Guochuan Lai in advanced talks to sell West Brom, USA consortium in pole position to complete deal
Guochuan Lai is in advanced talks with three consortiums over a deal to sell West Brom for £60million, according to Telegraph journalist John Percy.
Writing on The Telegraph website on Tuesday (12 December), Percy reported hat one of the groups is from the USA and one of the others is from Nigeria.
It is understood that Albion’s controlling shareholder and chairman Lai is now set to decide on his preferred bidder with the Americans in pole position as it stands.
Percy adds that Lai is “expected to grant exclusivity to the best option within the next 10 days”.
Just what Albion need
They’ll always say that it could be better to deal with the devil you know than the one you don’t but West Brom cannot afford to continue under the Chinese ownership anymore.
If a new owner comes in and writes off the club’s debt – which is reportedly around £30million – then that’s already a humungous boost.
It’ll show that the next owners will be willing to spend money when necessary because they’re essentially buying West Brom for double what the club is reportedly worth due to the level of debt that Lai has burdened us with.
It’s true, however, that we won’t know what life is going to be like under the next owners until they come in, settle down and start making some big decisions.
A lot of us were excited by Lai’s arrival because of the assumption of him being a super-rich billionaire who’d spend way more on taking the club to the next level than Jeremy Peace did.
Unfortunately, the only investment Lai made in West Brom – on a financial basis – was to buy Chinese striker Yuning Zhang, who couldn’t qualify for a UK work permit.
Lai’s since run this club into the ground and at least with new owners, there’s fresh hope for the future.
In other West Brom news, Adrian Goldberg has suggested £6million could be enough to prise away any Albion player in January.