BIH: A Rose By Another Name

The shareholder approval was confirmed in this statement to the stock exchange.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;

From Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

I think many Blues fans would agree with Juliet. A holding company by another other name as BIH would surely still be as silent and distant from fans, wouldn’t they?

What’s the big deal?

Okay, so I might be talking out my rear end here – but I think there is something in renaming the company Birmingham Sport Holdings. TTA can’t sell BIH or BCFC for two years, so it makes sense to get the company into a better shape for when they can.

Football is evolving, and I think people are beginning to realise that trying to make money purely from league position (ie winning things) is harder than it looks.

Our previous owners (not Carson, the ones before) have definitely shown it can be done, flogging the Boleyn Ground and then getting a free stadium at a ridiculously low rent.

True, they have their own problems due to them not quite understanding how much effort you need to make to keep fans onside when moving – and their league position is looking perilous to boot – but financially, I’m sure Messrs Sullivan, Gold and Gold will not be poorer for owning West Ham.

There’s definitely been a step up in the marketing at Blues too – as I alluded to in a previous blog. If you read the social media you’ll see lots more promotional messages – along with a lot more positive puff pieces trying to keep our morale up.

I mean, we got two wins in 21 games but hey, we won a trio of corners on Tuesday night…

In fairness, Blues form isn’t the only thing to take a nose dive in recent weeks.

If you take a look at the stock prices for BIH, then you can see share prices have halved in recent times.

It’s shaved the stock market capitalisation down to about £139million – still way, way, way more than the club is ever worth – but for Paul Suen, it’s a pretty heavy paper loss.

The weird thing is that I would have thought that this, more than anything else would have been the nail in Zola’s coffin.

If investors were bailing at the thought of Blues facing Walsall next season in League One then I would have thought Suen would have pulled the trigger – as it stands, that doesn’t look likely – and for me only goes to confirm Zola is here to stay for now at least.

Then again, I’ve learned by now never to rule anything in or out in football.

Actually, no, one thing is for sure. If losing £180million or so in stock value hasn’t budged Zola, then I don’t think a “boycott” of fans will either…