Re: ASTON VILLA TAKEOVER THREAD

[NARLA24]

Well pleased with this. Secure at last.

[AstonThriller]

LOL man isn't it incredible being a Villa fan aye? From losing the final, to facing administration, to now having two owners worth over NINE BILLION dollars? lol you couldn't make it up, could you? Our owner's wealth pretty much puts us right up there with the top clubs. I'm still stunned tbh. Obviously, it remains to be seen how this turns out, but what a great day this has been. The Wolves scum are already crying at the prospect of us having richer owners than them, so now they are reduced to saying "at least we've got Mendes" . The Albion fans are pissing themselves and the Small Heath fans return to hell once again!!..this MUST be a dream surely?

Now there may be some short-term angst with Chester and Jack possibly leaving but tbh I'm not worried about that. The bigger picture is way more important. If someone would have told us before the final that we'd lose and then end up being taken over by two billionaires would we have taken? I sure would have so I'm delighted with how things have turned out.

This also shows what a massive club we are. Look what we were facing and STILL folks come forward every time. So many big clus have gone down and been left to rot, but not the Villa. I mean, we have royalty at our games ffs and Hollywood legends wishing the team well on twitter. We're massive and I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful journey back to glory.

Now excuse my whilst I open some champs

EDIT: the mirror claim our owners family is worth 36 BILLION DOLLARS HERE

[smetro]

This takeover ticks a lot of boxes:-

They have reported healthy net worth and solid companies as to where this money is coming from

One of the guys is from a sports background

It early days but this looks better than Xia already - we could never see where xia got his money from - and he had no background in sports, the shady half truths were emerging within days. Lets hope this is a fresh chapter for us.

[big ming]

Xia has tweeted that the cashflow problems were down to Chinese policy concerning cash leaving their economy. This is probably true as I understand that the Chinese owner of one of the Milan clubs had to give up ownership when he could not service a loan. Perhaps we have misread Tony's problems to some extent.

[VTID85]

This is all a lot to take in really! What a day and hopefully the start of something to really get excited about.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Well reading up on them and they certainly seem to have plenty of money to say the least, Sawiris the richest man in Egypt, majority shareholder in Adidas, family owns Orascom, Bill Gates invested $1b in one of his companies, Edens built his baseball team a new $500m stadium and paid around that amount to buy them in the first place along with another investor... Hopefully they have a good plan in place to match their wealth, should be interesting to see what they do, and what plans they have to circumnavigate FFP... Hopefully they bring in some good people to help run the football side of things as well, I'm sure we'll start seeing some appointments pretty soon, in terms of replacements for Wyness, Round and possibly Bruce too.

[AstonThriller]

Well reading up on them and they certainly seem to have plenty of money to say the least, Sawiris the richest man in Egypt, majority shareholder in Adidas, family owns Orascom, Bill Gates invested $1b in one of his companies, Edens built his baseball team a new $500m stadium and paid around that amount to buy them in the first place along with another investor... Hopefully they have a good plan in place to match their wealth, should be interesting to see what they do, and what plans they have to circumnavigate FFP... Hopefully they bring in some good people to help run the football side of things as well, I'm sure we'll start seeing some appointments pretty soon, in terms of replacements for Wyness, Round and possibly Bruce too.

Yep, the fact that one of our owners belongs to one of the richest families in the world is incredible. I'm sure we've all dreamed of this moment happening to a club like ours, but it's strange because we've been through so much hurt that it's hard to get my head around this.

Now word is Bruce is under massive pressure and may get the sack. Xia might like him but he doesn't control the club anymore, so it's entirely up to the new guys. I've sent one of Xia's guys a reminder that Nicola Cortese is still out there and he would be ideal for the CEO role. I also recommended the two director of football guys (Giles and Ankersen) at Brentford. All three of them would be excellent for this club right now imo.

Today could be one of the biggest days in this club's history!!!..I hope the new owners can live up to the hype.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Just seen that lafargeholcim who Sawiris owns just over 5% in (they're worth $70b) have built or supplied the building materials for a number of football stadiums, and other sporting areanas... If we ever redevelop Villa Park, could come in handy... Will be interesting to hear what their plans are for the club, I'm intrigued as to why they've bought us as a duo, either one could have just bought a football club of their own, yet they banded together to buy us, there has to be a bigger picture.

[deadbuzzardalive]

The Times

A few interesting details on the takeover/investment, put it in a spoiler box, because it's quite long.

Spoiler:

[achilles]

Good article that, it is good to see people involved with ACTUAL money, not just bullshitting!

The initial signs are looking very good, both seem exceedingly competent, the future does look bright.

