The Anfield Saga
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****. I really hope this isn't Liverpool down the *******. The Prem needs top sides to attract the top players and tbh this is going to hurt the entire league if Reina, Torres, Gerrard, Mascherano and the rest **** off to La Liga 
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Some of the ITKs have said that this is a negotiating ploy to force things to a head. Sahara also withdrew 'for the moment' but did it in a much quieter way because they weren't as far into the process as Huang's bid seems to have been.
I don't know what to make of it mate. This is all PR and high risk business strategies and I don't have anywhere like enough information on the key players (eg Huang's backers) to make a call on what's true and what isn't. *shrug* There has to be a reason why Huang didn't sign an NDA and refused to sign one. That to me isn't the sign of a 'serious' bidder but of a stalking horse who is forcing the price down whilst increasing public pressure and scrutiny of the bid process.
It's whoever is pulling Huang's strings who I'm interested in and have been from the start.
You say Sahara, as in the Indian company Sahara. If that is the case, then even if the company is in it for profits I would support the company's bid. I am from India and I know a lot about Sahara. The company is very commited to its sports teams.
I know this because they have sponsored the Indian Hockey team even though they know it is a loss. Similarly when they learnt that the Indian cricket team was going to be sponsered by a foreign company (Nike, for a huge amount), they stepped in and paid the same amount because they did not want their national team to be sponsered by foreign firms.
Now this may all be because of a sense of patriotism but who knows.
The company pays high bonuses to its employees even when other companies don't. The owner of the company, Subrato Roy, seems to me the most genuine person in the filthy rich business class. He seems to be the person who hates letting people down like some americans we all know.
Even though I hate Liverpool and wish they made a bid for United, no one wants one of the greatest teams in the world to end up in the wrong hands.
Sorry for going off topic.
I know this because they have sponsored the Indian Hockey team even though they know it is a loss. Similarly when they learnt that the Indian cricket team was going to be sponsered by a foreign company (Nike, for a huge amount), they stepped in and paid the same amount because they did not want their national team to be sponsered by foreign firms.
Now this may all be because of a sense of patriotism but who knows.
The company pays high bonuses to its employees even when other companies don't. The owner of the company, Subrato Roy, seems to me the most genuine person in the filthy rich business class. He seems to be the person who hates letting people down like some americans we all know.
Even though I hate Liverpool and wish they made a bid for United, no one wants one of the greatest teams in the world to end up in the wrong hands.
Sorry for going off topic.
The only thing even remotely positive about this is that, we'll now be able to see whether we really had 5 other bids on the table or if the board has been lying to our faces. Personally, I think Broughton is a sleazy scumbag who's doing the bidding of his masters - H&G. I never trusted the guy to begin with, and I don't know why others seem to think otherwise.
And the other thing is that, Kenny might return with a vengeance in October. And I grin inwardly for that fateful day when Broughton and his yank-lovers are thrown out the door. That would be D-day. 6th Oct, 2010 - Marked and stamped on my calendar. (6)
And the other thing is that, Kenny might return with a vengeance in October. And I grin inwardly for that fateful day when Broughton and his yank-lovers are thrown out the door. That would be D-day. 6th Oct, 2010 - Marked and stamped on my calendar. (6)
Hi ive been having a little think about this and i was wondering, if R.B.S take control of the club on October the 6th can they sell the club to Huang to clear the debts? If thats the case maybe Huang is waiting until October when he will be able to pick up the club cheaper. Im probaly wrong.
The problem is that not only will RBS want their money back but also that H&G have placed even more debt on the club which is owed to the parent company of Liverpool which will also need paying off.
As far as we know for sure (as in 100% positive, rather than relying on journos):
Debt to RBS is £250m+ which is what they want back.
Debt to Liverpool's parents company is £158m+.
So you're still looking at £400m+ to buy the club even if RBS is in charge.
---------- Post added at 09:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:20 PM ----------
http://www.anfieldroad.com/news/201008213925/and-then-there-were-none.html/
Im sorry Zebedee i totally forgot about the Debts to parent companys in my earlier post. The more i hear about this the more it makes me realise that the people in charge of the sale of the club really are making a mess of the whole thing. If only we had 4 million Liverpool fans with 200 quid each....
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...man-Martin-Broughton-for-failed-takeover.html
Thank you very much, Mr. Broughton, for messing up the club's only chance to be rid of the yanks and be left in the hands of capable owners. But don't grin too much after receiving that extra cash from the cowboys, because what goes around comes around. Karma's waiting just around the corner, and they say it can be a real b**ch.
Thank you very much, Mr. Broughton, for messing up the club's only chance to be rid of the yanks and be left in the hands of capable owners. But don't grin too much after receiving that extra cash from the cowboys, because what goes around comes around. Karma's waiting just around the corner, and they say it can be a real b**ch.
