Chinese Super League side Beijing Guoan has been sold to a local property developer at an equity valuation of more than $800M, "suggesting it is worth more than European giants such as AC Milan and Atlético Madrid," according to Bland & Ahmed of the FINANCIAL TIMES. The high price put on Beijing Guoan, the top team in the capital, "underlines the investment surge in football in China, despite recent efforts by the government to crack down on what it called 'irrational' spending on foreign players." Sinobo Land, a little-known property developer, is buying 64% of the club for 3.6B yuan ($523M) from current owner Citic, a state-owned investment group, giving it a valuation of 5.6B yuan ($814M). That would "rank Beijing Guoan among the 15 most valuable clubs in Europe, according to estimates of enterprise value by KPMG." University of Salford sports business professor Simon Chadwick said, "This would seem to be an excessive and unrealistic valuation." The government, which is "concerned about capital outflows at a time of slowing economic growth, recently sought to rein in some of the excesses in the CSL." Chadwick said that this was "more a question of good housekeeping rather than halting the investment flow." He said, "There has been a great deal of hype about China’s bubble bursting but it’s actually the sound of knuckles being rapped by the state" (FT, 1/26). BLOOMBERG reported the deal for Beijing Guoan, which has "one of the biggest" fan bases in the CSL, illustrates how valuations for football teams in the country "are soaring." Beijing Guoan is not "even the most expensive club there," as Evergrande Taobao, the league champion for six years in a row, is valued at $2.9B, based on the stock’s last trading price on the country’s over-the-counter market (BLOOMBERG, 1/26).
