Originally Posted by
The Lone Gunman
In this case, what you know and what you think you know are two different things.
When Vincent Tan initially bought into the club, there were a grand total of three Malaysian investors - Dato Chan Tien Ghee (aka TG), Tan Sri Dato Seri Vincent Tan Chee Yioun (aka Vincent Tan) and U-Jiun Tan (Vincent's son). This much I know for a fact as I have a copy of the club's shareholders list dated 29/08/2011 and registered at Companies House on 29/09/2011.
The amounts of shares bought by those three individuals in their initial investment were as follows:
3,645,455 - U-Jiun Tan
3,824,091 - TG
34,416,825 - Vincent Tan
To put the number of shares bought by TG and U-Jiun Tan into perspective, the fact is that Michael Isaac owned 11,203,211 shares at the time.
There was no Malaysian consortium. It was just Vincent Tan, who put up the lion's share of the money, his business associate TG, who had talked him into getting involved, and his son U-Jiun. In due course, VT significantly increased his personal shareholding to the point where he effectively owned the club outright, TG was sent packing and UT seemed to lose interest and disappeared from the board.
In his first public statement regarding CCFC (released on 14/06/2012), Vincent Tan said: "I first heard of Cardiff City Football Club when my friend and business partner Dato’ Chan Tien Ghee approached me in November 2009 to ask if I would be interested in making an equity investment in a British football club which had the possibility of being promoted to the top flight of English football.
"I knew little of football then and regarded any potential investment as being solely a business decision. To that end I agreed to make an initial investment of £6 million for a 40% stake in Cardiff City Football Club. I then decided to increase my investment, and to date I have invested a total of £40.8 million (comprising £34.8 million in loans and £6 million in equity) in the club."
There never was a consortium of Malaysian investors, just as there never was a hedge fund when Peter Ridsdale and Co ousted Sam Hammam. Both were inventions of the press.
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