MSI/Joorabchian takeover bid

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Would you welcome a takeover by this Iranian in the news today?

Poll ended at Mon Aug 08, 2005 12:39 pm

Yes
168
58%
No
121
42%
 
Total votes: 289

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Harveys_HammersLH
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MSI/Joorabchian takeover bid

Post by Harveys_HammersLH »

I can't see this on here yet,

In The Sun today (forgot the blokes name) is set to make a offer to Brown for the club.
He comes from Iran (I think that's what it said) and he owns Corinthians in Brazil. Only 33 and is called the Iranian Roman Abromavitch.

I'll get it posted up soon if I can...


I have added a simple poll question as so many are expressing opinions today.

A/h
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Chill_The_Kill
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Re: Takeover

Post by Chill_The_Kill »

Harveys_HammersLH wrote:I can't see this on here yet,

In The Sun today (forgot the blokes name) is set to make a offer to Brown for the club.
He comes from Iran (I think that's what it said) and he owns Corinthians in Brazil. Only 33 and is called the Iranian Roman Abromavitch.

I'll get it posted up soon if I can...
What a shame
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Post by IG8Hammer »

Kia Joorbachian, Iranian oil tycoon.

Grew up in London (Went to Queen Mary's College), own's Corinthians in Brazil.
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Post by Harveys_HammersLH »

Kia Joorbachian is the blokes name, Iran Oil billionnaire and was East End educated.

Hammers can hit oil - by andrew dillon

West ham have been targeted for a takeover by the Roman Abramovich of Iran.
Oil Tycoon kia joorbachian wants to buy the premiership club from chairman Terry Brown.
joorbachian, 33, has contacted the hammers about a deal to end Brown's turbulant reign at the top.
hammers are valued at £20million and have debts close to £30m.
Joorbachain was educated in England, studying chemistry at Queen Mary College in Mile End, in London's East End, close to Upton Park.
the Iranian, who has an executive box at Arsenal, owns Brazil's second largest club Corinthians.
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Post by dornanhale »

East End educated
I'm not entirely sure what that means. Did he go to school? :lol:
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Post by Harveys_HammersLH »

Article from ITBS...
Alex Bellos
Friday December 10, 2004
The Guardian

The story sounds familiar. A mysterious foreign businessman in his 30s with no previous football experience takes control of one of the biggest clubs in the country. He immediately smashes the club transfer record and promises to make the team the best in the continent.

Yet this is not about England, Chelsea and Roman Abramovich but about Brazil, Corinthians and a British entrepreneur called Kia Joorabchian.

Last week South American football was in a state of shock with the announcement that the Argentina international Carlos Tévez was moving from Boca Juniors to Corinthians for $22m (£11.4m). Tévez, 20, was the leading scorer in this year's Olympics and is considered his country's most exciting young player.

It was by far the most a Brazilian club had ever paid for a player and it was also unprecedented that such a promising talent had moved within his own continent - let alone to a nation considered arch-rivals - rather than to Europe. The Brazilian league is broke and clubs' finances usually depend on selling players abroad.

"Brazilian football doesn't have the resources to maintain a player like Tévez," said Juca Kfouri, Brazil's top sports journalist, expressing the bewilderment and suspicion that the transfer has provoked.

The Tévez deal is, however, a remarkable coup for the London-based Joorabchian, whose firm Media Sport Investment has promised to plough another $35m (£18.2m) into the team. "Our plan is to build Corinthians into a team of galácticos ," he said. "Our goal is to do what Man United and Real Madrid have done. Everyone else who goes to Brazil goes there to trade players. They don't do anything constructive for Brazilian football." He has promised Corinthians three Brazilians of international standard and at least another foreign player for next season.

Yet in the four months since Joorabchian arrived in Brazil, his plans have met with scepticism. Questions have focused on the investors behind MSI and possible links with the Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky, who is living in exile in Britain. Joorabchian says the men are friends and have done business before but insists that Berezovsky is not behind MSI.

There has also been speculation that the man behind the plan is in fact Abramovich himself. The Spanish sports daily As claimed this weekend that the Chelsea owner has a 15% share of MSI, suggesting the Corinthians deal is part of a plan to control the Latin American market. Tantalisingly, there are reports that Abramovich's yacht, Le Grand Blue, was spotted in Buenos Aires harbour days before the Tévez deal was announced. Joorabchian categorically denies any involvement with Abramovich. "We have no link with Chelsea," he says.

