With the football season pretty much over, I wanted to turn my attention back to the ownership of Birmingham City. Although the departure of Ren Xuandong from his roles as CEO and Director of the club has been welcomed almost universally by Blues fans, I think there are still some reservations over how the ownership of the club will run the club going forward.
Birmingham Sports Holdings announced to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Wednesday afternoon that it had agreed to sell off its remaining 75% stake in Birmingham City Stadium Ltd. The sale passes St Andrew’s Stadium into the hands of a British Virgin Islands investment vehicle – and further muddies the water of how the club is run.
Birmingham Sports Holdings confirmed in an announcement on Monday to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the date of an Extraordinary General Meeting to approve the partial sale of BCFC to Oriental Rainbows Ltd. The sale would see Chinese-Cambodian businessman Vong Pech become the largest shareholder in the club.
Birmingham Sports Holdings released their accounts for the year ending June 30, 2020 on Wednesday afternoon. The results confirmed that once again the company had made a loss – although not as great as in previous years. However, coronavirus has clearly had an impact with massively increased borrowing.
Lockdown has entered its seventh week in the UK and the football authorities are still no nearer in working out how to complete the 2019/2020 season. As a consequence, football clubs are facing harder and harder decisions regarding how to sort out their finances, with some having to resort to using the government’s furlough scheme.
Birmingham Sports Holdings announced to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange their interim accounts for the six-month period ending December 31, 2019 on Friday. While these accounts are unaudited and are for the entire parent company rather than the club they do give us something of an insight into how things are going with the club this season.
Birmingham Sports Holdings today held their Annual General Meeting in Hong Kong to approve their accounts and re-elect directors to the board.
As we heard into December, It won’t be long before the accounts for Birmingham City FC will be published at Companies House. These accounts will give a full insight into the financial situation of the club at the start of this season and should help us understand just how much money the club can spend this winter.
Birmingham Sports Holdings made an announcement to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong yesterday to clarify their acquisition of a Chinese lottery company. The announcement cleared up some of the confusion re prior connections between the holding company and the lottery firm, as well as offering more insight into how BSH are going to make money from the project.
The rumour season is once again in full swing on social media, with rumours not just of impending incomings and exits at Blues but talk of potential changes in ownership. None of these rumours have any basis in fact as it stands – I wrote this article to explain why Blues won’t be sold any time soon.
