Birmingham Int’l trading suspension continues

Birmingham International Holdings Ltd., owner of English soccer team Birmingham City, has suspended trading and shares until further notice, the company said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
Carson Yeung Ka Sing, found guilty of money laundering at a trial in Hong Kong, resigned as executive director and chairman in February last year.
Mr. Yeung, 53, Blues’ owner since 2009, remains the club’s major shareholder. The company named executive director Cheung Shing, 60, as the new chairman and Mr. Yeung’s brother-in-law, executive director Ma Shui Cheong, 52, as vice chairman, according to a filing dated February 2014.
The company is now looking to hold an extraordinary general meeting, the request for which was made by two shareholders on December 23 and December 24, 2014, asking that Mr. Cheung be removed as chairman with immediate effect.
In addition to seeking the immediate removal of Mr. Cheung, it has been requested that two other board members be removed – Ma Shui Cheong, vice-chairman and executive director, and Chen Liang, an executive director.
Mr. Cheung would be replaced by Wang Man Li, while Ma Shui Cheong would be replaced by Li Wen Jun, and Chen Liang would be replaced by Arjun Kumar Gurung, according to the requisitions in the filing.
‘The board is also very concerned about the concerted efforts of [Carson Yeung and U-Continent Holdings Ltd], their actual relationship and reasons behind the requisitions and has raised its concerns with the Stock Exchange and the Securities and Futures Commission, and the regulatory authorities are currently looking into the issues’, yesterday’s filing reads.
Should Mr. Yeung and U-Continental hold the extraordinary general meeting without the board’s prior approval (which is pending further explanation from both parties), ‘the board will resist vigorously in order to protect the shareholders’ rights as a whole’, the company said in the filing.
Carson Yeung currently holds 2.7 million shares in the company, representing 27.9 per cent of the issued shared capital, while U-Continent Holdings Ltd. holds 1.5 million shares, representing 15.5 per cent of the company’s issued share capital.