Thread by @dylanharris

Big thread incoming related to Stanley Choi. Bear with me while I go over the background of it all. #wafc 1/25

At the same time the EFL were going over the fine details of the first takeover in 2018 there was a court case taking place in Canada which was reported as the “biggest insider trading scandal in Canadian history”.

In March 2016, David Baazov the CEO of Amaya (a Canadian online gaming company) was charged with multiple counts of illegal insider trading, including stock manipulation, communicating privileged information, attempting to influence the share price of Amaya and more.

As these charges were levelled, he stepped down as CEO and left the company. The charges would later result in the court case of 2018. However, 8 months after he was charged, Baazov submitted a $24 per share proposal (30% above the share price at the time)

to buy back into Amaya and take a controlling stake. His bid was based on his claims that he had binding equity commitments from four overseas entities for $3.65 billion. The news of this bid led to the share price to jump by 14%.
However, after submitting 4 guarantee letters

it soon became apparent that not all was as it seemed. KBC Albini Capital based in Dubai, denied all knowledge of involvement. Their customer base was Muslim and they would never agree to invest in a gaming company.
As this news made waves, Amaya’s share price was sent tumbling.

What was going on? And if KBC were not involved, could he still afford the bid? He was left with 3 more investors. Or was he? One of these investors was Ferdyne Investory Inc. No one had heard of Ferdyne. It was discovered that the only registration for a company with that name

was in the British Virgin Islands. But that company had been struck from the register in 2013, 3 years earlier.
Ferdyne’s guarantee letter was suddenly dropped alongside KBC’s. A new bid was submitted for the two remaining investors, guaranteeing $3.4 billion.

So 4 investors were previously needed to guarantee $3.65 billion, but now that there were only two left, there was still $3.4 billion available? So who were these huge investors who could fund $1.7 billion each?

The two investors were listed as Goldenways Group and Head & Shoulders Financial Group Ltd. Two Hong Kong based companies, barely known at the time outside their local market.
The owner of H&S is Stanley Choi. H&S was his share in the New Leader Fund, the company that

took over ownership of #wafc from IEC.
With all the doubts over the proposed Amaya takeover, Bloomberg spoke to Choi at the time to quiz him over his commitment to the deal. Choi stated that he supported Baazov and he was not at all concerned about what had

happened with the other ‘non’ investors.
Could Choi really afford his share of the investment? It was difficult to prove as H&S is a private company so their financial records aren’t public. However, Andrew Webb, a Hong Kong-based corporate governance

advocate and former investment banker managed to get hold of a copy of their accounts from a few months previous due to them temporarily being available on the HKSE due to an IPO which was later aborted. He published these accounts on his website as he believed

transparency was in the public interest due to the Amaya bid. The documents show H&S assets of $79 million, absolutely nowhere near the $1.7 billion needed for the investment.

Andrew Webb, said at the time “Head and Shoulders is one of the (Amaya) backers that is supposed to have a lot of resources. Well, it doesn't"
The other investor, Goldenway was another little known Hong Kong company and not a major player in finance.

Webb stated “I have never heard of Goldenway."
Alarm bells were ringing all over. The bid was bizarre and made no sense at all. One of the original investors didn’t exist. Another of them denied all knowledge of their involvement.

The other two it appeared had nowhere near the funds they claimed to have. A New York based hedge fund sent a strongly worded letter to Amaya shareholders advising them to reject the bid and for the board to terminate all interest in the offer. The deal came to an end.

The following month, Baazov was sued by KBC president Kalani Lal for fraudulently using his name and signature as one of his investors for his Amaya bid.
Later the insider trading court case went ahead but part way through it, the charges were stayed (not dropped) due to

a legal blunder by the prosecutors when they 'accidentally' released 320,000 sensitive documents to the defence team. Baazov escaped the charges. The prosecution were outraged and stated it was the most “draconian ruling” simply for a procedural error.

It’s not hard to find similar stories relating to Baazov. Later in 2018, a Kenyan MP laid accusations of fraud against Baazov. He claimed Baazov had conspired with NIC bank to shift millions of Kenyan shillings abroad.

Kenyan TV broadcast an investigate documentary about him where it was claimed he had taken almost $1,000,000 meant for Kenyan charities.

Clearly Choi can’t be blamed for the direct actions of Baazov but he willingly became involved with him. Choi was part of an extremely dubious investment bid with a person who at the time had multiple cases of insider trading fraud hanging over him. The biggest insider trading

case in Canada’s history. Were the @EFL unconcerned about a potential owner being linked to someone who was in court for a $5 billion fraud? Were there any red flags raised? Did you investigate the links between the two? Were you even aware of the links?

Could you maybe now take some time away from tweeting about your fast food sponsorship partners and at least acknowledge that you're investigating all the info that has been brought to light over the past few days? It took you 30 minutes after our administration was confirmed for

you to announce our 12 point deduction but silence ever since. There are hundreds of jobs at risk here, let alone the devastating affect this is having on our community that the club has been at the heart of for almost 90 years.

For reference, here are the leaked H&S financials: webb-site.com/codocs/H&S1604…

The rest of the info comes from multiple online sources but this one digs furthest on Choi's investment in the Amaya bid.. theglobeandmail.com/report-on-busi…