shit businessman? Maybe. Fraud? I'm not so sure.

Just as with Lerner they are still humans and suffer unforeseen circumstances.

We do not know the full back story so should not pretend to.

If as some of you have pointed out, ALL of his other investments, including ours were simply failing, something would surely eventually give?

I think at worst he gambled/leveraged everything on promotion which would have probably been a springboard towards all of his other ambitions for the club/area.

The talk of clubs in other countries, buying the Film company and so on, surely it could not ALL have been lies?

Something obviously changed, or happened over the course of 2 years (aside from lack of promotion) to turn everything tits up for him.

If it eventually turns out that everything is a lie then so be it.

But I am hardly into the business of jumping on the bandwagon to crucify people just because we haven't gotten what we want. As I've said before, in addition, some should probably aim some of that vitriol at the people who were tasked with building the club and securing promotion.

No the "Rich" guy from China who took a gamble, as well as probably lost a shitload of money and reputation by doing so.

EDIT: FYI they spoke about Lotus and so on losing money from the very beginning and it seems, JUST LIKE US, he was probably trying to turn already failing businesses into winning ones and has also lost that battle.

 

I think this is a very fair post, many parts I don't agree with, however I respect the views. Whilst investigating and highlighting his shortcomings, I've tried to avoid personal insults (apart from the Chinese Gatsby ha) I don't know if he is a fraud either, he's definitely over egged the pudding quite dramatically. What I care about MOST as i'm sure we all do is the final outcome. At the moment. not much is happening on the surface, however I have faith wheels are in motion to sell. Let's see and not liable ourselves in the meantime. I think it's ok to probe and dig, ask questions, but outright claims of fraud, should be careful imo. 

[TheEgo]

17 minutes ago, snowychap said:

'Ere, Ted... Don't go dragging me in to all of this.

There's professionals out there who'll surely no more than me.
Tbh, I spent so much time looking at all the accounts the other day that I'm not about to go looking again (at least for a while). Keep up your interest in it, though. At some point we'll find out what on earth's going on!

I appreciated all that work unlike someone else. I was trying to imagine how much debt we're in right now, but that's nigh on impossible I guess. Let's see what the rest of the week brings. I think we hear something, even if a holding statement come the end of the week. 

[The Fun Factory]

So basically its 3 weeks before pre season and- 

- We have no idea about our finances other than it is bad and we have to sell our best players

-We have no idea how close to administration Villa are

- We have no idea if our owner will still be with us come August

-We have no idea when our owner will next be in the country, let alone Bodymoor/Villa Park

-We have no idea if our manager will still be with us come July for pre-season

-We have no idea of our starting line up will be at Hull

-We have no idea who the next ceo of the club us

And most importantly of all

-We have no idea what the kit is going to look like 

But we do know that 20,000 lunatics have bought a season ticket to watch this madness unfold.

[punkiller1981]

No facts here just personal feelings but I’m going to say it anyway. I hate this guy with a passion. I don’t care if he a fraud, a liar just unlucky or a shit businessman. All of that is irrelevant to me I just see him as an owner putting himself before the club and it’s best players and I want him gone ASAP. 

These are also not facts I don’t think but if rumours are he is borrowing against parachute payments and cashing in future transfer income presumably for less money then we are being run as the football equivalent of the sort of person that constantly needs pay day loans. Very worrying 

[Zatman]

Lyngby, Millenium Films, Aston Villa Theme Park, top clubs in Europe in 5 years

Has this guy actually backed any of his plans up?

[sne]

[Zatman]

4 minutes ago, sne said:

Hey, how you doing

[VillaChris]

8 hours ago, WaccoeOnline said:

Warnock is another story.  True that Bates stripped the club bare then sold to a bunch of chancers from a boiler room operation in Bahrain (who had managed somehow to get in on a much bigger deal that might have seen us bought by PSG level owners, but cocked it up so much the dare to dream prospective owner walked away leaving us with the brokers not the money).

To be fair it started out ok with Warnock, and he seemed to get on with the fans.  But it quickly turned sour as he refused to travel up to Leeds a lot of the time, preferring his cottage in Cornwall, spending only 3 days a week with the club and leaving the rest to the likes of Keith Curle to run for him.  He brought in some of his old mates - Michael Brown, Paddy Kenny, Michael Tonge - and played them regardless of performance (there were lots of rumours as to why), whilst neglecting the youth who were the talent at the club.  We - somehow - managed to loan a young Ross Barkley for a season and Warnock left him on the bench in favour of his abject mates.  