B
Blynd1
Guest
I said i didnt wanted this to happen... but i regret what i said... IF!!!!!!!!!!! the guy/GIRL who wants to buy it was that hot chinese girl sat next to Dalgish hahahahahaha
call me optimistic, or whatever,
but who was the chinese woman sat next to Dalglish at the Manchester City game?
Think it's Ian Ayres' missus mate.
Intersting about Harris he seems to be still involved...
Keith Harris: Selling a club for £500m is a tricky business | Interviews
Keith Harris is locked in negotiations that could bring the reign of Liverpool's unpopular American owners to an end but his experiences over the past year tell him not to get too excited.
The former Football League chairman has seen deals for Everton and Newcastle collapse in bizarre circumstances and was also a leading light in the failed bid to oust the Glazer family from Manchester United.
A previous attempt to wrest ownership of Liverpool from George Gillett and Tom Hicks for a Kuwaiti he dubbed "The Man in the Sand" also collapsed at the 11th hour so Harris is not about to get carried away as talks progress with the group his investment firm Seymour Pierce has been advising.
"The overseas buyer we represent has completed due diligence. A huge amount of work has been done," he says of a deal that would cost between £400-500million.
Neither was the 57-year-old particularly concerned that months of hard work were threatened by Kenny Huang's attempts to install himself at Anfield, allegedly with the help of the Chinese government.
It came as no surprise when the businessman abandoned his takeover last week. "The Chinese government involvement was always a bit far-fetched," he says.
"In any takeover situation, when people resort to announcing it to the media, you have to question the seriousness of the offer.
"If the name of the prospective buyer comes out before the deal is done then probably it is never going to be done.
"Look at when Chelsea was sold in 2003. My firm was advising the club and we only knew of Roman Abramovich on the Thursday before the deal was completed the following Tuesday."
Harris will not disclose the name of the buyer he is now advising but says: "It is none of the groups mentioned in the press.
"The ball is now in our client's court to make an offer. I do not think the deal will be done before the transfer window closes this month but the next pressure point is October when some of the RBS loan of £237m has to be repaid. It may happen then. But in the present climate these things are impossible to predict."
Harris has played his part in takeovers at Premier League clubs Aston Villa (Randy Lerner), West Ham (Eggert Magnusson) and Manchester City (Thaksin Shinawatra) and, two years ago, he was working for another would-be buyer, Nasser Al Khorafi, a member of the powerful and clan-like Kuwaiti family interested in acquiring Liverpool.
Khorafi has been mentioned again as a possible buyer but, in 2008, this long- standing Liverpool fan was so keen to keep his name a secret that Harris was involved in cloak-and-dagger secrecy.
"I had to give Khorafi a pseudonym, 'The Man in the Sand' and Liverpool were identified as 'The Target'. After being vetted, I had to travel to a hotel in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. For a time, I was the only guest. Then The Man in the Sand turned up."
Getting the American owners, who were then barely on speaking terms, together was also not easy.
"They met in Montreal under the auspices of the commissioner of the National Hockey League, who acted as a sort of referee," says Harris.
"The Man in the Sand eventually met Gillett and his son, Foster, when they came for tea at my Chelsea home. "
Khorafi agreed to pay £300m for the equity with an additional £100m depending on Liverpool's financial performance. But then, two hours before the deal was due to be signed, Harris received an email saying the buyer had changed his mind.
"He just lost his appetite," says Harris. "No explanation was forthcoming."
Harris was unable to contact Khorafi and eventually instructed lawyers to recover his fees. The collapse of deals for Everton and Newcastle proved equally frustrating.
"In the case of Newcastle it was a funded offer which was then declined by the owner," says Harris.
Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, wanted £100m and, reveals Harris, "the offer by Barry Moat wasn't very much lower". So having put the club up for sale and with many Toon supporters keen to get rid of him, why did Ashley reject popular local businessman Moat? "All I can say is the offer didn't hit his target."
And Everton? "Ah," says Harris, with a sigh. "There the would-be buyers, both of them British, turned out to be very flaky. When they had to show up with the money, they disappeared. They led everybody a merry dance."
Harris says the difficulty in finding suitable buyers for the country's leading clubs is because "wealth has shifted very substantially away from the West and resides in the Middle-East and in the economic boom countries of the world - China, India and South-East Asia."
He adds: "The Premier League is a great brand but owning a football club is not a must. It's like the second or third home, the yacht or the private plane - a trophy asset. The Manchester City phenomenon [the club was purchased by Abu Dhabi businessman Sheikh Mansour, who then cleared their debts] was exceptional and it is not easy to see it being repeated."
The one takeover Harris would love a third crack at engineering is that of his beloved Manchester United, a club he has supported since he was six.
He concedes that hopes of the Red Knights, of which he was a member, buying it from the Glazers are dead. "Their interest in buying remains undiminished but the Glazers gave very clear and loud signals that the business was not for sale. And for the time being that is the end of it," he says.
