Who is Yang Yuezhou? Pt II

Judging by the amount of emails I get and the google searches that have led people to this site, it appears that this “who is Yang Yuezhou” is still a question on some fans’ lips. There is an absolute dearth of information about Mr Yang in the press, so I’ve spent some time trying to piece together a bit more about him and his business interests, in the hope of working out if he really is our “billionaire” white knight saviour.

When I wrote the original piece the one piece of information I picked up was that Mr Yang is a real estate developer, and I thought that if I looked into this a bit more it may be possible to judge how wealthy Mr Yang might be. To do this, we need to look at the Western Chinese town of Xining, in the province of Qinghai, which is where Mr Yang’s real estate concern is located.

This article is a few years old, but it gives an idea of what Mr Yang’s firm “Qinghai Min Hui Industrial Co Ltd” have been up to. Like a lot of Chinese cities, Xining has been a boom town, and QMHIC have been involved in building residential projects. The project I looked into in greater detail is called “Heidelberg Town”, which is on the banks of the Huangshi river.

The above picture is the completed 32 story residential building that comprises the “Heidelberg Town” project. A three bedroom apartment within this block will set you back around 640,000 yuan (around £63,000). Bearing in mind there are thirty two floors, you’d have to imagine that there are a fair few apartments built in this block, which means (if fully occupied) that QMHIC would have earnt a lot of money from selling them. QMHIC acquired the land for 1.063million yuan in 2008 – which to my mind means that there is awful lot of room left for building costs to make a healthy profit on the deal.

QMHIC are on their seventh project now, building a mixed use project based on Chaoyang East Road, in Xining – although this time the land cost them 393.51million yuan – £38million in our terms. To a layman like myself, this tells me that the firm is successful – if they weren’t they wouldn’t be able to continually build and develop land; and it tells me that they are growing and getting richer, as they’ve been able to stump up bigger amounts of capital for larger projects as time has gone on.

Does this mean Yang Yuezhou is a billionaire? Well, no, it doesn’t. All it means is that he’s the head of a successful company (which is more than Carson was in fairness). I have no doubt that Mr Yang has probably earnt a wedge himself from being a successful real estate developer, but I think it would take a quantum leap to equate that to being a billionaire. I guess the big question comes down to how much money he has made personally from all this development – and without checking the financials, we don’t know.

Furthermore, you have to ask if Mr Yang has any interest in BCFC anyway. Whilst he has bought into BIH, there has been no word of what his intentions are save a couple of quotes from Peter Pannu – which I personally believe are of no consequence. I think that there could be something drawn between the fact that BIH has got a few land deals lined up in other parts of China to Qinghai and Mr Yang’s involvement – and that maybe Mr Yang has become involved in BIH to take advantage of that.

I understand in the grand scheme of things, I’ve not really done much but maybe brought to light Mr Yang’s business background. I do have a few more avenues to chase down so if more information is forthcoming I will be blogging about it. Until Mr Yang himself makes his intentions known, we are still very much in the dark about what is happening with him and BIH. All we can do is hope for the best.

Tags: BIH, Carson Yeung, China, HK, Yang Yuezhou

I.roth says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:08 am

I am going to Hong Kong next week so will see if any gleaned news forthcoming. What has happened to all money the club has received from sales and Sky? If at the start we were £25k down with our bank then we surely are in credit now.

Brucie says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:18 am

Sky money rececieved is offset by debts, loans, loss of revenue in the Championship. It’s not as if Yeung and co are making money out of us, they have none and BIH has been on the verge of collapse. Shows that Nursey’s tweets about a billionaire coming in were rubbish like all of his made up stories on Blues

mark says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:39 am

Sorry to say thats why I am not bothered and only interest in blues footballing side agree with Brucie . Great that you keep us in formed regardless …………kro

AR says:

September 13, 2011 at 10:30 am

I don’t quite see how one can only be interested in Blues’ footballing side, because unfortunately the financial side is so important that we might become another AFC Wimbledon. Keep up the good work Almajir, without you I would know nothing about what is going on in HK.

zublue says:

September 13, 2011 at 11:39 am

Thanks for the research almajir, shame most journalists can’t do theirs properly. I know how secretive the chinese as a people and certainly in business can be so good on ya for keeping us informed mate. I just feel in my bones that sooner or later someone from the far east with real financial clout will step into the breach and take us where we want to be.

September 13, 2011 at 1:48 pm

Just to reply to AR the simple fact is no-one sure what our financial situation is other than it was necessary with the present climate of champship football , this is just research and debate . Fact that we got rid of players and their high wages. To be honest in previous comments I have made what would you rather have players on high earning with no passion or desire. The club continues to run in a proffessional manner, I believe Newcastle were in a far worse state than blues, and regardless of keeping their high earners. I believe it was the right decision to off load these players and try again, people have short remember these player have tasted premier league regardless of the finanical state are in…………… Kro I also believe they were sold in the interest birmingham city.

Gary says:

September 13, 2011 at 2:48 pm

I have been reading the posts on here for some weeks now and it is refreshing to see so many sensible coments. The financial situation is something to be concerned about but I do think there is too much emphasis on this. Perhaps a lot of supporters are acting like a child who has had his sweets taken, given that we have had a pretty decent lucky bags to chomp on for the past few years, rather than the penny chews a lot of other clubs supporters have had.
We have got greedy and expect investors to keep on filling our bags with sweets, but with only 17k supporters at the Millwall game would anyone in their own minds invest in a club that has such a fickle fan base. I wouldnt!! I think its time to call an end to this speculation. The club is on a sound financial footing, we have got a decent squad of players and from what we have seen to date a very good manager. The shareholders are not going to run away with nothing, and if KY gets sentenced then it leaves the door open for someone to purchase his shares on the cheap, providing of course that us supporters can lead them to believe that our club is worth investing in.

Tony Knight says:

September 13, 2011 at 7:40 pm

All of the financial doom and gloom was actually good business practice – a reduced income meant that expenses (ie wages) had to be slashed. Its just the anti Birmingham media who are drumming up the hype. Look at others in financial difficulty – Portsmouth (still), Coventry (fans have been trying to get their owners out for 3 years) and today, Glasgow Rangers have a freeze on their assets

oliver says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:06 pm

Great article however I think you may of missed something crucial……is this not the same town in which Carson bought a huge piece of land last year to build a Birmingham themed village??????

almajir says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:10 pm

I don’t believe so.

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Dirty Bertie says:

September 13, 2011 at 9:35 pm

Any news on CY coming? Hope he does, we’ll then see if those fans who previously beat up on an old man in the directors’ box will do the same with a younger, fitter bloke who may have “muscle” behind him!

At least we can check if PP was saying the money was in his wallet or if he was saying his wallet was empty when he waived it at those fans.

Lighten up lads, it was a joke – just like Bill Shankley’s… I think?