Final nail in the coffin was a deeply dodgy deal in which he swapped club icon/hero striker Luciano Becchio to Norwich for Steve Morison.  After Becchio had scored 20 goals for the club by Christmas.  Morison scored almost none for us, and we struggled for the rest of the season, with the crowd on his back, and him doing his best to alienate all those around him.

He probably hated it at Leeds.  He was recruited, then what remaining talent we had (Snodgrass, etc) were sold from under him, he didn't have much cash to spend on assembling a side.  But he didn't help himself,  and encountered a fanbase who thought he should feel honoured to be allowed to manage the club, whilst he thought we should be grateful for being blessed with his genius.  Given that only months before we were chanting "Warnocks a ****, his wife's a s**g" in his previous jobs, this may not ever have been a marriage that would have worked.

FWIW Leeds succession was

Ridsdale - crashed the club by overspending
Professor Mckenzie (from Leeds business school) - out of his depth, saw us relegated
Gerald Kranser "konsortium" - Leeds based consortium, headed by insolvency specialist, sold the ground, nearly got us out of trouble then lost their nerve and sold to Bates because he was willing to take the mess off their hands without inspecting the books (because -0 presumably - that didn't matter to his plans for financially engineering benefit to himself)
Bates - evil vampire.  A whole book could be written of the sickening stuff he inflicted on us, including dodgy admin, split fanbase, points deduction, numerous dodgy building deals,  asset stripping, failing to buy back ground, relegation to third tier, selling off all our talent shortly after promotion, condemning us to more time in championship when others - Leicester, Norwich, etc leapfrogged us, eventually extracted all the cash he could ran the wreck into the sand.  Indescribeably unpleasant and evil.  Had his own weekly radio show (on his own radio station) which he used to denounce the fanbase for being trouble makers, etc.
GFH - gulf based spivs who it first appeared were fronting for proper money and then grabbed us with no money and no plan beyond trying to "flip" us to the next bunch of marks.  No-one would buy us as we were a basket case, so they got their cash back by forcing us to pay them "management fees" for owning us, using money borrowed at high interest from partner companies of theirs.  At one point things were so bad, our CEO/MD who was an employee of theres was paying bills using his personal credit card (he was a problem case himself, what with Walter Mitty delusions, his own takeover games, spy cameras in the toilets, etc....).  They screwed things up so badly they were desperate not to sell to anyone sane, and managed to find and groom a mad italian who bought without doing sufficient due diligence.
Cellino - genuine lunatic - whether it was cocaine or mental balance issues was never wholly clear.  Sacked all the staff of the club. Employed David Hockaday as manager, bought appalling italian journeymen into the club and split the dressing room, cultivated a cult of personality using social media that split the fanbase into violently opposing factions, brought Verne Troyer into the club.  Ran out of cash and was eventually run out of town selling to
Radrizanni  - our first competent owner (it seems) since 2002/03.  Appears to have stopped the rot and appointed a decent manager (after a first season in charge fiasco).  But - for now - jury is out. 

Writing it all down (and its only partial) brings the full horror of my adult life as a football fan into perspective.  I've pretty much never known a successful Leeds United whilst of age.  If even half of what appears to be happening to you turns out as it might, you may have a long tunnel ahead.

Blimey what a post!

You missed out Ken Bates hiring Chelsea legend and now full time Celebrity z list show contestant Dennis Wise as manager btw.

i remember a few of those names like Krasner.

It used to be a running joke on here and elsewhere that while we were underachieving in the premier league at least we weren't "doing a Leeds." It's scary how parallel the demise of both clubs is now. You went from heavily spending and finshing in top 6 3-4 seasons to relegation in 4 years, it happened to us in six.

You then finished mid table in first season down here, so did we. Second year you lost play off final, so have we. I'm certainly not looking forward to next year given what happened to your good selves in your third year back in the championship and now we have the boardroom turmoil to complete things.

[Made In Aston]

9 hours ago, TheEgo said:

Aston Villa Football Club Ltd

Company Results (links open in a new window)

Date(document was filed at Companies House)	Description(of the document filed at Companies House)	View / Download(PDF file, link opens in new window)
26 Jun 2018	Statement of capital following an allotment of shares on 25 May 2018 GBP 142,061,725	View PDF Statement of capital following an allotment of shares on 25 May 2018 GBP 142,061,725 - link opens in a new window - 3 pages(3 pages)

 

https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/03375789/filing-history

The 57m shares are the additional ones he has created, taking total shares to 142m. 57 is 40% of 142, so I'm assuming that is the 40% stake he is looking to sell as per media reports. This allotment took place on 25th May as per the other changes,so it doesn't necessarily signal any firm progress on a sale. 

Edited June 26, 2018 by Made In Aston