Christmas deadline on Blues takeover

Sep 27 2007 By Jon Griffin, Birmingham Mail

BIRMINGHAM City co-owner David Sullivan has threatened to pull the plug on the Carson Yeung takeover if a deal is not completed by Christmas.

In his most forthright outburst yet since the Hong Kong tycoon muscled in on St Andrew's with a takeover bid, the Blues boss set a deadline of December 20.

He said: "We could still be at Birmingham forever. There is no deal done.

"It's possible they will come up with a bid before Christmas and we will sell to them.

"It could be the end of December and by then, if nothing happens, we will not do any business with them because we will regard them as people full of false promises.

"And I will go the market and buy more shares myself. I am prohibited from doing that at the moment but by about December 20 we will publicly announce that all deals are off and we'll go into the market.

"Tactically, I think it's wrong that the Chinese are the largest single shareholder. I'm on about 24 per cent currently so I would buy up to the same 29.9 per cent and I think David Gold will probably do the same."

Mr Sullivan's threat follows a statement issued by Mr Yeung's Grandtop International Holdings group to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange seeking five further weeks to allow due diligence to continue.

Mr Yeung's shareholding currently stands at 29.9 per cent and a full takeover is anticpated by the New Year.

But Mr Sullivan said he would consider seeking another buyer if the Yeung deal was not agreed.

"Having said to him 'buy 29.9 per cent and then if you want to buy the rest you can,' we can't really go out and sell to someone else.

"But if he doesn't go out and buy by the end of the year we will either buy some more shares or sell our shares to someone else. We won't let this drift on forever."

Mr Sullivan said he saw Carson Yeung at the Blues game last Saturday. "We say 'how is everything going?' They say 'good, good'. They say to us it will happen. We say 'When?'"