Fair play to the doctor, who gambled and lost, in bringing these two to Villa Park.

[Saunders82]

Well that looks very promising, though once again they are talking the talk, they need to back it up, but if they do then in Villa they have a ready made platform to be a force in British football as we all know, we wait to see. UTV

[Dions_Bald_Head]

As I said, the World cup was timely for us in bringing together billionaire football fans for a great advertisement for the game.

[deadbuzzardalive]

The only slightly worrying thing about that if it's true, is that if they only decided to buy us barely a week ago, then they won't already have names in place ready to slot into positions like CEO, Manager and so on. It would also mean that they won't even have done due diligence yet, hopefully when they do they don't see anything to put them off, a complete takeover.

If they do buy out Xia completely it will be interesting to see if they both take their holding up to 50% each, or if one buys more than the other. As it stands Xia is still the major shareholder based on individuals, as he has 45% whereas Sawiris and Edens have 27.5% each, but of course as NSWE, the new guys have the majority stake.

I liked the part about spending big on the youth, would be nice if we could have our own version of Barcelona's 'La Masia'.

[achilles]

Just guessing here but I wonder if they have only bought a 55% stake until they have done due diligence as that gives them an opportunity, however unlikely, to back out of completing the deal and buying us completely? If that unlikely scenario actually happened then I would imagine administration would follow pretty soon after. It has actually happened very, very quickly so understandably I would imagine that initially they only want to dip their toes in the water to see actually how hot it is before considering immersing themselves totally.

[deadbuzzardalive]

55% is rather more than just dipping their toes in, it's a majority stake, even if they decided not to proceed with a full takeover, we wouldn't be in danger of administration, NSWE wouldn't let it happen, and have their reputation varnished, whilst they're involved the bills will get paid.

[andrew24561]

55% is rather more than just dipping their toes in, it's a majority stake, even if they decided not to proceed with a full takeover, we wouldn't be in danger of administration, NSWE wouldn't let it happen, and have their reputation varnished, whilst they're involved the bills will get paid.

Would that be Gloss or Matt or did you mean tarnished

[deadbuzzardalive]

Ha, meant tarnished, I did look at that after I wrote it, and thought it's a strange saying, now I know why... It's not a saying at all... Having a reputation 'varnished' would probably be the opposite of having it tarnished.

[deadbuzzardalive]

I do get the feeling that these guys could turn us into serious players if they want to though, should be an interesting week or so coming up.

[Gordonsleftboot]

I think the 55% allows them to do due diligence and then agree the rest of the price. So say Dr T says the club is woth £1100m, they buy 55% for controlling stake and then maybe say it is only worth £60m because of what you did, and he will have to accept that the value is right and their 55% is increased. Makes sense to me anyway!

[smetro]

I think the 55% allows them to do due diligence and then agree the rest of the price. So say Dr T says the club is woth £1100m, they buy 55% for controlling stake and then maybe say it is only worth £60m because of what you did, and he will have to accept that the value is right and their 55% is increased. Makes sense to me anyway!

Lets hope that is the case. One snippet I heard did suggest that all may not be as it seems.

The two new will provide finance to keep the club afloat - but they won't be much involved in the running the club - so why would they invest without control ? - well they own shares which have been sold with a guaranteed dividend - basically they can't loose. There is no imminent meeting with Bruce planned.

If thats true then all we have is a glorified loan.

[deadbuzzardalive]

It's not true.

[smetro]

It's not true.

Lets hope not. I hope we this week appoint a CEO then we can get some idea of where we are heading.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Well when I say it's not true, the 'glorified loan' part won't be true, these guys are genuinely involved in deals worth billions of dollars, they wouldn't need to risk their reputations by involving themselves in what would be such an high profile sham, for a profit which to them really would be small change.

Xia might be here for longer than people hope though, I wouldn't be surprise if he wants to hold on to his stake until we're promoted, so he can sell it for an higher price, and possibly leave with his reputation fixed, if that's at all possible..

Whether or not they're actually meeting with Bruce I don't know, but I do think they might stick with him, more to do with the fact that their arrival has come so close to the beginning of the season than anything else, I imagine he'll have to get off to a good start to keep his job though.

[deadbuzzardalive]

Xia has paid of the loans that were taken out against some of our assets.

Companies House

If I'm understanding 'satisfaction of charge 6' in the above link, then it looks like we took out a loan against Villa Park.

[LVBrit]

Xia has paid of the loans that were taken out against some of our assets.

Companies House

If I'm understanding 'satisfaction of charge 6' in the above link, then it looks like we took out a loan against Villa Park.

They all look as if they are old, some going back over 50 years.

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