The Glazers' opposition meant that the Red Knights never made an offer, or even had a meeting with them. The sticking point was the price. "The Glazers would want £1.5billion," claims Harris. "The Red Knights would have been prepared to go up to a billion."
He says the Knights had 30 eager investors, each prepared to contribute a minimum of £10m - "They said: 'Yes, we'd like to be a part of this'."
They were prepared to invest in Manchester United despite the club owing £800m - and this included interest rates on some of the debt which increase the longer the money is not repaid.
Against that background Harris insists: "It's important that people don't overpay in this environment."
Was it not a problem that the Red Knights' effort was never supported by the most important man at Old Trafford, Mr. Ferguson?
As I mention the manager's name Harris goes very quiet. "Um, what you have to say is that Alex has been hugely successful and part of that success is being a very loyal, senior member of the team and you wouldn't expect anyone in his position to say anything different from what he said."
Did the Red Knights try speaking to Mr Ferguson? "I don't - I don't really want to go down that path," says Harris, adding: "Football clubs don't enjoy success without a break, it has never happened. Manchester United's success in this era has lasted 17 years, which is longer than most.
"But clearly there is more competition coming with Chelsea and Manchester City and Alex has to contemplate retirement. The protest against the Glazers is about the debt they have put on the club and a fear over what happens tomorrow rather than a condemnation of what has been happening until now."
But even if the Glazers had been prepared to sell, was not the Red Knights' concept flawed as David Gill, United's chief executive, suggested? How can any football club, let alone one the size of United, be run by a committee?
Harris, surprisingly, agrees with Gill. "No one can deny that. You can't have seven or eight people making decisions. What you can have is an agreement on policy issues. But nobody in the Red Knights' group suggested that David Gill should not be running the club after a takeover."
The saga also marks a remarkable change in Harris's relationship with United fans - from villain to trusted adviser. In 1998 when Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid for the club, Harris was advising the United board and was anathema to the fan groups opposing the bid.
"The fans took against me then," he admits. "It was in part a lack of understanding of what is required of a financial adviser. The duty of a financial adviser of a public company is to advise shareholders whether the terms that are offered are fair and reasonable. And the price of £650m offered by BSkyB was a fair one, a huge offer."
Harris began to work his passage back with the fans when, in 2005, he tried to stop the Glazer takeover by organising an alternative fans buy-out with the help of investment bankers Nomura.
"On paper, something like 15 or 17 per cent of the shares were in the hands of fans, a mighty amount in terms of defending a takeover. But they were in the hands of thousands of supporters and a lot of them, to be blunt, wouldn't really understand the mechanics of the takeover. Although we tried hard, against a public company takeover timetable, it just proved impossible. Had there been three or four major shareholders representing 10 or 15 per cent of shares, then something could have been done."
But while Harris now cannot praise the fan groups organising the anti-Glazer protest enough, his advice to them is that, if they want the Glazers out, their protests must be more than just an emotional one.
"Waving the green and yellow colours of Newton Heath is very evocative. But do they persuade the owners that they ought to be selling? I would say categorically, 'No'. If you are serious about change then you have to vote with your feet or your credit card. If you are a season-ticket holder and you don't renew you are protesting.
"Then you are hurting them and if you really want change, that's the way to do it."
But even Harris cannot be sure how long the hurt will have to continue before the Glazers could be forced to vacate Old Trafford.
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?board=2.0
Keith Harris: Selling a club for £500m is a tricky business | Interviews
Keith Harris is locked in negotiations that could bring the reign of Liverpool's unpopular American owners to an end but his experiences over the past year tell him not to get too excited.
The former Football League chairman has seen deals for Everton and Newcastle collapse in bizarre circumstances and was also a leading light in the failed bid to oust the Glazer family from Manchester United.
A previous attempt to wrest ownership of Liverpool from George Gillett and Tom Hicks for a Kuwaiti he dubbed "The Man in the Sand" also collapsed at the 11th hour so Harris is not about to get carried away as talks progress with the group his investment firm Seymour Pierce has been advising.
"The overseas buyer we represent has completed due diligence. A huge amount of work has been done," he says of a deal that would cost between £400-500million.
Neither was the 57-year-old particularly concerned that months of hard work were threatened by Kenny Huang's attempts to install himself at Anfield, allegedly with the help of the Chinese government.
It came as no surprise when the businessman abandoned his takeover last week. "The Chinese government involvement was always a bit far-fetched," he says.
"In any takeover situation, when people resort to announcing it to the media, you have to question the seriousness of the offer.
"If the name of the prospective buyer comes out before the deal is done then probably it is never going to be done.
"Look at when Chelsea was sold in 2003. My firm was advising the club and we only knew of Roman Abramovich on the Thursday before the deal was completed the following Tuesday."
