Kenny Huang linked to Liverpool takeover

[lfcwonderboy1]

Apparently Blackburn are being sold for £300m - which is not far from our asking price..

 

80 mil, Then spend 300 mil over time.

[The Bugged Out]

an article on tom hicks debt problems is going to be on SSN in a minute or apparently. a US judge has ruled his other companies are fair game to creditors due to his mismanagment of the texas rangers.

[Scouse_Datcha]

an article on tom hicks debt problems is going to be on SSN in a minute or apparently. a US judge has ruled his other companies are fair game to creditors due to his mismanagment of the texas rangers.

 

Is this the bullet they where talking about earlier ?

[lfcwonderboy1]

Can go after tom hicks other assets. Haha the mans fucked?

[RedinSweden]

I may be being a bit thick, but who is Keith Harris representing?

[Xherdan]

Raising that much cash through an equity sale cannot be a coincidence.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I'm sure Shankly would be proud to see LFC in the hands of people who manage to repress their people so well that labour unions virtually don't exist.

 

I'm not comfortable with this at all and I've got a feeling that the sea of moral cowards, that will be too busy wanking themselves silly over the sniff of a trophy to consider the human rights abuses in China, will push me to be even less comfortable with it. As will throwing money about like the other classless cunts that play in shades of blue.

 

Stu, this is a fund comprised of FOREX reserves. It's not like the money has been squeezed from the soul of Chinese babies.

 

Most bids we accept will have some sort of dodgy connection somewhere along the line. I mean, are we conformable taking money from DIC? Khalifi? Syria? I mean, where do we draw the line?

[Guest davelfc]

I am okay with that, as it means he doesn't own the club!

 

I think it is funny that a manc twat, who is trying to buy Man Utd, appears on Tv talking about LFC with a manc top in the background, and, as others have pointed out, talks up the price of the club that he is supposedly trying to buy for his client (bet his client was pleased at that!) and he is taken seriously.

 

Although in the tragic comedy that is our football club, It wouldn't suprise me if this deal gets fucked up by a manc twat!

 

It was very transparent, he has done himself no favours agreeing to do that for the cancers.

 

Dealmaker Kops it

The ubiquitous football dealmaker Keith Harris popped up on telly yesterday to give his view on Liverpool's sale situation, amid talk that he is representing an unknown bidder. He claimed the club was worth more than the reported £300m-plus sale price, which if you think about it would be rather an unusual statement from someone representing a potential buyer. Could it be that he is instead acting for the current owners to achieve the a better price for the club? Some think so, and he did not respond to Digger's message yesterday asking him whether he was involved. But if he is working for Liverpool, he is not doing it wholeheartedly. Throughout his interview yesterday the 1990s-edition Manchester United shirt that sits in pride of place in his office was in full view.

[Guest davelfc]

do'h!

[Guest davelfc]

Dave should look to get the fanzine on the official English Language curriculum over there. He could then keep an eye on this site from his yacht.

 

I bet he is on it as we speak.

[Anny Road]

The Chinese - A Great Bunch Of Lads

[Anny Road]

Dave better not slag off the team or the owners in the fanzine or they might send round one of these.

 

Execution van - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Cardie]

First DIC, now CIC, surely it's only a matter of time until biro people get involved.

[Royal Family]

According to Canadian newspapers, which are obviously following the Kirdi story closely, the guy plans to buy us through a leveraged buy-out (haven't we had one of those before?!) and wants to build a shopping centre and a hotel, plus a solar powered electricity generator on the site of the new Anfield. I'm pretty sure that planning permission wouldn't be forthcoming, which would no doubt scupper the whole stadium project again!

The stadium plans are below:-

Kirdi says he'll draw on soccer past if bid to buy Liverpool works - Sports - Canada - World - The Telegram

 

In other words, the board would be absolutely insane to agree to this deal.

[Guest davelfc]

Dave better not slag of the team or the owners in the fanzine or they might send round one of these.

 

Execution van - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

The death bus isn't it? Travels around the country executing people on death row. I hope they have two seats reserved for our current owners.