The 10-year deal between MSI and Corinthians stipulates that the company will provide $35m cash, of which about $20m will pay off debts, in return for 51% of future profits while covering any losses. The transfer of Tévez is extra, considered a "present" by Joorabchian to the club.

Critics of the deal say that not enough is known about Joorabchian and MSI, a company created in August whose registered address is that of an accountancy firm in central London. Joorabchian has refused to say who the investors are, saying this is common practice for any investment fund.

With an estimated 25m fans in Brazil, Corinthians are the second most popular team in the country and the biggest team in São Paulo, which is the richest and most populous state in Brazil. The club, named after the old London amateur team, won Fifa's inaugural World Club Championship in 2000 but since then the team has slumped dramatically.

Joorabchian hopes to turn Corinthians into a global brand and also make money by exploiting the merchandising possibilities of such a well-supported team.

Born in Iran and educated in Britain, Joorabchian first appeared in the media in 1999 when he and a partner bought an 85% stake in the Moscow newspaper Kommersant using an investment fund based in the British Virgin Islands. "We sold it to a group that [Berezovsky] had an interest in," he said, adding that he has not done business with Berezovsky since.

The Kommersant deal started the speculation about Berezovsky's involvement, which appeared strengthened by comments in the Brazilian press attributed to Alberto Dualib, the Corinthians president. In transcripts of a tape recording, he said that on a recent visit to the UK with Joorabchian the two had visited Berezovsky's home near London.

Joorabchian has never been involved in football before, although he has a wide portfolio of business interests. In the register of directorships at Companies House he gives two different dates of birth - both make him 33 - and two nationalities, Canadian and British.

He said this week that he decided to move into football because he got bored with working in private equity. "We researched a little bit into Arsenal. It was far, far too expensive," he said. "I have a lot of Brazilian friends, so I looked into Brazilian football. It made sense."

Brazilian wariness about Joorabchian was high lighted by the fact that he is using Renato Duprat as his intermediary. Duprat is a controversial figure; he used to run a hospital and health insurance plan that went bust and he is now facing legal action.

One of those against the deal was Rubens Approbato Machado, a former president of the Brazilian equivalent of the Bar Council. He said that investigations of Joorabchian's business links had raised more questions than answers.

"Many doubts have been raised about the aptness of the person behind [MSI]," he said. "Many things have not been clearly explained. No one is against partnership if both sides are well defined. But this is not a partnership. It is almost an outright sale." Ronaldo Pinto, who is president of the supporters group Hawks of the Faithful, added: "We are against it because we think that only a Corintiano should be in charge of Corinthians. These people want to get in the Brazilian market. I don't know who they are or why."
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Post by Romford »

Means he's a good boxer :wink:
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Post by carnage »

Harveys_HammersLH wrote: the Iranian, who has an executive box at Arsenal .

no_no
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Post by Romford »

That brings up thoughts of that Faria Doris :lol:
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Post by HammerMan2004 »

Image

That's the fella...
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TheCockneyCowboy
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Post by TheCockneyCowboy »

dornanhale wrote: I'm not entirely sure what that means. Did he go to school? :lol:
:evil: :lol:
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Post by ragedwhufan »

TheCockneyCowboy wrote: :evil: :lol:

Means he knows how to fiddle benefits, roll a joint and say............" nice pair of lungs that doris has, and I wouldn't mind giving her one up the bullet hole"


No,,,probably upgrading from benefit fraud to vat and revenue and has Government in his pocket and up his jacks.
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Post by ragedwhufan »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A massive drama is unfolding in Brazil right now and for once it’s not involving the latest Globo soap opera. No, this time it’s domestic football that has all the action, intrigue and mystery of the infamous Brazilian soap operas.

At the end of 2004 Brazil’s second most supported football team Corinthian’s decided the time was right to allow foreign investment into the club. The club had huge debts, high player wages and a under performing team. It supporters were disillusioned, its board in disarray. Then along came an Iranian man called Kia Joorabchian. Joorabchian claimed to be the front man of a sport investment agency called MSI (Media Sports Investment Ltd) and was interested in creating a partnership with the club. The board had little or no choice but to discuss MSI’s proposal, despite the supporters’ fury.

