West Brom: New Shilen Patel confirmation appears to emerge online amid takeover development
What appears to be confirmation of Shilen Patel’s presence as a key figure in the West Brom takeover process has emerged online.
An account on X by the same name as the man reported to be Guochuan Lai’s preferred bidder, and set for a period of exclusivity to complete a buy-out of the Chinese businessman, shows some apparent key clues.
The Tampa, Florida-based account looks to be that of the US millionaire and chief executive of HealthAxis Group, a software company based in the same city, is already being followed by the likes of Adrian Goldberg, Express & Star’s Lewis Cox, The Athletic’s Matt Slater, and Birmingham Live’s Joe Chapman.
Similarly, despite seemingly being an infrequent user of the platform the account which appears to belong to Patel is following the Baggies’ official club accounts for both the men’s and women’s teams, as well as coach Carlos Corberan, while Cox is also followed back.
With Slater having named the three remaining bids in the process in his story for The Athletic on 12 January this looks to be the first confirmation that Patel, son of Dr Kiran Patel, whose net worth is an estimated $400 million [£314m], is indeed looking to buy the club.
A deal worth a total of around £60m, with a price for West Brom itself of £30m-£35m and the rest required to pay off loans, is expected to be on the horizon although there is, as yet, no indication of when exactly a deal would be completed.
The prospective buyer has to still close a deal with Lai for his majority shareholding and then pass the EFL’s fit and proper persons test before the takeover is ratified, which seems very unlikely to be completed before the end of January.
Patel was reported by Slater to have the backing of MSD Holdings, the American firm which has leant £27m to the club since December 2022, which may be what has given him the edge.
In The Athletic it was reported that the group fronted by Chris Farnell, Mohamed Elkashashy and Alex Hearn were the likely front-runners and included an “interesting” mystery name, ahead of Patel’s group and a bid led by Armenian entrepreneur Roman Gevorkyan.
However, within hours on Friday (12 January) of the names emerging it was reported by John Percy in The Telegraph that Patel was in fact at the front of the queue and set to be granted exclusivity this month, and his intention looks to have been confirmed as such online.
In other West Brom news, a deal for the first signing of the January transfer window is now set to go ahead, with money coming in along with it.