sport news Is the Cambodian diplomat Wang Yaohui actually Birmingham City's largest ... trends now
The EFL and the Hong Kong Stock Exchange are both investigating whether Birmingham City have properly declared who owns controlling stakes in the club after claims that a Chinese businessman, Wang Yaohui, secretly owns a chunk of their stock.
Mr Wang has a chequered past, including being detained following bribery scandals involving, separately, a copper mine in Zambia and a bank in China. He was never charged, although an associate was sentenced to life in prison.
A company called Birmingham Sports Holdings Limited (BSHL), based in the Cayman Islands but listed on the HKSE, owns 75 per cent of Birmingham.
The EFL and the Hong Kong stock exchange are investigating Wang Yaohui's involvement with Birmingham City
An investigation by the broadcaster Radio Free Asia reported that since 2017 Mr Wang has bought just over 17 per cent of BHSL’s stock, or 12.8 per cent of the club, via a British Virgin Islands firm, Dragon Villa Ltd.
RFA have unearthed an affidavit from a Taiwanese-American, Jenny Shao, who has had power of attorney for Mr Wang since 2009, saying that Dragon Villa ‘is beneficially owned by Mr Wang’.
Ms Shao is also the CEO of a Singapore private airline company, Gold Star Aviation Pte Ltd, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dragon Villa.
Birmingham City refused to answer whether or not Wang owned a 40 per cent stake in the club
The RFA investigation further detailed how a close associate of Mr Wang, a Cambodian businessman called Vong Pech, bought 24.9 per cent of BHSL in November 2017, via a firm called Graticity Real Estate Development, from which Wang had recently resigned as a director.
The Mail on Sunday has asked Birmingham City’s hierarchy for a response to the suggestion Mr Wang may control as much as 40 per cent of BHSL’s stock via
