Calling NBA and MLB

What do you know about Kenny, Cleveland Cavaliers or the New York Yankees?

 

He has hired a UK based PR company to flood the UK sports news sections on his bid to buy Liverpool FC which he wishes to have completed within the next two weeks.

 

Liverpool have countered this news by saying they have received up to 6 bids this last week but Huang's bucks are what is making the news.

 

So what has he done for these clubs? How are they doing in their respective leagues?

 

The current owners of Liverpool (Tom Hicks and George Gillett) have really fucked over the club and I can see them messing up any deal if they do not get some sort of profit out of their sale.

What do you know about Kenny, Cleveland Cavaliers or the New York Yankees?

 

He has hired a UK based PR company to flood the UK sports news sections on his bid to buy Liverpool FC which he wishes to have completed within the next two weeks.

 

Liverpool have countered this news by saying they have received up to 6 bids this last week but Huang's bucks are what is making the news.

 

So what has he done for these clubs? How are they doing in their respective leagues?

 

The current owners of Liverpool (Tom Hicks and George Gillett) have really fucked over the club and I can see them messing up any deal if they do not get some sort of profit out of their sale.

Here's a decent article on him with I believe some of the answers to your questions. From your side of the pond, don't know if you've seen this article yet. Sounds like the guy to make things happen in a good way. More money and exposure for the team helps them attract bigger stars again, like the past years...

 

**Google is your Friend*

 

http://live4liverpool.com/2010/08/view-fro...ntial-new-owner

 

'Kenneth Huang, or Huang Jianhua to go by his Chinese name, has been linked with a consortium who are apparently attempting to buy Liverpool Football Club, but who exactly is he? Huang had the unique honour of becoming China’s first graduate to work in the New York Stock Exchange in the 1980s, and has developed an interest in Western culture during his time in the United States. After graduating in 1984 with a BA degree from Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, his hometown, he moved to study in the US at Columbia University before moving to New York to complete his Masters degree at St Johns. It was when he was at New York University though, while completing some MBA financial management courses, that he began to work at the Stock Exchange.

 

From here on, Huang became an exceptionally accomplished business executive, building relationships in his native China and using his connections to great effect. He set up many international investments and financing projects between Chinese and American companies, partnering with many of China’s large state-owned enterprises in the deals, and making large profits by benefiting from the economic boom in China. One of his crucial partners in America was with one Les Alexander, and this is where Huang’s connections in sport become very interesting. Alexander is the owner of the NBA’s Houston Rockets and back in 2002, Huang worked with Alexander to bring Chinese Basketball superstar Yao Ming to the NBA to play for Alexander’s team.

 

Huang’s involvement in US Sport doesn’t end there though. He seems to have enthusiasm for many American sports including basketball and baseball. He uses his company SportsPro Media China to link Chinese sponsors and US Sports giants, including baseball team New York Yankees where he owns a percentage of the franchise with American businessman Marc Ganis. He has also brought much needed multi-year sponsorship deals for basketball teams Houston Rockets and Cleveland Cavaliers in recent years, as well helping to boost the NBA’s profile in China through pre-season tours. Early this year, Huang bought a 15% stake in the Cleveland Cavaliers leading to speculation in the US that Yao Ming would move from the Houston Rockets to join NBA all-star Lebron James at Cleveland. James has subsequently left to join the Miami Heat.

 

As well as being involved with sport in America, Huang has started to promote basketball in his native China, buying Jilin Northeast Tigers and purchasing a Basketball league in his home country (the National Basketball League) to rival the present Chinese Basketball Association. On top of this, he announced last year a youth Baseball league in the country, showing that his enthusiasm for sport is wide ranging. Huang it seems is determined to make both sports as popular as possible in China.

Huang continues to excel in business too and recently set up a new business venture called Rocket Capital with Les Alexander and San Antonio Spurs former owner Billy Joe “Red” McCombs. Together (with Alexander & McCombs billions and Huang’s connections with China’s state industries) they have begun to collect an assortment of companies, investing in one of China’s largest automakers Brilliance Auto, as well as in the China Railway Group, China Sinoma International Engineering, Uni President Enterprises Corp, Xinjiang XinXin Mining Industry, and Anta Sports Products, the last of which now sponsor’s Alexander’s Houston Rockets. Rocket Capital also has invested large amounts into Hong Kong’s private equity market, to the amount of $200 million in 2007 alone.