Harris will not disclose the name of the buyer he is now advising but says: "It is none of the groups mentioned in the press.
"The ball is now in our client's court to make an offer. I do not think the deal will be done before the transfer window closes this month but the next pressure point is October when some of the RBS loan of £237m has to be repaid. It may happen then. But in the present climate these things are impossible to predict."
Harris has played his part in takeovers at Premier League clubs Aston Villa (Randy Lerner), West Ham (Eggert Magnusson) and Manchester City (Thaksin Shinawatra) and, two years ago, he was working for another would-be buyer, Nasser Al Khorafi, a member of the powerful and clan-like Kuwaiti family interested in acquiring Liverpool.
Khorafi has been mentioned again as a possible buyer but, in 2008, this long- standing Liverpool fan was so keen to keep his name a secret that Harris was involved in cloak-and-dagger secrecy.
"I had to give Khorafi a pseudonym, 'The Man in the Sand' and Liverpool were identified as 'The Target'. After being vetted, I had to travel to a hotel in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley. For a time, I was the only guest. Then The Man in the Sand turned up."
Getting the American owners, who were then barely on speaking terms, together was also not easy.
"They met in Montreal under the auspices of the commissioner of the National Hockey League, who acted as a sort of referee," says Harris.
"The Man in the Sand eventually met Gillett and his son, Foster, when they came for tea at my Chelsea home. "
Khorafi agreed to pay £300m for the equity with an additional £100m depending on Liverpool's financial performance. But then, two hours before the deal was due to be signed, Harris received an email saying the buyer had changed his mind.
"He just lost his appetite," says Harris. "No explanation was forthcoming."
Harris was unable to contact Khorafi and eventually instructed lawyers to recover his fees. The collapse of deals for Everton and Newcastle proved equally frustrating.
"In the case of Newcastle it was a funded offer which was then declined by the owner," says Harris.
Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, wanted £100m and, reveals Harris, "the offer by Barry Moat wasn't very much lower". So having put the club up for sale and with many Toon supporters keen to get rid of him, why did Ashley reject popular local businessman Moat? "All I can say is the offer didn't hit his target."
And Everton? "Ah," says Harris, with a sigh. "There the would-be buyers, both of them British, turned out to be very flaky. When they had to show up with the money, they disappeared. They led everybody a merry dance."
Harris says the difficulty in finding suitable buyers for the country's leading clubs is because "wealth has shifted very substantially away from the West and resides in the Middle-East and in the economic boom countries of the world - China, India and South-East Asia."
He adds: "The Premier League is a great brand but owning a football club is not a must. It's like the second or third home, the yacht or the private plane - a trophy asset. The Manchester City phenomenon [the club was purchased by Abu Dhabi businessman Sheikh Mansour, who then cleared their debts] was exceptional and it is not easy to see it being repeated."
The one takeover Harris would love a third crack at engineering is that of his beloved Manchester United, a club he has supported since he was six.
He concedes that hopes of the Red Knights, of which he was a member, buying it from the Glazers are dead. "Their interest in buying remains undiminished but the Glazers gave very clear and loud signals that the business was not for sale. And for the time being that is the end of it," he says.
The Glazers' opposition meant that the Red Knights never made an offer, or even had a meeting with them. The sticking point was the price. "The Glazers would want £1.5billion," claims Harris. "The Red Knights would have been prepared to go up to a billion."
He says the Knights had 30 eager investors, each prepared to contribute a minimum of £10m - "They said: 'Yes, we'd like to be a part of this'."
They were prepared to invest in Manchester United despite the club owing £800m - and this included interest rates on some of the debt which increase the longer the money is not repaid.
Against that background Harris insists: "It's important that people don't overpay in this environment."
Was it not a problem that the Red Knights' effort was never supported by the most important man at Old Trafford, Mr. Ferguson?
As I mention the manager's name Harris goes very quiet. "Um, what you have to say is that Alex has been hugely successful and part of that success is being a very loyal, senior member of the team and you wouldn't expect anyone in his position to say anything different from what he said."
Did the Red Knights try speaking to Mr Ferguson? "I don't - I don't really want to go down that path," says Harris, adding: "Football clubs don't enjoy success without a break, it has never happened. Manchester United's success in this era has lasted 17 years, which is longer than most.
"But clearly there is more competition coming with Chelsea and Manchester City and Alex has to contemplate retirement. The protest against the Glazers is about the debt they have put on the club and a fear over what happens tomorrow rather than a condemnation of what has been happening until now."
But even if the Glazers had been prepared to sell, was not the Red Knights' concept flawed as David Gill, United's chief executive, suggested? How can any football club, let alone one the size of United, be run by a committee?
Harris, surprisingly, agrees with Gill. "No one can deny that. You can't have seven or eight people making decisions. What you can have is an agreement on policy issues. But nobody in the Red Knights' group suggested that David Gill should not be running the club after a takeover."
