Aston Villa fan could become new part-owner of West Brom in February as £50m update shared
Aston Villa supporter Alex Hearn could become a new part-owner of West Brom in February, according to Adrian Goldberg.
Speaking on The Liquidator podcast [10 December, 12m 45s], Goldberg outlined the Baggies’ rather bleak financial situation.
Albion are said to be in nearly £50million of debt, while a further twist could now see a Villa fan involved behind the scenes at The Hawthorns.
“I just want to flag up something that I think is a real concern,” former BBC presenter Goldberg said. “The club is by my reckoning – and I went through these figures last week and nobody contradicted me – is something like £50million in debt.
“There’s a £20m loan from MSD with interest, which will add £7m or £8m on top, we took out another £7.5m-£8m loan, taking us to £36m, add a couple of million on top of that in interest for £38m.
“Then you’ve got a further £5m loan that went out, plus interest, the debt that was taken out by Jeremy Peace through West Bromwich Albion holdings, which is now Guochuan Lai’s company, which at some point has to be repaid to the football club, so we’re getting towards £50m.
“And there was another loan, one taken out by West Brom Holdings, which has to be repaid by February 8. If it isn’t repaid by that time, one of two things might happen.
“One is that the loan is extended, and therefore the interest payable increases further, adding to the debt. Or, the company, Warmfront Holdings, will take a small share in West Brom Holdings.
“If that happens, our ownership structure, which is already very convoluted, becomes even more complicated. The company would therefore presumably become involved in negotiations over the sale of the club.
“Warmfront are run by a guy called Alex Hearn, who is known to be a Villa fan – what are his interests in connection to West Bromwich Albion? It just underlines the urgency to get this deal done ASAP because it will become either more expensive or more complicated.”
Messy situation
West Brom really are entering crunch time with regards to the takeover situation if this February deadline is anything to go by.
The further loan taken out with MSD last month will help the club with day-to-day running costs, but it all has to be paid back eventually.
It effectively means that whoever comes on board has a large debt to pay off before they can even consider strengthening the squad.
The real worry for Albion is that the months continue to pass by with uninterested majority shareholder Lai still at the helm, and the club therefore continuing to rack up debts.
Having a fan of a rival club involved in huge decisions is far from ideal, but this is very much a case of beggars can’t be choosers.
The whole situation is incredibly complicated, and may yet get even more so over the coming weeks.
All West Brom fans can do is strap themselves in and await any further developments.
In other West Brom news, Chris Lepkowski has hit out at an Albion player for his “embarrassing” actions in the loss to Sunderland.