 

The two things you need to know about Huang then, are that although he is wealthy, it is his backers that will possess the majority of the investment. The second fact is that not only will he bring wealthy backers, his connections with China’s state owned companies mean exceptionally lucrative sponsorship deals from the Far East. If Huang’s consortium does takeover, expect many pre-season tours of China, but also keep in mind that Liverpool maybe the first football club to crack the highly lucrative market in China. Huang already has a track record of doing this, tying Anta to Houston Rockets and more recently Tsing Tsao to the Cleveland Cavaliers. His passion for sport is undoubted with his deal-brokering in both Basketball and Baseball, and he now looks like turning his attention to football and Liverpool FC.'

I had already read that article but it is written with Liverpool fan's perspective so hardly a balanced opinion.

I want to know what is the perception of his teams within their respective leagues? Has he developed/built stadiums which is on his "manifesto" for Liverpool.

Has he developed the squads for his teams?

I love the "Business of Sports" so I'll get into more detail for you. Hope it helps answer your questions. Heh, and I thought you knew it all.

 

Looks like he doesn't develop squads, he is more like the braintrust that develops a teams global exposure to places that they hadn't really had a presence before. Which can be almost as valuable. Unknown players (young prospects with massive potential that are coming up) that are damn good, begin to seriously consider coming to play there. More revenue from merchandise sales and TV contracts in places not seen before; bigger funding deals etc etc.

 

These are all things a teams really NEEDS to be able to build a strong team with huge salaries. Since soccer doesn't yet have a salary cap and the teams with the most cash in hand always get the best players (Man U, Real Madrid, Chelsea, Barca etc.). If you have a boatload of money it's pretty much an easy call who the best guys are. I don't see it as much of a challenge to build a team if you have the bankroll to compete with Real and others for; Christiano Ronaldo, Rooney, Messi and such. No-brainer if you ask me.

 

As far as the Yankees......Well, the highest team payroll in the league BY FAR. The next team is over $50 Million dollars per year behind them. They have a stacked team of perennial all-stars, most (6-7 guys) that WILL be guaranteed Hall of Famers, no joke. On paper this team is a beast, and has been for years. Cleveland Cavs, had the money to keep LeBron James and build around him a championship team (until James decided to go play with his buddys in Miami and take less money, purely an emotion non-business decision). They had gone deep in the play-offs this year and was one series from the championship last year. Mind you, 3 years ago, they we're a bottom-feeder one of the worst programs in the league... Don't know how much Mr. Huang had to do with either team but he seems to be around success everywhere he's gone, (he's a self-made Billionaire for goodness sakes)..

 

His M.O. is to develop the operations (i.e. cashflow outside of ticketsales for the organization); so they can go get who they want. Another enticing thing for World Class players is top notch facilities, no? Milan with their new stadium, ManU with the "New" Tafford (of course both a few years back) but you see my point. I think he's as good a guy as any to make it happen...

 

IMO Your squad will be in good hands.

The majority of which you have written is stuff I already know about, so in other words don’t call me Mr know-it-all just call me the M*therf*cking Oracle

 

Thanks for some of your input though.

 

However if you are interested in the business of sport this fiasco at Liverpool will rock your little world.

 

I find sports business to be vastly inflated numbers dreamt up by uninformed sports gossip journos so take every figure read with a whopping dose of huge grain sea salt so it is really bad for my heart!

 

George Gillet and Tom Hicks collaborated together to create Kop Holdings (Kop being the famous home stand at Anfield) and in their short period have amassed debt onto the club to not only cover their purchase loan but also the new stadium.

The interest on that loan is £46m or roughly $74m a year.  So as a fan, we are quite aggrieved that the money is being spent on them earning a few quid and a whopping huge lump being missing from the transfer kitty every year in a sport where transfer buying power is now perceived as being quite critical.

Last transfer window the manager was giving around 12-18m pounds to develop.

 

Out of this loan money they have created a plan for a stadium and spent money on planning permission etc but the proposed site remains empty.

 

The debt is owned by RBS and the theory is that they can call it in anytime they like – refinancing is due in September.  To put it in a really simple context the club’s it is believed that shares/ownership were put up as the security of the loan.  So if RBS called in the £237m loan they would own the club.

 

Kop Holdings have bought in a guy to sort the sale of the club along with Barclays bank.

Both of them are looking for a buyer which is going to “be the best for the club’s sustainably”.

 

“Kenny’s” proposal according to some reports (ie his media PR Company) is to contact RBS and buy the debt and call in the loan, much cheaper at half the price Hicks wants -ballpark £650-700 million.

