Kenny Huang is a complete farce. Fact.
He always was. While everyone was getting lathered up about the possibility of the Chinese government having a stake in Liverpool FC, they only looked at this guy's skin and not at his credentials or is backing.
I have read Bamba's posts on here that he had a connection to the Huang bid and the work that was going behind the scenes to put things together. I amnot going to challege that rigt now, but I will say that it is HIGHLY unlikely that anything like that ever took place. That said, (1) I 100% DOUBT that Huang represented an actual CREDIBLE bid and (2) I 100% DOUBT that Huang even represented real money.
I work on Wall Street as a trader. It's a relatively small world. Somebody usually knows somebody who knows the guy you are asking about. In the case of Kenny Huang, no one has ever done business with the guy let alone worked with him.
He claims to have gone to 2 schools right here in NYC (Columbia & NYU). No one knows him from there.
As far as I can figure out, he was a failed stock-broker here in the States. He then picked up and moved to HKong and tried it there only to fail again.
So he's sitting in HKong trying to figure out his options and looking @ China and saying "This is my shot... How am I going to take part in the prosperity that is going to wash over some people in this country."
So he reinvents himself. As it was he had no real skill-set. He wasn't a good sales guy when it came to financial products to clients.... but maybe he can be a decent sales guy with something else... So he decides to be a middleman between Investors in the West and China.
Sounds good. I am all for second chances and people reinventing themselves. No harm there.
So what does he start doing next... He markets clothing. He markets energy drinks. He markets up-start futbol leagues. Before you know it he's actually starting to rub shoulders with "people-who-know-people-who-have-money".
He tries to take a bazillion meetings with the people who actually have the money. However they aren't interested in talking with him because they already have 20 guys who do his middleman job and do it better than him. The feedback that he gets back is something like "I don't need another US investor. I am fine on that front. If you really want to help me you will find ME actual investments in the West."
So Huang thinks about it. He has no money. He doesn't know anyone with real money. But he does know people who know people who have money.
Rather than go after them one-at-a-time, he comes up with a plan and presents it to 100 rich Chinese. His plans were everything from investing in the NBA's Cleveland Cavaliers to trying to buy Liverpool FC.
I'll use the Cleveland Cavs as an example... It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the holy grail for sports clubs' commercial operations is to break into China without any piracy. Huang knows this the same way that all of us know this. So he goes to the Cleveland Cavs and says I am fronting a consortium to purchase 15% of the Cavs. In return you will receive some money, but more importantly my group will help you market more LeBron James jerseys in China. The Cavs' brass says... Let's see how you do marketing the jerseys in China before we enter anything formal. So he has a year or something like that. Over that year, LeBron James jersey Chinese sales dropped from #1 down to #3 for all NBA players.We are talking about the greatest athlete on the planet. It took no time for the Cavs to not return his calls.
As far as where the money behind Huang is coming from.... It's not. Huang claims to have the backing of Adrian Cheng, who is a family member of the guy who runs New World Group, a company that has some hotels and some banks. The problem for Huang is that even if he does know this cousin Adrian Cheng, that Adrian Cheng doesn't have the money. His twice-removed cousin or uncle does.
This guy is a farce. I think it's ridiculous that the British press have built this guy up into something that he is not and I think it's a shame that Huang has used his publicity around this great club, to keep up the appearances of some scam that he's running on the other side of the globe. It's also a shame that sooo many people drank the kool-aid with this guy and didn't do their homework, but I guess when everyone was looking for Hicks & GG gone they were willing to consider any option (i.e. that Syrian guy or the Indian scam artist or Dubai, too). A little due diligence is all it took to figure out that this guy isn't real. Probably took Broughton 10 seconds.
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