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I’ve tracked down now that the takeover lead, Stanley Choi, is in fact the same person as the poker player:
It all starts to fit into place if you (no pun intended) lay the cards out side by side. The only question is whether it will be good or bad for Latics.
Dr Choi (as we’ll call him in his business life) is a very successful financial manager. His business dealings are concealed beneath a very tangled web of inter-relationships. Nothing sinister in that, it’s quite normal. But he seems to have no interest whatsoever in football.
Stanley Choi is a successful poker player, but if you have lots to start with then you can hold your nerve longer and watch those around you fold.
IED have as their main business a hotel in the Philippines. I suspect (and this is only my view) that Dr/Stanley Choi having enjoyed playing poker, now wants his own casino, and maybe casino empire. Stepping on from that I would guess at him then looking to build a worldwide gambling empire – his business acumen and his fondness for gambling would mean this is a perfect venture for him.
There is a big betting market in the UK, Paddy Power, Bet 365 etc, and one way into that market is through football. Owning a potentially succesful (in relative terms) football team, complete with shirt advertising, stadium naming rights etc etc, and TV advertising could (a) raise the profile in the UK, and (b) provide leverage back home with games televised and spot betting pushed.
The good thing for us may be that investment from someone very rich could drive us forward.
The bad thing maybe that it doesn’t work as he planned, and loses interest, or tries a different business model. After all as I said he seems not to have football in his heart.We’ll have to wait and see.
I think this is what he looks like, but he is quite elusive and this could be someone completely different
https://www.cardplayer.com/poker-players/243573-stanley-choi/results/overall
Ah – hang on.
This is interesting.
It looks like his public assets are $328 BILLION.
He’ll do for me.http://www.4-traders.com/business-leaders/Chiu-Fai-Choi-076WBT-E/biography/
EDIT
I’m going to edit this as that amount is impossible – the top people in Forbes list are only worth $40 billion, so I’m not sure how this site measures that amount. He is undoubtedly very rich though :)
It may well be that his wealth is in HKD not USD, which would put him around £30 bn.http://www.ientcorp.com/attachment/pdf/1513670174J7gmg.pdfA pretty wealthy guy/company it seems.
My big concern is what they will do once they have spent a few quid and we haven’t made it back to the Prem.
I’ve been looking at this, and Googling like mad, and it all becomes muddied. Not bad, not good – I just can’t tell. Which of course is the objective.
The finances of IED are actually, I think, irrelevant. That’s the holding company in the name of which the deals will be done.
The core sentence in the link Egg provides is: “In the opinion of the Directors, the holding company of the Company is Brighten Path Limited, which is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands, and the ultimate holding company of the Company is Head and Shoulders Direct Investment Limited.”
Both of these companies “appear” to be in the hands of one man: Chiu Fai Choi.
His business profile is here (also click on the “Read Full Background” button):-
https://www.bloomberg.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=29928586&privcapId=274860571The Cheng family have been mentioned as the people taking over, but they sold IED to Dr Choi in 2017 and no members of the Cheng family are on the board.
However, if you look at Dr Choi’s profile you will see that he is actually described as “He has 23 years of experience in securities, futures, financial derivative products and merger and acquisition projects”.
The only thing that is certain to my belief (which means it’s not at all certain :) ) is that somewhere there is an individual who wants to own a football club – Dr Choi? One of the Cheng family? Who knows.
I certainly wouldn’t get hung up about who IED are, or where they are based, or whatever. They are a front name for whoever wants to buy in.
Well, that’s my reading of it, but I could be very wrong. I often am (but don’t tell anyone that!)
I am no expert but I would think it’ll be fine.
One ticket per seat. They don’t double book. That’ll have been an empty unclaimed seat.
That’s my understanding.Two things strike me:
1. That even League 2 players aren’t badly paid, and
2. “Signed age 6” is just obscene. That’s the age of my grandson and he enjoys just playing football. 6 years old is just far too young to be contractually tied to a professional club.What is really interesting is that the deal, if made, will be for both Wigan Athletic AFC and for Wigan Football Club. The latter owns the stadium.
Now, I am quite sure that the HK group have not the slightest clue what rugby league is. They see acquisition of the ground as part and parcel of owning the football club, and maybe a foot in the door of their stock-in-trade, hospitality, dining, maybe expansion into hotel (small one on the site of Sharpy’s chippy?)
What they will not want is a pitch messing up chances of achieving Premier League status by being churned up by something they don’t understand.
Whelan is a Wiganer and so to his credit wanted success for both the town’s teams. The Cheng family will have no qualms about giving them the boot.And, Dave. They are amongst the richest business people in Asia, and that really is saying something. Their business web is highly complex and their will be some parts when looked at in isolation will appear odd to us mere mortals. But the prospect that they are buying into, the prospect of having bought relatively cheaply a club that could get to the PL (as opposed for example to Shrewsbury who with all respect to them are unlikely to do that – we have!) is one worth investing in. There isn’t much to asset strip at Wigan, so I’d go with the idea that this will be good for us.
And if not, it all adds to the rollercoaster that supporting Latics brings.
Seems real enough.
Is mentioned in Asian financial sites.[hide][/hide]
Just to clarify then.
Our season tickets are in the south. I got 10 unassigned seats in WS4 using my client code, using online ticketing.I would imagine tomorrow you’ll be able to buy as many as you want online on one client code.
That has been the case since they went on sale. The point that’s being made is that people couldn’t buy the seats normally occupied by ST holders even for those who normally sit there.
As an example: in my network I also have my son and my grandson who have their seats next to me.
I could not just log in to my account, and as well as buying my seat buy their’s.
If I’d wanted unassigned seats I could do it (as you did). But we wanted our normal seats and there is no way I could do that in one transaction (and one £2 fee).
The club do need to look at this as it never used to be a problem.
Is there a new computer system in place? @Jason?Aye, so that’s 8,000 seats that will be showing up as taken whether they’re sold or not.Not necessarily. Surely only seats actually sold will show as sold – unavailable because they are being held for ST holders to claim is a different matter.
No. You can’t alter pitch dimensions through the season without permission.
Rule 13.2
https://www.efl.com/-more/governance/efl-rules–regulations/section-4—clubs/And we were just saying yesterday that the pitch was cutting up a bit, and might inhibit City a bit.
If it was purely about the balance sheet then selling Powell would have done wonders as cash in the hand is worth far more than an ethereal valuation.
