The Board of the Trust welcomes the new owners of the Holding Company for Birmingham City Football Club, Trillion Trophy Asia. We hope that their ownership of the Club will be a period of progress both on and off the field and in particular welcome their proposals for continued investment in the Club and their intention to secure for the Club a return to the Premier League. We want to assure the new owners of our desire to work to support the Club in whatever way we can in accordance with the Trust’s objectives and hope that a good working relationship can be established in the future.

We would like to comment on the Open offer being made to shareholders of the Club. Before we do this, we need to say that we have no background information other than that which is contained in the letter to shareholders. We are not qualified to give financial advice and shareholders who require such advice should consult a qualified and accredited financial advisor.

The Trust has a longstanding aim of seeking supporter representation in the management of the Club. We have considered partly achieving this by acquiring shares but previously, and now, this is not possible. The offer to buy shares that Trillion Trophy have made will, if successful, make this more difficult in the future.

It also will make it more difficult for the Trust to monitor the financial activities of the Club as there will be no requirement to make such information publicly available, the only requirement being to make some information available to individual shareholders.

We recognise that acceptance or otherwise of the offer by individual shareholders is a matter purely for them depending on their individual circumstances and their view of the offer. We have been exploring the opportunity for establishing a special vehicle into which individual shareholders could put their share representation at the disposal of the Trust, enabling the Trust to speak collectively for them. Consideration of this is at a very embryonic stage and the details have not been worked out, but it may, for some shareholders, offer an option they might find positive and hold out the possibility of the Trust representing collective views of fans more strongly in the future.

If you are a shareholder and are interested in this idea, please contact us. Our email address is admin@bluestrust.org