An article in today’s Sunday Times by Jamie Nimmo poses some interesting questions about the background of executives behind the alleged West Ham takeover by PAI Capital.
PAI was launched by managing director Nasib Piriyev, the English-educated son of an Azerbaijan tycoon. Nasib, who was arrested in 2015, is locked in a legal battle over allegations of corruption in his home country, although he claims the dispute is politically motivated because of his family’s other business interests in the former Soviet republic.
Such news, and revelations he was previously wanted by Interpol in relation to the saga, led to scepticism among fans when reports emerged last month.
However, what has not been told before is how some of PAI’s other executives have patchy business track records.
One PAI partner is Robin Brundle, the brother of ex-Formula 1 driver Martin. His highest-profile position appears to have been when he took over and ran the Lola Cars racing team in 2009. Three years later, he stepped back to focus on “key and exciting business opportunities” elsewhere. Lola collapsed into administration five months later, blaming the economic downturn. Friends say his previous venture, car dealer Brundle Group, was a success.
Cleverly, a barrister-turned-entrepreneur who is a cousin of Tory minister James Cleverly, has skipped from venture to venture with little apparent success. In 2015 he joined the Aim-listed African Potash. Despite huge hype over its prospects the fertiliser company collapsed in value and delisted from Aim. It then shifted its focus to blockchain technology in 2018, changing its name to Block Commodities.
Then, as the market for medicinal cannabis grew, Cleverly moved Block’s focus again, this time striking deals to buy thousands of acres of land to grow the plant in Sierra Leone. But that fell through and Cleverly stepped down this year. The firm’s shares are currently suspended.
Yet it is his involvement in conspiracy theories that will really raise eyebrows.
Chris Cleverly is a member of a group called the International Tribunal for Natural Justice (ITNJ), which holds hearings on issues it believes are being neglected by governments and traditional legal systems. It regularly gives airtime and, thus, publicity to discredited medical professionals or conspiracy theorists.
So-called “expert witnesses” at ITNJ “hearings” have linked 5G with the coronavirus. Robert David Steele, a former CIA officer and a supporter of the conspiracy theory QAnon, said in an ITNJ video last year that the pandemic was “fake” and a collusion between the World Health Organisation, billionaire Bill Gates and big pharma companies. Last week, Steele died of Covid in hospital after refusing to get the vaccine.
Cleverly has publicly questioned the use of 5G, arguing that there was not yet proof it was safe, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
A PAI spokesman on behalf of Cleverly said the ITNJ had “led early reviews on the torture of Uighurs, paedophile rings and banking scandals”.
Another member of the PAI team is Alex Stanbury, an investment banker who is now in charge of an obscure California-based mining company called Century Cobalt, but who is best known as the brother of Caroline Stanbury, the socialite who has in the past dated Prince Andrew and Hugh Grant.
Philip Beard is another PAI partner. He is a former boss of the O2 in London and was chief executive of rival club Queens Park Rangers from 2011 to 2015. He came in for criticism after breaking Financial Fair Play spending rules. In 2018, QPR agreed a settlement of almost £42 million for events that happened on his watch.
Some speculate that the West Ham bid approach is a publicity stunt aimed at boosting the PAI team’s own profiles for other ventures. Brundle, Stanbury and Cleverly were all involved in a company called Technology Minerals, which is eyeing a stock market float in London. This year Stanbury’s Century Cobalt offloaded its Idaho cobalt project to Technology Minerals and shifted his company’s focus to cannabis by teaming up with Block Commodities.
The source of the purported funds for the West Ham deal remains a mystery — some wonder if it could come from China. PAI, though, will have to make a better offer in the coming weeks if it is to entice the West Ham owners to sell up.
A spokesman for the firm told the Sunday Times: “PAI Capital has assembled a top-tier team of respected executives … the group has carefully prepared and submitted a second innovative bid which it believes will be successful and crafts a new vision for the club, stadium and park …We hope to be able to share positive news very soon.”
West Ham have yet to make a public statement preferring not to give PAI oxygen in the media but privately have said, no proof of funds have been received and no bid has been received in the formal legal sense and there has been no contact since their initial approach back in February. David Sullivan has no intention of selling his shares as majority shareholder and considers the approach a property motivated deal.
I’m NOT interested in neatly packaged “Conspiracy” theory nonsense as the same media who speak of Anti-Vaxxers must surely understand that the Jab is NOT a Vaccine, the companies producing it have ZERO liability and they are only graded for emergency use only. But I’m not here to split hairs.
This post is surely about the characters “Behind” the PAI investors. The repeated business failures behind this group are the only thing that I’m interested in, and I had worked out a long time ago (as have MANY others) that they are a group of con artists, who if they get their way will destroy this club.
Agree. Fortunately dont think they will. Even with those West Ham icons !!!!!!!!!!! well guess icons arent what they to be i think.