The saga also marks a remarkable change in Harris's relationship with United fans - from villain to trusted adviser. In 1998 when Rupert Murdoch's Sky bid for the club, Harris was advising the United board and was anathema to the fan groups opposing the bid.
"The fans took against me then," he admits. "It was in part a lack of understanding of what is required of a financial adviser. The duty of a financial adviser of a public company is to advise shareholders whether the terms that are offered are fair and reasonable. And the price of £650m offered by BSkyB was a fair one, a huge offer."
Harris began to work his passage back with the fans when, in 2005, he tried to stop the Glazer takeover by organising an alternative fans buy-out with the help of investment bankers Nomura.
"On paper, something like 15 or 17 per cent of the shares were in the hands of fans, a mighty amount in terms of defending a takeover. But they were in the hands of thousands of supporters and a lot of them, to be blunt, wouldn't really understand the mechanics of the takeover. Although we tried hard, against a public company takeover timetable, it just proved impossible. Had there been three or four major shareholders representing 10 or 15 per cent of shares, then something could have been done."
But while Harris now cannot praise the fan groups organising the anti-Glazer protest enough, his advice to them is that, if they want the Glazers out, their protests must be more than just an emotional one.
"Waving the green and yellow colours of Newton Heath is very evocative. But do they persuade the owners that they ought to be selling? I would say categorically, 'No'. If you are serious about change then you have to vote with your feet or your credit card. If you are a season-ticket holder and you don't renew you are protesting.
"Then you are hurting them and if you really want change, that's the way to do it."
But even Harris cannot be sure how long the hurt will have to continue before the Glazers could be forced to vacate Old Trafford.
http://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?board=2.0
"Thanks for the offer, Mr Harris. But we're not interested in how much you love Man Utd. We'll handle our own mess. Peace, out."
Seriously though, the only thing I'm interested in is, if and when Huang is coming back. His was the only verifiable and transparent bid. By now, we were supposed to have been looking for star players with our proposed £150m budget. :'(
Seriously though, the only thing I'm interested in is, if and when Huang is coming back. His was the only verifiable and transparent bid. By now, we were supposed to have been looking for star players with our proposed £150m budget. :'(
some more info i found
New article from this Nick Harris who has been doing all the Huang stuff
The credibility of Liverpool’s would-be saviour Kenny Huang is thrown into further doubt today with revelations that he has a history of making claims about his background and business interests that swing between exaggeration and falsehood.
Huang has been hailed as Liverpool’s would-be saviour in some quarters since early August, but withdrew from the bidding process without explanation on Friday.
Sources say he pulled out after failing to produce evidence of funds, and failing to identify his backers. This development came amid ongoing but unsubstantiated claims that he has the backing of China’s $332bn CIC sovereign wealth fund, and that he may re-enter the fray.
Yet Huang’s background suggests that any grandiose claims about him, or by him, should be scrutinised carefully rather than taken at face value.
A three-week investigation by sportingintelligence has unearthed disturbing evidence that Huang has fabricated information about his studies at prestigious American universities, has claimed to be in a position of power at one of China’s biggest, richest banks (which the bank denies), and, as previously reported, has personally claimed to be the head of a group that owned a 15 per cent stake in an NBA basketball franchise, which was never true.
There are myriad claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and sportingintelligence will detail them today. Those mentioned in the previous paragraph are among the most serious because Huang made the claims himself under oath in January this year, in a federal court in Miami, during a civil trial in which he prevailed (and was awarded costs of more than $300,000) – after convincing a jury of his innocence.
Huang’s bid for Liverpool, and its credibility or otherwise, is important for several reasons.
Liverpool are historically one of England’s most prized football assets, and desperately need new owners and new finance to take them forward. As things stand, their fans remain in the dark about when or if that will happen.
Huang’s “credibility” was established to the extent that reports of a potential Huang-CIC-LFC even reached the front pages as well as the back pages.
This in turn led to serious analysis and interpretation by economists and geo-political observers in respectable publications about the role of “new China” in the wider world.
And if CIC, with Huang as the frontman, had bid or ever do bid for Liverpool, as part of a new spurt of international Chinese cultural expansion, it would be an enormous story, in sporting, economic and political terms. That’s why sportingintelligence started to look at it in such depth.
But was it actually true? Is it? And if not, how did so many people come to believe it?
It has been difficult to know for sure what is true about Huang’s bid, not least because those speaking on his behalf (latterly, officially, the London and Hong Kong offices of the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, with others briefing in the shadows) have been unable or unwilling to respond to some of the simplest questions about his background.
Hence the importance of an official trial transcript (publicly available), where Huang, in his own words and under oath, makes claims about his own background.
