New owner on the way?

The new owner of Cardiff City is... Ben Steele that's if you believe the front page of the South Wales Echo. He is due in Cardiff according to the paper on Tuesday to tie up the deal to buy the club for around £40million.

The Guernsey-based property developer told the Echo, “My plan is to hopefully get Cardiff City into the Premier League.
“I have been talking about making an investment or buying the whole club.
“Hopefully, we’ll get something agreed and we’re in the process or starting due diligence.
“We have lawyers lined up ready and we have the money ready.”

Cardiff are linked with takeover rumours from America and Malaysia was the talks are reported to be in an advanced state. Americans had representatives at the Blackpool game last Saturday and if they are interested in buying the club they will have to make the interest official know and put a bid in. The Malaysians has always was a outside bet, they have been on the clubs radar for months now and progress has been slow but are believed to be well into the due diligence process, which is needed to be completed before you can owner a club in British football.

Some fact on the possible new owner,

He is married with two young daughters, started in business selling cars in the south of England, starting as a salesman at the age of 17 and owning his own garage by the time he was 21 years old.

He retired to Guernsey two and a half years ago and began a property investment company, Steele Properties Guernsey Ltd. Steele is said to be Guernsey’s biggest single open market investor.

This is not the first time Steele has been interested in taking control of a football club. In the summer, he was involved in a partnership with fellow Guernsey man and Southampton fan Quinten Hubbard to buy Southampton Football Club.

Of course, the club are unlikely to make any comment until the last possible minute and I would expect it to be the case. Even if a deal is done on Tuesday it would be some time before the new owner could take control, maybe the end of February. The deal is for £40million and include paying off the debts, in total, the majority to Langston (£10m after a new agreement), with £9m owed to Paul Guy and Mike Hall of PMG and £2.7m to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs.

The debt to the taxman must be paid before any new players can be brought in but chairman Peter Ridsdale has insisted the £2.7m tax bill will be sorted out quickly.