Post by a more piratey game on Jun 13, 2019 17:46:47 GMT
Blackpool have been sold by their receivers to Simon Sadler, a financier based in Hong Kong, a deal which brings to a conclusion years under the toxic ownership of Owen Oyston.
In a statement, the League One club said that Sadler had bought 96.2% of the club shares, the Bloomfield Road stadium, which was in a separate company, the club’s training ground and the hotel at the ground.
Sadler, described as a successful hedge fund manager in Hong Kong, was born and grew up in Blackpool, and is a lifelong supporter of the club, the statement said. He is the chief investment officer of a finance business he founded in 2007, Segantii Capital Management, which describes itself as “an institutional asset management firm” which “predominantly focuses on investing in Asian securities”.
The price paid by Sadler is thought to have been around £10m, which will go to the receivers, Paul Cooper and David Rubin. They were appointed by the high court in February to take over all Oyston’s assets including the football club, and recoup £22m still owing to the Latvian banker Valeri Belokon, who won a £31m judgment against Oyston in November 2017.
That judgment found that Oyston had “illegitimately stripped” the club of £26.77m after the club’s promotion in 2010 for a single season in the Premier League, including £11m paid to one of Oyston’s companies which had been described as a director’s salary.
Blackpool supporters had mounted a well-observed boycott of home matches for years in protest at Oyston’s ownership, as by 2016, following the failure to invest the Premier League bonanza in strengthening the squad, the club were relegated all the way to League Two. The high court judgment ordered Oyston to pay the same amount as he stripped, £26.77m, to Belokon, and to buy out Belokon’s original £4.5m investment in the club, making the £31m total.
Oyston paid Belokon an initial £10m, but still owed, with interest, £22m, when Belokon applied for receivers to be appointed to sell the assets and recover the money for him. Belokon could not take over the club because he was barred under the EFL’s owners and directors “fit and proper person” test, due to a conviction in Kyrgyzstan in 2017 for multimillion-dollar money laundering.
In February 2017 Belokon lost in a hearing at the Paris court of appeal, which found that he had taken over the Manas bank in Kyrgyzstan “in order to develop … money-laundering practices”. Belokon denounced the Kyrgyz conviction as “politically motivated”, claiming it “ignored the most basic principles of natural justice”.
In the statement, Sadler said it was a “great honour and privilege” to take over the club and he intended to provide “financial stability and investment over time”. A long-term friend and fellow supporter, Brett Gerrity, a local solicitor, is joining the board. Tim Fielding, honorary vice-president of the Blackpool supporters’ trust, who was one of the leading campaigners against the Oyston regime and was sued by Owen Oyston for comments he made, has been given a formal role as adviser to the board.
www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/13/blackpool-sold-hong-kong-financier-simon-sadler-10m
In a statement, the League One club said that Sadler had bought 96.2% of the club shares, the Bloomfield Road stadium, which was in a separate company, the club’s training ground and the hotel at the ground.
Sadler, described as a successful hedge fund manager in Hong Kong, was born and grew up in Blackpool, and is a lifelong supporter of the club, the statement said. He is the chief investment officer of a finance business he founded in 2007, Segantii Capital Management, which describes itself as “an institutional asset management firm” which “predominantly focuses on investing in Asian securities”.
The price paid by Sadler is thought to have been around £10m, which will go to the receivers, Paul Cooper and David Rubin. They were appointed by the high court in February to take over all Oyston’s assets including the football club, and recoup £22m still owing to the Latvian banker Valeri Belokon, who won a £31m judgment against Oyston in November 2017.
That judgment found that Oyston had “illegitimately stripped” the club of £26.77m after the club’s promotion in 2010 for a single season in the Premier League, including £11m paid to one of Oyston’s companies which had been described as a director’s salary.
Blackpool supporters had mounted a well-observed boycott of home matches for years in protest at Oyston’s ownership, as by 2016, following the failure to invest the Premier League bonanza in strengthening the squad, the club were relegated all the way to League Two. The high court judgment ordered Oyston to pay the same amount as he stripped, £26.77m, to Belokon, and to buy out Belokon’s original £4.5m investment in the club, making the £31m total.
Oyston paid Belokon an initial £10m, but still owed, with interest, £22m, when Belokon applied for receivers to be appointed to sell the assets and recover the money for him. Belokon could not take over the club because he was barred under the EFL’s owners and directors “fit and proper person” test, due to a conviction in Kyrgyzstan in 2017 for multimillion-dollar money laundering.
In February 2017 Belokon lost in a hearing at the Paris court of appeal, which found that he had taken over the Manas bank in Kyrgyzstan “in order to develop … money-laundering practices”. Belokon denounced the Kyrgyz conviction as “politically motivated”, claiming it “ignored the most basic principles of natural justice”.
In the statement, Sadler said it was a “great honour and privilege” to take over the club and he intended to provide “financial stability and investment over time”. A long-term friend and fellow supporter, Brett Gerrity, a local solicitor, is joining the board. Tim Fielding, honorary vice-president of the Blackpool supporters’ trust, who was one of the leading campaigners against the Oyston regime and was sued by Owen Oyston for comments he made, has been given a formal role as adviser to the board.
www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jun/13/blackpool-sold-hong-kong-financier-simon-sadler-10m