To stress: he won the case in question in a jury hearing. He has also won other legal actions against him, pending appeal(s); and his Florida lawyer says there is only one outstanding judgement against him, surrounding unpaid debts of $788,300.54, plus interest, dating back to 1998. Huang is appealing that.
But the testimony in the January case about his background is so important because it is a rare (perhaps sole) example of Huang making personal statements that have been officially recorded and cannot be claimed as out of context or misquotes.
In his testimony (and the relevant parts of the transcript are here):
CLAIM Huang said, in the present tense, that he was the leader of a group that owned 15 per cent of the NBA basketball team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. That stake, if true, would have been worth around $70m. Huang’s direct quote is: “I am the leader of the group that has 15 per cent of the ownership.” Asked to clarify that he leads an investment group that owns 15 per cent of the Cavs, he replies: “Correct.”
DENIAL A spokesman at the NBA’s head office in New York has issued sportingintelligence with a statement saying: “Mr. Huang has never had any ownership interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers or any other NBA team.”
.
CLAIM Huang said, while talking about his business interests: “I’m sitting on the board of Bank of Communications, assets management, which is the fourth largest bank in China.” The bank is indeed one of China’s biggest, with almost 70,000 employees and revenues in the billions. A Hill & Knowlton spokesman backed up Huang’s claim of a role on an assets board.
DENIAL Eric Pan, a deputy senior manager at the Bank of Communications’ HQ in Shanghai, has issued sportingintelligence with a statement saying: “I would like to confirm that Mr. Huang does NOT have any position at our bank, nor has he ever held any position at our bank or at the Board of our bank.”
.
CLAIM Huang said he worked at the New York Stock Exchange “starting the end of 87”. This would coincide with the end of the only period of his US education that has yet been verified: just four months at Columbia University from September to December 1987, as documented below by the official body in the USA that provides such data.
CLAIM Huang adds in his testimony: “The New York Stock Exchange sent me to another school, New York University. When I was working there, I also attended the MBA program”. Separately, on a website of one of Huang’s other companies, Aspen (now effectively defunct), there is the claim that Kenny Huang “completed the MBA financial management courses at New York University, New York when he was working in Wall Street in the 80s.”
DENIAL But Andrew Morton, an administrator at the NYU graduate records and registrations office (which holds information on all past and present MBA students), has told sportingintelligence there is no record of Kenny Huang, under either his Chinese or anglicised names, at NYU, either on the computer records, which date back to the early 1980s, nor within any hard-copy records of attendance or graduation at any time. “You’d be surprised how often people say they attended but actually didn’t,” Mr Morton said.
.
Huang says in his testimony he graduated from St John’s University in New York with a Master’s, majoring in Japanese. Sportingintelligence requested confirmation of this on 16 August from the relevant official body in the USA, and is awaiting a reply. If Huang did obtain a Master’s at Columbia, his timeline of education during his testimony is misleading. As and when confirmation is available, it will be updated here.
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Elsewhere in the testimony, Huang also says he was voted the No1 philanthropist in China in 2009. This may be the case, but despite repeated requests, no spokesperson can point to any evidence of this. It may indeed exist, but we have been unable to locate it independently. But Huang is not listed anywhere on the 2009 Hurun Philanthropy list, which comprises the top 100 philanthropists in China by volume of donations in 2009.
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Huang claims he was “well known in China” at a period in 2002 when he was asked to travel there on behalf of a US-based company. But established figures in business and sporting circles in China insist Kenny Huang was not well known in China at that time. Huang says he was associated with the Houston Rockets and Yao Ming but he merits no mention in Yao’s autobiography, which details a long cast of people who helped Yao move from China to the USA in 2002.
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Within the Chinese media, there is incredulity about Huang’s involvement in any Liverpool bid. Yan Qiang, also known by his anglicised name of John Yan, is the vice-president of Titan Sports, China’s most prominent and authoritative sports newspaper. Yan is a respected commentator on sport and sports business in China, and a regular contributor to the Chinese edition of the FT, as when writing here earlier this month on Huang and Liverpool.
“Kenny Huang only made his name and came to most people’s attention in China for the first time in 2009 when he was linked to the proposal for the Cavaliers,” Yan told sportingintelligence today. “Certainly I had never heard of him before then, and he has no track record in sport in China before then.
“Ever since the story broke that he wanted to purchase Liverpool, the reaction from China’s sports marketing industry has been the same: nobody trusted it. In most people’s view, he didn’t seem to be a serious businessman in this industry; and a lot of people don’t think that he knows much about sports business.
“His own claim as the minority owner of the NBA franchise Cleveland Cavaliers has long been denied; NBA China has been telling all media that Huang was not the buyer, and the negotiation was not serious enough.
“There is a serious question mark over his intention to buy LFC. Everyone knows that managing a professional football club, from a purely investment point of view, would not be sound business. The claims that CIC or another sovereign fund’s involvement are rootless. But at least Huang got huge publicity, because all Chinese media has been following up this news.”
