Kenneth Huang

Huang Jianhua, also known as Kenneth Huang (Chinese: 黄健华; born 1965), is a Chinese businessman. Huang founded Sportscorp China in 2004^[2] and QSL Sports in 2008.^[3] In 2009, Huang began investing in Chinese sports leagues and teams.^[4] After 2010, Huang began to invest in movies. Huang is currently a Board Member of the Board of Shanghai Film Group and Jiaflix Enterprises.^[5] Huang is cited as the managing director for Rocket Capital, an investment group with ties to the former Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander.^[6]

Huang is credited as being a founder of Jiaflix, China Movie Media Group, Huahua Media, and the H Collective^[5] as well as being the current owner of the Chinese Basketball Association team the Jilin Northeast Tigers.

In 2012, Oriental Morning Post did an investigation of assets connected to Huang, leading to Huang's net worth being evaluated at 1.05 billion USD.^[7]

Early life and education

Born in Guangzhou, China into a family with close business and government ties, he graduated in 1984 from Sun Yat-sen University. Huang then pursued under graduate studies at Columbia University, and then obtained his Masters from St. John's University, before undertaking his MBA in financial management at New York University.^[1]

Career

Wall Street

In 1988, Huang became the first mainland educated Chinese person to work on Wall Street, as a public relations executive.^[2]

Chinese Sports

Huang and Chicago-based sports consultant Marc Ganis, founded Sportscorp China in 2004, a company that helps bridge sports and sponsorship deals between the United States and China. This enabled Chinese sponsorship and rights distribution deals with both the Houston Rockets and the New York Yankees.^[2]

Huang founded QSL Sports in 2008 alongside Adrian Cheng, whose family controls the Hong Kong conglomerate New World Development, investing in Chinese sports leagues and team. ^[4][8]

Huang introduced the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009 to Tsingtao Brewery, which resulted in an agreement between the two.^[3] It was reported in early 2010 that Huang had acquired a 15% shareholding in the Cleveland Cavaliers, considered at the time the first significant investment in a large US sports franchise by Chinese investors. However, in April 2010 it was made clear by the Cavaliers that Huang's role with the Cavaliers was to have acted as a middleman to secure the team's sponsorship with Tsingtao.^[9] Adrien Cheng left his partnership with Huang soon after for unspecified reasons.^[10] After buying into and hence becoming co-chair of both the National Basketball League of China and the Chinese Baseball League, leaving Huang as the sole chair of both.^[2]

Huang also bought the Jilin Northeast Tigers.^[11]

Liverpool deal and article

During an interview in April 2010 with the UK's The Mirror newspaper, Huang claimed to be at a "crucial stage" in negotiations to acquire the Liverpool F.C. team for £500 million.^[12] Four months later, Huang instead offered to pay off Liverpool's USD 374 million in debts it owed to the Royal Bank of Scotland in return for control of the team. At the time, Huang claimed that the massive Chinese sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corporation, could become a silent investor in the deal. China Investment Corp, however, soon after denied this, saying it had "never heard of a plan to buy Liverpool or of Kenneth Huang".^[13] Huang eventually dropped out of the deal a few weeks later.^[14]

An August 2010 investigation by Sporting Intelligence claimed that, among other issues, Huang's claim to sit on the board of directors at the Bank of Communication's asset management division was false. The report also claimed that it had failed to verify any of Huang's educational qualifications - including his assertion that he completed an MBA at New York University and a Masters in Japanese at St. John's University - and added that he had only completed four months of his degree at Columbia University. The investigation was also unable to verify Huang's claims to have been voted the "No 1 philanthropist" in 2009 by the popular Chinese website Sina.com and BQ Magazine.^[15]

Inter Milan

On 1 August 2012, Inter Milan announced that, club owner Massimo Moratti agreed to sell a minority interests of the club to a Chinese consortium led by Kenneth Huang.^[16] On the same day Inter announced an agreement was formed with China Railway Construction Corporation Limited for a new stadium project.^[16] However, the deal collapsed.^{[citation needed]} The club was taken over by International Sports Capital, a company co-owned by Erick Thohir in 2013, with Moratti, Pirelli and many small investors as the minority shareholders.

References