 

But as yet RBS have not been contacted by Kenny’s Holding company but Kenny wants the deal wrapped up in less than two weeks so that he can provide funds to the new manager before this summer’s transfer deadline closes.  He (correctly) states that if they cannot develop the squad then they cannot qualify for Champions league football (again) and the value of the club goes down.  However the club’s deadline for buying bids is two weeks after his deadline – something has got to give.

 

However Hicks being a bullish thick head will probably not want to give as he wants to walk away from Liverpool with a profit.  However his definition of a profit is a lot different to the definition you or I would agree on.

 

His idea is that he has the value of the club plus the cost of the loan plus the profit.

 

Buying the club at £218.9m (of which at the time only £44.8m was debt) then pilling on acres of debt and failing to qualify for the champions league with no new stadium does not increase the value of a club – it decreases it.  Plus then factor in the currency conversion rate; at the time when DIC* put in a £500m bid and was turned down the rate of GBP to USD was 2 to 1 now it is less favourable so they stand to make less money.

 

Many companies and nationalities have been courted by Laurel and Hardy but Hicks and his son have proven they have a massive ineptitude of handling things with tact and skill whilst Gillett has proven he is a dab hand at the poison knife in back of the manager.

 

Hick’s son emailed fans this spring insulting them therefore when this came to light he was forced to step down from Kop Holdings.

 

One of the other six bids put in is reportable by a Syrian based enterprise who is friends with Hick’s son so the septic in me thinks they are being played as puppet to boost Huang’s bid.  I think Huang then has countered this with hiring the PR company…

 

Sigh… this goes on and on and what with the team coming 7th last year and not qualifying for the Champions League it is a massive ball ache and can understand why some players want out.

 

“The yanks”** want more than double what they took out a loan for to buy the club but the club is in a worse place than what they purchased it for.

 

Anyway one of the points I want to address in your post is money does not equal great squad.  Look at Real Madrid and Manchester City.  City have mega bucks, potentially the richest club but because they have little heritage they are struggling to woo the Kakas and Messi’s away from their clubs.  Real Madrid actually did dismally when you compare to

the fees they spent on players.  Now Mourinho is manager then that WILL change.

Something has got to happen and whilst huang’s bid is the most favourable on paper I see it will be the one that does not go through because of time scales.

 

•    *look them up for mega $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

•    ** What the fans refer to them

Shit what a mess. Had no idea that was going on. And I was wondering recently (probably the last few months or so) what happened to Liverpool as a contender in the Premiership. And yeah Real is an ongoing joke for me. They stack the team every year and never win anything. Ah well, I don't know what else you'd want to know.. Sorry, I tried.

 

Shit what a mess. Had no idea that was going on. And I was wondering recently (probably the last few months or so) what happened to Liverpool as a contender in the Premiership. And yeah Real is an ongoing joke for me. They stack the team every year and never win anything. Ah well, I don't know what else you'd want to know.. Sorry, I tried.

 

 

Sorry, just had to edit my post because when I pasted it from word (long story) it formatted all wrong.

 

Anyway the galling part is that I know I have missed some sections from the whole saga but I am just stunned how someone as ignorantly brash as Hicks can get so much money to be in a position to buy a club like Liverpool.

 

There has been no more new news in the press today which means the sides are talking - a good thing.

 

So has anyone else got input and opinion into Huang's club's?

Gah, Huan is backing away

 

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_6294607,00.html

 

 

Hah!!! Makes more sense to invest in an undervalued recessionary asset rather than purchase the whole thing outright and try to build it yourself. It can only go up, sit on the investment with no involvement and let someone else have the headache. Like BP....would you like to buy that company outright if you had the "goods" right now, or is investing in the stock smarter? I think we all know the answer to that one.

 

Funny, Liverpool might have been better off if he had bought them.

Aaaargghhh so many rumours about it is killing someone as impatient as me.

Rumours are he has bid and that 2/5 people on the board think it is the option to go for. The syrians are rumoured to be the most profitable and that part of the deal was done by Gillett and that has peed off the board that like huang's bid.

 

But Huang's bid has been hampered by misinformation and rumours that he is backed by the CIC aka the Chinese state government. But then CIC have said they do not know who Huang is?! Something not right there but that is what the finanacial times is saying.

But CIC have rumoured to have sold stock to the value of Huang's bid (Morgan Stanley shares).

 

If I had hair to spare I would be pulling it out.

Knew it.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ool/8933128.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/t...ool/9097945.stm