Sportingintelligence has asked dozens of questions about Kenny Huang’s background and business dealings over the past two weeks to Kenny Huang, and / or to Hill & Knowlton on his behalf, to Huang’s Florida lawyer about the disputed claims in his testimony, and to Huang’s Chicago-based business partner, Marc Ganis. The vast majority remain unanswered.
http://www.sportingintelligence.com...erpool’s-would-be-saviour-kenny-huang-240802/
New article from this Nick Harris who has been doing all the Huang stuff
The credibility of Liverpool’s would-be saviour Kenny Huang is thrown into further doubt today with revelations that he has a history of making claims about his background and business interests that swing between exaggeration and falsehood.
Huang has been hailed as Liverpool’s would-be saviour in some quarters since early August, but withdrew from the bidding process without explanation on Friday.
Sources say he pulled out after failing to produce evidence of funds, and failing to identify his backers. This development came amid ongoing but unsubstantiated claims that he has the backing of China’s $332bn CIC sovereign wealth fund, and that he may re-enter the fray.
Yet Huang’s background suggests that any grandiose claims about him, or by him, should be scrutinised carefully rather than taken at face value.
A three-week investigation by sportingintelligence has unearthed disturbing evidence that Huang has fabricated information about his studies at prestigious American universities, has claimed to be in a position of power at one of China’s biggest, richest banks (which the bank denies), and, as previously reported, has personally claimed to be the head of a group that owned a 15 per cent stake in an NBA basketball franchise, which was never true.
There are myriad claims that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and sportingintelligence will detail them today. Those mentioned in the previous paragraph are among the most serious because Huang made the claims himself under oath in January this year, in a federal court in Miami, during a civil trial in which he prevailed (and was awarded costs of more than $300,000) – after convincing a jury of his innocence.
Huang’s bid for Liverpool, and its credibility or otherwise, is important for several reasons.
Liverpool are historically one of England’s most prized football assets, and desperately need new owners and new finance to take them forward. As things stand, their fans remain in the dark about when or if that will happen.
Huang’s “credibility” was established to the extent that reports of a potential Huang-CIC-LFC even reached the front pages as well as the back pages.
This in turn led to serious analysis and interpretation by economists and geo-political observers in respectable publications about the role of “new China” in the wider world.
And if CIC, with Huang as the frontman, had bid or ever do bid for Liverpool, as part of a new spurt of international Chinese cultural expansion, it would be an enormous story, in sporting, economic and political terms. That’s why sportingintelligence started to look at it in such depth.
But was it actually true? Is it? And if not, how did so many people come to believe it?
It has been difficult to know for sure what is true about Huang’s bid, not least because those speaking on his behalf (latterly, officially, the London and Hong Kong offices of the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, with others briefing in the shadows) have been unable or unwilling to respond to some of the simplest questions about his background.
Hence the importance of an official trial transcript (publicly available), where Huang, in his own words and under oath, makes claims about his own background.
To stress: he won the case in question in a jury hearing. He has also won other legal actions against him, pending appeal(s); and his Florida lawyer says there is only one outstanding judgement against him, surrounding unpaid debts of $788,300.54, plus interest, dating back to 1998. Huang is appealing that.
But the testimony in the January case about his background is so important because it is a rare (perhaps sole) example of Huang making personal statements that have been officially recorded and cannot be claimed as out of context or misquotes.
In his testimony (and the relevant parts of the transcript are here):
CLAIM Huang said, in the present tense, that he was the leader of a group that owned 15 per cent of the NBA basketball team, the Cleveland Cavaliers. That stake, if true, would have been worth around $70m. Huang’s direct quote is: “I am the leader of the group that has 15 per cent of the ownership.” Asked to clarify that he leads an investment group that owns 15 per cent of the Cavs, he replies: “Correct.”
DENIAL A spokesman at the NBA’s head office in New York has issued sportingintelligence with a statement saying: “Mr. Huang has never had any ownership interest in the Cleveland Cavaliers or any other NBA team.”
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CLAIM Huang said, while talking about his business interests: “I’m sitting on the board of Bank of Communications, assets management, which is the fourth largest bank in China.” The bank is indeed one of China’s biggest, with almost 70,000 employees and revenues in the billions. A Hill & Knowlton spokesman backed up Huang’s claim of a role on an assets board.
DENIAL Eric Pan, a deputy senior manager at the Bank of Communications’ HQ in Shanghai, has issued sportingintelligence with a statement saying: “I would like to confirm that Mr. Huang does NOT have any position at our bank, nor has he ever held any position at our bank or at the Board of our bank.”
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CLAIM Huang said he worked at the New York Stock Exchange “starting the end of 87”. This would coincide with the end of the only period of his US education that has yet been verified: just four months at Columbia University from September to December 1987, as documented below by the official body in the USA that provides such data.
