Football Federation Australia’s long-mooted sale of Newcastle Jets could be done by the end of June, with Chinese businessman Martin Lee in the final stages of negotiating a deal understood to be worth more than $5 million.
Lee’s Ledman Group, a major LED lighting manufacturer and football sponsor, is understood to have employed accounting giants Ernst & Young to undertake due diligence on the A-League club.
FFA has also been conducting its own investigations, and is optimistic of completing the sale by the end of this financial year.
Lee was one of six parties issued with a confidential information memorandum on the Jets earlier this year, with four of those, including Hawaiian entrepreneur Jeff von Schmauder, engaging directly with FFA about terms.
The Chinese millionaire has since emerged as the frontrunner, with Ledman possessing an ideal football investment portfolio and the financial capacity to convince FFA they would be a reliable choice to grow the Hunter franchise.
Ledman owns Chinese lower-tier club Shenzhen Renren FC, sponsors the Chinese Super League and is the naming-rights sponsor for Portugal’s second division.
It comes one year after FFA took over ownership of the struggling Jets when it stripped former owner Nathan Tinkler of the A-League licence.
Since then the governing body has been cleaning up the club’s operations and balance sheet, including paying off old debts incurred by Tinkler.
In all it copped about $2.4 million in losses this season, after a proposed sale to Dundee United chairman Stephen Thompson collapsed late last year.
The Jets are also waiting keenly for the sale to go through, as they are holding off on some elements of next season’s squad recruitment to allow a new owner to provide input.
The club announced on Monday it had filled its third visa spot by signing 27-year-old former Fulham midfielder Wayne Brown on a two-year deal.
Ex-Denmark international Morten Nordstrand and Croatian midfielder Mateo Poljak are already locked in under coach Scott Miller, but interim CEO David Eland said the club planned to wait to fill the other two vacancies.
“We have two visa spots to go, and we’re certainly more than likely to wait a little bit longer for the pending sale, to give potential new owners as much flexibility as possible,” Eland told AAP.
“So we’ll keep our powder dry for two spots for the foreseeable future.”
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