http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/west-brom-guochuan-lai-worth-12502546
West Brom owner Guochuan Lai's enormous net wealth revealed
Lai remains a mysterious figure having said very little since investing in the Hawthorns club this summer – but his enormous spending power
BYGRAEME BROWN
05:00, 26 JAN 2017
SPORT
The eye-watering wealth of the new West Brom owner has been revealed, with Guochuan Lai worth a cool £2.8 billion.
Lai remains a mysterious figure having said very little since investing in the Hawthorns club this summer – but his enormous spending power has been unveiled in the Birmingham Post Rich List.
It is thought he parted with the best part of £200 million then he completed the takeover – earning former Baggies chairman Jeremy Peace a slot on the Rich List – and is presently the only Premier League club owner in the West Midlands.
However, he is not the richest, with Wolves owner Guo Guangchang, of Fosun International Group, boasting a net worth of £4.4 billion.
Lai runs Chinese investment company Yunyi Guokai (Shanghai) Sports Development and has a background of investing in giant eco-towns in the Fai East.
Rich List editor Ian Strachan admitted it can be difficult to assess the wealth of Chinese businessmen – and suggested he might actually be worth more.
He said: “He has a number of growing private investments in technology, virtual reality, tourism and sport. It is difficult to be precise about the net worth of individuals in China, but our estimate of £2.8 billion may be conservative.
“While he remains in China to manage his many business interests, he has pledged to visit The Hawthorns as often as possible and to fully support the chairman and executive team.â€
West Brom made their first significant investment of the Lai era in bringing in Hull City midfielder Jake Livermore for £10 million this month.
However, with Saido Berahino having left for more than £12 million, the books continue to be balanced, unlike the more free-spending Guangchang and Tony Xia at Aston Villa, who also makes it onto the Rich List with a £990 million fortune.
The Rich List ranks the 50 wealthiest people in the region, including those who live elsewhere but are major investors.
Paul Suen Cho Hung, the new top man at Birmingham City, also makes the list with a net worth of £440 million.
Our new owner is wealthy who would have guessed that? All well and good but there is no evidence to suggest that he is going to subsidise the club in the transfer market nor should he in my view. However for those that harbour such fantasies it must give them a warm glow of expectation and look there is another Chinese businessman spending lots of money up the road in Witton.
I'm sure the financial specialists on here will correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think the Birmingham Mail article is strictly correct.
As far as I am aware, Palm, the business Mr Lai bankrolled to fund the purchase of WBA, has a turnover of around £500 million per year. It's anticipated that Palm will be a major player in the development of eco cities in China & as a consequence Palm is backed, in investments, to the tune of around £2.8 billion.
In effect, as others have said, the more successful Mr Lai is, the more he will be able to invest in WBA.
I think I might have mentioned before to twitter users, @Prof_Chadwick is well worth a follow to get an understanding of Chinese involvement in football & sport in general.