Chinese consortium buys Wolverhampton Wanderers with 60 million US dollars
Xinhua, July 21, 2016 Adjust font size:
Chinese company Fosun International on Thursday bought English Championship League club Wolverhampton Wanderers in a deal worth around 60 million U.S. dollars.
The deal completed this morning and saw the ownership switching to Fosun from millionaire housebuilder Steve Morgan who had owned the club for around 10 years.
Media in the Midlands is widely reporting that the deal has been completed, quoting lawyers acting for Morgan.
Thursday's deal came just weeks after close neighbor Aston Villa was also bought by a Chinese investor.
Morgan announced last September that he wanted to sell the club he had bought in 2007.
Fosun is an investment group worth around 12 billion dollars run by billionaire Guo Guangchang, with western leisure investments that include holiday companies Club Med and Thomas Cook, and the world-famous entertainment group Cirque de Soleil.
Wolverhampton Wanderers, known to its fans as Wolves' reported in its most recent annual accounts for the year to May 2015, a pre-tax profit of 964,000 dollars on turnover of just under 35 million dollars.
Two years after Morgan's 2007 takeover, Wolves were promoted to the Premier League, and remained there for three seasons before being relegated to the Championship, England's second tier league.
The club was hit by another relegation, and an immediate promotion, to put them back in the Championship.
Last season they finished in 14th place in the Championship. Endit