On Friday afternoon Birmingham Sports Holdings confirmed to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange the news that I had feared on Wednesday; that the Circular for shareholders relating to the takeover of Blues was to be delayed. The announcement confirmed that the Circular will now be despatched on or before June 30, 2023.
Both Birmingham City and Hong Kong parent company Birmingham Sports Holdings released statements on Wednesday confirming the end to negotiations with Maxco Capital Ltd. Both of the statements made took a somewhat “bitter ex” theme, with the wording suggesting it was incumbent owners who terminated talks rather than Maxco.
It’s been three days since Paul Richardson and Maxi Lopez turned up at St Andrew’s to tell the world that they’d exchanged contracts and were to become the next owners of Birmingham City. While there has been fairly extensive reporting of their meetings with club officials, the silence from Hong Kong has continued.
It might be relegation worries for Birmingham City at St Andrew’s, but in the Hong Kong it’s very much business as usual for Birmingham Sports Holdings. The HKSE listed company announced to shareholders that it was revising its profit warning upwards to around £7m for the six months to December 31, 2020 – and this came on the back of a share price rise which now values the company at close to £320M.
Last week I wrote an article to demonstrate the convoluted nature of the ownership of Birmingham City Football Club, and also to show that what happens on the pitch doesn’t necessarily affect the amount of money the owners make off of it. In this follow-up piece I want to explain to people more about the Hong Kong stock listing and how Birmingham Sports Holdings is valued so highly.
The sale of 21.64% of Birmingham City plc was approved by shareholders at an Extraordinary General Meeting of Birmingham Sports Holdings yesterday morning in Hong Kong.
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 broke the news on Friday afternoon that they are proposing to sell a 25% stake in BCFC to Oriental Rainbow Investment Ltd, a British Virgin Islands investment vehicle owned by current BSH shareholder Vong Pech. The deal will see Vong Pech become the largest shareholder in the club among other changes.
While most fans were celebrating the arrival of Aitor Karanka as Blues’ new Head Coach on Friday, Birmingham Sports Holdings also made an announcement to the stock exchange which can be seen as positive news. The holding company voluntarily confirmed to the stock exchange that it intends to acquire a medical service business in Japan to continue to strengthen the Group’s profitability.
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.
