West Brom takeover news: Interested party wants structured deal with Guochuan Lai
Guochuan Lai is discussing the sale of West Brom to a party that wants to agree a “structured” deal for the club, according to Chris Lepkowski.
Speaking on The Liquidator podcast with BBC WM’s Adrian Goldberg, Lepkowski added further detail to a story published by the Sunday People on April 4.
Neil Moxley reported that Chinese businessman Lai had entered an exclusivity agreement with an interested buyer who’d been in talks to take over the Albion for months.
Ex-Birmingham Mail journalist Lepkowski has now added that Lai is locked in negotiations with a party who isn’t willing to pay a bulk fee upfront for the Baggies.
“From what I understand is that this particular group have been given exclusivity to discuss a potential sale with the current owners. That’s in the public domain in Neil Moxley’s piece,” said Lepkowski on the latest episode of The Liquidator podcast [Spotify].
“My understanding is that it’s a structured payment they want to make which the previous groups that I’ve mentioned in the past, who are US-backed, both held similar ideas about wanting to pay a certain amount upfront and then a certain amount based on either A, survival or B, promotion back to the Premier League and then sustainability beyond that.
“You can understand why a buyer or a person with money would wish to do that. Why would you want to pay £100million or whatever for a club that could be relegated or possibly will be relegated? Whereby if you can incentivise it and say pay £70million now and then £100million and whatever, it makes more sense for a buyer to do that.
“But, of course, the owners of West Brom bought the club for in excess of £200million – they’re going to want a huge amount of that back.
“The big fear I’ve got in all of this is that you’re kind of left in a scenario where the people I knew who were previously interested – back in November – they had, in my view, Albion’s best interests at heart. I’m not sure about the money or the financial clout but they certainly were Albion people who could’ve brought something in terms of wanting to protect the club’s whole landscape.
“The more and the longer this goes on, the more I fear about the type of people we might be talking to.”
Better the devil you know?
It’s fairly obvious the majority of West Brom fans will be glad to see the back of Lai when he sells up but Lepkowski makes a very interesting – yet worrying – point.
As reported by the Daily Mail in January, Lai is “desperate” to sell the club and that could mean he really won’t care who he agrees a deal with as long as he makes as much of his £200million back as possible.
While the previous group of “Albion people” sounded as though they could have been good, trustworthy owners, it doesn’t sound as though they had the financial might to match Lai’s asking price nor does it sound as though they could invest enough into the squad to re-establish the Baggies back in the Premier League.
We’d love to see owners who really hold West Brom close to their heart but if they don’t have the money, there could be problems that arise from that.
There needs to be a good balance between passion and business sense.
Lai, weirdly, doesn’t seem to have anything. He’s a ghost as far as West Brom fans are concerned.
While we could definitely do a lot better without Lai, we could also do a lot worse.
In other West Brom news, Robbie Savage has made a big claim about Albion’s survival chances after their shock 5-2 win over Chelsea.
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