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Beijing Enterprises Group takes over Beijing Baxy - Wild East Football
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Beijing Enterprises Group takes over Beijing Baxy

Over the weekend, Beijing Enterprises Group reached an agreement to take over China League One football club Beijing Baxy. The side currently sits in fourth place, 6 points away from promotion to the Chinese Super League.

As of present, nothing has been announced about how much Beijing Enterprises paid, whether Baxy’s name will change, or how things will be arranged, in a statement Baxy’s chairman stated an announcement would come on October 19th regarding these details, but that this development is “a great thing for Beijing and Chinese football.”

Baxy’s been near the top of League One the past two seasons, but hasn’t been good enough to move into the top flight. The club has always been weak financially and were previously in talks with the Wanda Group. Earlier this season, the team took on Yanjing Beer as one of their sponsors (interestingly, Yanjing is one of the brands within Beijing Enterprises).

Beijing Enterprises has shown an interest in sports recently, last year they attempted to purchase Shanxi’s basketball team for RMB150 million and move it to Beijing. It instantly becomes one of the richest club owners in Chinese football, though still lags behind the top tier like Guoan (CITIC), Evergrande, and Luneng. The company touches all aspects of life in Beijing (and China), among it’s holdings are Beijing Gas, Yanjing Beer, Sanyuan Dairy, and a number of shopping malls and real estate. Portions of the company are listed in Hong Kong and its on #1196 on Forbes 2000 biggest public companies.

With this kind of backing, it seems likely we’ll see a “Beijing derby” in the near future.

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Brandon Chemers aka B. Cheng aka A Modern Lei Feng – is a name which may be familiar to many in the Chinese blogosphere. He currently serves as Editor-in-Chief for Wild East Football and is one of the lonely souls writing about Chinese football in English for the last 10 years. Chemers' credentials are second to none – his former blog focused not only on the fortunes of his beloved Beijing Guoan FC, but a multitude of other aspects of Beijing life. He’s deservedly built a reputation in the Chinese blogosphere as an insightful observer of not only Chinese football, but also the wider picture of life in modern China and its many layers. For WEF, beyond writing about Guoan, he often focuses on fan culture and the business of Chinese football.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. David Yang

    29/09/2014 at 16:40

    Beijing Enterprises Group also invests in rugby, women’s football and table tennis teams. Really interesting deal and the return should be a lot better than spending 150-200 mln on a CBA team.

    See here http://sports.qq.com/a/20140929/017779.htm, Guo Weiwei the gm is talking about their investment for the ACL already. But the key is really in the way they manage the club, whether you want to build another Guoan or an Evergrande.

    • bcheng

      30/09/2014 at 10:57

      Indeed it will be interesting to watch. Evergrande was able to attract top talent to play in the China League due to their money and their future plans, if Baxy doesn’t go up this year, we’ll have to see if they are able to do it as well.

      • Xiongfei

        02/10/2014 at 18:56

        Hardly. I don’t think Baxy will become another Evergrande. The model which Evergrande built is uncopiable to a state-owned enterprise, such as Beijing Enterprises Group. If it can do so, Guoan will be the first to benefit from it.

        • bcheng

          03/10/2014 at 10:15

          Its definitely harder, but not impossible. CITIC has always been very stingy, that doesn’t mean Beijing Enterprises will be the same. Sure, there isn’t a lot of leeway, but if they are willing to set a big enough budget, anything is possible. Just look at the way Luneng spends.

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