Birmingham City: Blues face new 12-year stadium lease deal

Blues' 115-year-old home at St Andrew's was redeveloped on three sides in the 1990s during the time of ownership by David Sullivan and the Gold brothers

Birmingham City have new landlords at Trillion Trophy St Andrew's, following the sale of the majority 75% share by the stadium's owners.

The new majority owners are Achiever Global Group Ltd, a British Virgin Islands property company.

Blues can bank £10.8m, but are now committed to paying back £1.25m a year in rent to lease the ground until 2031.

Birmingham Sports Holdings has told the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it is to sell their share.

The stadium, which would now no longer be within Blues' direct ownership, was independently valued at £20.6m. But the deal realises only £10.8m as £9.8m was paid off to cover liabilities from Birmingham City Stadium Ltd, the company which has owned the ground since 2019.

The club will pay £1.25m rent per year on a 12-year deal backdated from May 2019 to run until May 2031.

This is to be reviewed in 2025, and raised in line with UK interest rates but by not less than 5% and not more than 22%.

Even if it were a 5% increase, Blues would over the 12-year period have paid £15.375m in lease payments to use St Andrew's - more than they banked.

Most of the £10.8m will be used to repay external Birmingham Sports Holding debts, to leave about £2m of working capital.

Blues are currently 21st in the Championship and in real danger of relegation back to English football's third tier for the first time since 1994, just three points off Rotherham United, who have four games in hand.

They have been under Chinese ownership since October 2016, when Trillion Trophy Asia took over.

Blues were then fifth in the Championship. They sacked Gary Rowett two months later - and recently appointed Lee Bowyer as their seventh manager since.

They are also in the second year of a ground rental deal with Coventry City, who have shared the stadium since 2019 but have now signed up to return to the Ricoh Arena from the start of next season.

Behind the Blues' facade

Birmingham City Stadium Ltd is a subsidiary of Birmingham Sports Holdings, the holding company which owns Blues.

It was set up in 2019 in the wake of the club's English Football League profitability and sustainability rule infringements, in order to help the Championship club avoid further EFL sanctions and improve their accounts under the EFL's scrutiny.

Achiever Global Group Ltd is owned by Kang Ming-Ming, a real estate investor in Asia and Europe.

The other quarter is owned by Cambodian businessman Vong Pech, who also has a 21% share in Birmingham City.

Analysis

Football finance expert Kieran Maguire, senior teacher in accountancy at Liverpool University

"It's housework, to a large extent. It will give the holding company of Birmingham City a bit of cash to play with as they've got bills to pay.

"They'd already sold a quarter of the stadium and now they've sold the other three quarters. But, as far as fans are concerned, it should have zero impact.

"The club had already sold the ground in 2018-19 to deal with Financial Fair Play (FFP) and didn't own the ground anyway. But St Andrew's is an asset of community value status. So, if anyone was worried that the ground might get knocked down and turned into a block of flats, that's not going to happen.

"Things are just going to continue as they did before. The landlord just wants to get the rent - and Birmingham want somewhere to play football.

"The downside of the deal is that if Blues wanted to do something with the stadium, if let's say they got back to the Premier League and wanted to expand, then they'd have to get the permission of the landlord to make any changes."

Kieran Maguire was talking to BBC Radio WM.