 

(didn't spot the text at the bottom, it's all these late nights)

[Barrington Womble]

I may be being a bit thick, but who is Keith Harris representing?

]

he won't tell us, it's a secret. but whoever it is wants to pay 50% more than the current highest bid. but he isn't doing this for hicks, no-sir-ee.

[Ted]

According to Canadian newspapers, which are obviously following the Kirdi story closely, the guy plans to buy us through a leveraged buy-out (haven't we had one of those before?!) and wants to build a shopping centre and a hotel, plus a solar powered electricity generator on the site of the new Anfield. I'm pretty sure that planning permission wouldn't be forthcoming, which would no doubt scupper the whole stadium project again!

The stadium plans are below:-

Kirdi says he'll draw on soccer past if bid to buy Liverpool works - Sports - Canada - World - The Telegram

 

In other words, the board would be absolutely insane to agree to this deal.

 

And he'd apparently have Foster Gillett on the board.

[hamstrung]

Keith Harris on Talk Sport claiming the owners control the bids not the banks. The Chinese bid seems too low.

 

The opposite of what TalkSport says will happen, happens.

 

This is confirmation that we are now owned by CIC.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Looks like I'll be buying hte Time this monring:

 

[hamstrung]

I bought it. Nothing that hasn't been posted already.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

I bought it. Nothing that hasn't been posted already.

 

Huh? What you talking about? I want the 'Sex and Science' pull out.

[razor]

Looks like I'll be buying hte Time this monring:

 

 

Yes, but below that, there's a Liverpool article...

 

 

 

EDIT

(NN - you beat me to it)

[cochcaer]

Insiders said that it was a three-way contest between the Chinese, Rhône Capital, a private equity group, and the billionare al-Kharafi family of Kuwait.

 

The Times.

[hamstrung]

Huh? What you talking about? I want the 'Sex and Science' pull out.

 

Tits and test tubes. Boobs and Bunsens.

 

I can recommend it.

[cochcaer]

Chinese Liverpool the perfect fit, but only if they learn from Americans' mistakes

 

Tony Barrett

 

Anyone involved in amateur football on Merseyside in the 1990s will vividly remember a team by the name of Liverpool Chinese.

 

The idea behind the formation of the club was simple enough – to give those who emerged from the world’s second oldest Chinatown and its hinterlands a representation in the country’s biggest and most successful Sunday league.

 

The concept was a good one, this was a meeting of cultures and an example of multiculturalism being literally played out in a melting pot of a city where football – and, more accurately, your involvement in it – have long been seen as one of the key tests of your ability to fit in.

 

The only problem was Liverpool Chinese were not very good and besides an emphatic 5-1 victory over an abysmal team featuring this correspondent which included an even more embarrassing half-time team talk than Phil Brown’s infamous outburst at Manchester City, their tenure in the Sunday League was neither long lived nor particularly noteworthy. The experiment may have got off the ground but it could hardly be seen as an outstanding success.

 

Now, almost 20 years on it looks eminently possible that another club is about to emerge melding the two cultures, only this time it will inevitably be known as Chinese Liverpool rather than Liverpool Chinese and the hopes are high that such a high profile football experiment would be a damn sight more successful and therefore afforded much greater longevity than its low profile predecessor.

 

There are many reasons why Liverpool and China could be seen as the perfect fit, the vast majority of them, including the Anfield outfit’s all red kit and the Far East nation’s five starred flag, highly circumstantial. The closer the two parties get to concluding a deal the more these examples will roll out and the greater the public relations/charm offensive will become.

 

That’s the way big business works, as Liverpool fans know to their own cost. It was only three-and-a-half years ago that the arrival of Tom Hicks and George Gillett arrived with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for saviours. The American duo may have known nothing about football, they may have known even less about Liverpool, but they had big enough desire and deep enough pockets to furnish the club with a new stadium, bankroll a transfer spending spree and restore it to former glories.

