Southampton Football Club’s new owner funded his 200 million-pound takeover of the EPL team with a loan from a Chinese gov’t-backed bank in Hong Kong. A Chinese investor group led by Lander Sports Dev’t Co. Chairman Gao Jisheng settled the bulk of the acquisition cost with a loan from Nanyang Commercial Bank. The consortium purchased an 80 percent stake in Southampton in a deal completed this week, people familiar with the case said, asking not to be identified because the information is private.
The borrowing is backed by Gao’s assets outside of China, including those in Macau. Nanyang Commercial Bank was bought last year by China Cinda Asset Management Co., a financial group whose biggest shareholder is the Chinese central government.
By obtaining offshore financing in Hong Kong, Gao skirted a Chinese regulatory clampdown on companies buying trophy assets overseas like sports teams, film studios and luxury hotels, Bloomberg reported.