CLAIM Huang adds in his testimony: “The New York Stock Exchange sent me to another school, New York University. When I was working there, I also attended the MBA program”. Separately, on a website of one of Huang’s other companies, Aspen (now effectively defunct), there is the claim that Kenny Huang “completed the MBA financial management courses at New York University, New York when he was working in Wall Street in the 80s.”
DENIAL But Andrew Morton, an administrator at the NYU graduate records and registrations office (which holds information on all past and present MBA students), has told sportingintelligence there is no record of Kenny Huang, under either his Chinese or anglicised names, at NYU, either on the computer records, which date back to the early 1980s, nor within any hard-copy records of attendance or graduation at any time. “You’d be surprised how often people say they attended but actually didn’t,” Mr Morton said.
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Huang says in his testimony he graduated from St John’s University in New York with a Master’s, majoring in Japanese. Sportingintelligence requested confirmation of this on 16 August from the relevant official body in the USA, and is awaiting a reply. If Huang did obtain a Master’s at Columbia, his timeline of education during his testimony is misleading. As and when confirmation is available, it will be updated here.
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Elsewhere in the testimony, Huang also says he was voted the No1 philanthropist in China in 2009. This may be the case, but despite repeated requests, no spokesperson can point to any evidence of this. It may indeed exist, but we have been unable to locate it independently. But Huang is not listed anywhere on the 2009 Hurun Philanthropy list, which comprises the top 100 philanthropists in China by volume of donations in 2009.
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Huang claims he was “well known in China” at a period in 2002 when he was asked to travel there on behalf of a US-based company. But established figures in business and sporting circles in China insist Kenny Huang was not well known in China at that time. Huang says he was associated with the Houston Rockets and Yao Ming but he merits no mention in Yao’s autobiography, which details a long cast of people who helped Yao move from China to the USA in 2002.
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Within the Chinese media, there is incredulity about Huang’s involvement in any Liverpool bid. Yan Qiang, also known by his anglicised name of John Yan, is the vice-president of Titan Sports, China’s most prominent and authoritative sports newspaper. Yan is a respected commentator on sport and sports business in China, and a regular contributor to the Chinese edition of the FT, as when writing here earlier this month on Huang and Liverpool.
“Kenny Huang only made his name and came to most people’s attention in China for the first time in 2009 when he was linked to the proposal for the Cavaliers,” Yan told sportingintelligence today. “Certainly I had never heard of him before then, and he has no track record in sport in China before then.
“Ever since the story broke that he wanted to purchase Liverpool, the reaction from China’s sports marketing industry has been the same: nobody trusted it. In most people’s view, he didn’t seem to be a serious businessman in this industry; and a lot of people don’t think that he knows much about sports business.
“His own claim as the minority owner of the NBA franchise Cleveland Cavaliers has long been denied; NBA China has been telling all media that Huang was not the buyer, and the negotiation was not serious enough.
“There is a serious question mark over his intention to buy LFC. Everyone knows that managing a professional football club, from a purely investment point of view, would not be sound business. The claims that CIC or another sovereign fund’s involvement are rootless. But at least Huang got huge publicity, because all Chinese media has been following up this news.”
Sportingintelligence has asked dozens of questions about Kenny Huang’s background and business dealings over the past two weeks to Kenny Huang, and / or to Hill & Knowlton on his behalf, to Huang’s Florida lawyer about the disputed claims in his testimony, and to Huang’s Chicago-based business partner, Marc Ganis. The vast majority remain unanswered.
http://www.sportingintelligence.com...erpool’s-would-be-saviour-kenny-huang-240802/
Just saw this posted on Liverpoolfcnews it was taken from the Liverpool Echo. Im not sure what to make of it, hopefully Zeb will be along soon to offer an opinion.
http://www.liverpoolfcnews.net/mystery-investor-to-buyout-liverpool-football-club/link/34536/
http://www.liverpoolfcnews.net/mystery-investor-to-buyout-liverpool-football-club/link/34536/
Got the mother of all ear infections at the moment - I must be turning into a right wuss, but it ****** hurts! Been a bit busy with stuff.
Keith Harris - lol. Agree with Rushian (very intelligent poster on RAWK he is too). Harris sued the last investor in Liverpool he worked for.
Huang - all kinds of interesting things coming out of Huang's US partner Ganis' mouth to the Telegraph. Looking more and more likely that either Huang/Ganis were taking a chance or that they never had any backers to start with. It's 'odd' to say the least.
Keith Harris - lol. Agree with Rushian (very intelligent poster on RAWK he is too). Harris sued the last investor in Liverpool he worked for.
Huang - all kinds of interesting things coming out of Huang's US partner Ganis' mouth to the Telegraph. Looking more and more likely that either Huang/Ganis were taking a chance or that they never had any backers to start with. It's 'odd' to say the least.
- Status