 

The soundbites were positive and the supporters, in the main, bought into the vision. Three-and-a-half years of broken promises and acrimony later and the saying once bitten, twice shy currently applies to the Liverpool fan base just as much as you’ll never walk alone. Which is why talk of a Chinese takeover, complete with similar lofty aspirations, is being taken with a pinch of salt; albeit one that is served up alongside a large dose of excitement, caused mainly by an overwhelming desire to see the club rid of the hated Hicks and Gillett rather than a stirring of the soul created by the Premier League’s latest foreign suitors.

 

The lack of credible alternatives makes the Chinese option the best one on the table at present by some considerable distance, particularly with the indications coming from those close to Kenny Huang’s bid being that they will clear the £237 million club debt built up by Hicks and Gillett. But once the initial burst of anticipation and exhilaration has subsided, there will be questions for Huang to answer. Lots of them.

 

The most important one revolves around how his bid is being funded. Clearly, the finance is being provided by the Chinese Investment Corporation, the raison d’etre of which is to secure a substantial return on its investments, but the more important issue is who will be responsible for paying them back and how it will be done – if anyone.

 

Maybe CIC aren’t going down the leveraged buyout route and fears that the investment arm of the Chinese government are lending the money to buy the club to Huang at a considerable interest rate will not be realised. Perhaps they see their potential initial investment as a loss leader with the belief that the costs of the purchase will be more than made up for by the exposure of one of sport’s greatest and most famous institutions to one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

 

Who knows? The only thing we do know at the moment is that investment vehicles don’t have a reputation for being altruistic. The demands are straightforward – all outlays must be accounted for and returns, usually high ones, are demanded. Which is why Huang and CIC need to be open and above board about their plans for Liverpool so that their motives for the club can be assessed, free of the kind of brouhaha and bravado which accompanied the arrival of Hicks and Gillett back in 2007.

 

It may not be the way that big business and, in this case an even bigger state, operates but Liverpool needs clarity right now like never before. Too much of its recent history has been shrouded in doubt and uncertainty for anything other than transparency to be tolerated.

 

Whether such openness is forthcoming or not is another matter and it should be stressed that Huang’s offer, though the outright favourite at present, has not yet been accepted. CIC may well adopt the stance that they should be judged on what they do, rather than what they say and given that Liverpool has been a club where action has made way for talk this may not be a bad approach.

 

Certainly, suggestions of a £150 million transfer request being made available to Roy Hodgson will provoke a feel-good factor at a club where funding of the manager has depreciated to such an extent in recent years that Hodgson was recently forced into a failed cut price offer for Luke Young. The thought of their manager being furnished with the kind of finance that would allow him to compete for the top stars and best players will inevitably fill supporters with excitement even if there is a great deal of unease about the direction in which football is heading.

 

Again, it should be stressed that Huang’s bid has not yet been formalised so talk of immense transfer kitties is still some way from becoming a reality and it would be highly unlikely that the £150 million would not be made available to Hodgson in one go even in the event of the Chinese takeover being completed.

 

Until and unless there is genuine progress and Liverpool does actually change hands then all we will have is conjecture. Huang’s representatives released a statement yesterday which made it clear that only information stemming directly from themselves should be taken at face value, a welcome move given the number of sources around the process who want to be seen as being in the know. Information is theirs to control and no-one else’s, this is their right and their power as the ones who are actually ready and willing to make an offer to buy the club.

 

But if Huang and CIC are concerned about mis-information and the obvious possibility of fans being misled then there is nothing better they can do than to be open and honest about their aims and objectives for the club so that there is no confusion. Though the out of the frying pan into the fire analogy does not apply in this case – Liverpool’s frying pan has been ablaze for far too long for it to do so – the club cannot afford another failed regime and its supporters would not be able to handle another false dawn with their hopes and aspirations being sacrificed at the leveraged buyout altar.

 

For the time being Huang’s motives for attempting to get his hands on Britain’s most successful football club must be taken at face value as he has done nothing to be tarred with the same brush as Hicks and Gillett. But if he wants Chinese Liverpool to succeed where Liverpool Chinese failed then the best advice anyone could offer him would be to learn from the multitude of mistakes of the American duo who, if he has his way, will soon become his predecessors at Anfield.