Joorabchian persuaded the board and the fans in the same way Joan La Porta (of Barcelona fame) won over the supporters in Catalunya by banding about major players names. MSI started issuing a potential wish list Carlos Tevez, Carlos Alberto, Kleberson, Vagner Love and the list went.

Now as I’m sure most readers will realise Brazil has a history of exporting the world’s finest footballers. But importing? You must be kidding right? For Corinthian’s board members the offer was simply too good to refuse. Sure they didn’t know quite who they were dealing with but it seemed like a win, win deal to them. However the xenophobia of ex-players and supporters surfaced in a furious board meeting which ended in a full scale riot as the board approved MSI’s investment and accepted the deal.

True to his word Kia Joorabchian returned a few weeks later from Buenos Aires with the news that he had an agreed deal with Boca Juniors, Carlos Tevez would be moving to Brazil for $20 million! Suddenly the football world sat up and took notice. Tevez had long been a target of Europe’s largest clubs and had just been top scorer in the Athen’s Olympics. How on earth could MSI/Corinthians afford to purchase and sustain the likes of Carloz Tevez at Corinthians in Brazil?

The Brazilian press was sceptical about the whole MSI purchase and started asking questions of the origins of the money. Just who is financing MSI? What do they hope to gain? As most bankers will tell you owning a football team is not something you do for the profits. But Joorabichian appears to think otherwise stating “My ideal would be to create the Real Madrid or Manchester United of Brazil — an international brand”.

The Brazilians press started to dig a little deeper into MSI, Kia Joorabchian and his unknown past. Where are the head quarters of MSI ltd? Well it turns out that the official registration of MSI is at Accountancy firm in Central London (this is just about legal in the UK).

Kia Joorabchian’s background proved just as interesting. Born in Iran and educated in Britain, Joorabchian first appears in the UK’s media in 1999, when he and a partner bought an 85% stake in the Moscow newspaper ‘Kommersant’ using an investment fund based in the British Virgin Islands. He soon sold it to the Russia Oligarch (ultra rich and powerful business men) - Boris Berezovsky.

The Kommersant deal started the speculation about Berezovsky's involvement, which appeared strengthened by comments in the Brazilian press attributed to Alberto Dualib, the Corinthians president. In transcripts of a tape recording, he said that on a recent visit to the UK with Joorabchian the two had “visited Berezovsky's home near London”.

In February Joorabchian gave an interview to the London Times newspaper. He denied any links to Berezovsky or Roman Abramovich although confirming he has had business dealings with both men before. “I did business with Roman and Boris seven years ago, but have had no contact since”. “Boris is a close friend of mine, but he is not an investor and has no links to Corinthians.”

Another unusual (suspicious to the Brazilian press) fact uncovered is that in the register of directorships at Companies House (The UK’s business registration company) Joorabchian gives two different dates of birth - both make him 33 - and two different nationalities, Canadian and British.

While the media went wild with allegations, MSI kept buying players and announcing targets. So far the players signed list reads like a top European team. Javier Mascherano (joining in the summer), Carlos Tevez, Carlos Alberto, Marinho, Marcelo Mattos, Hugo, Sebastian Dominguez, Gustavo Nery and the latest to date is Roger from Benfica.
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Post by BubbleBlower »

It begs the question.

If the club where to be taken over would you prefer the buyer was a faceless billionaire with more money then sence or a consortium of life long West Ham fans who will have a lot less money but will know what is best for the club in the long run...
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Post by Larry »

it would be great if it happened and right now it is a perfect time for a take over bid but it won't happen simply because promotion has now made Browns position even stonger..
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Post by York Ham(mer) »

Do you want to be £100+ million in debt to a faceless billionaire or £24 million in debt to Barclays Bank? :?
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Post by Trap1 »

York Ham(mer) wrote:Do you want to be £100+ million in debt to a faceless billionaire or £24 million in debt to Barclays Bank? :?
I take it that you are not impressed.
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Post by York Ham(mer) »

Trap1 wrote: I take it that you are not impressed.
It's that old dilemma, isn't it? The devil you know or the devil you don't.
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Post by Phil S »

I don't want to become another Chelsea
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Post by Doubting Tomas »

BubbleBlower wrote:It begs the question.

If the club where to be taken over would you prefer the buyer was a faceless billionaire with more money then sence or a consortium of life long West Ham fans who will have a lot less money but will know what is best for the club in the long run...
That's the option for me please.
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