West Brom fans finally have a name and a face to pin their takeover hopes in preferred bidder Shilen Patel.
Talks of a West Brom takeover have been on the rise over the past few months.
There were underlying signs that a takeover might pick up speed in this New Year, and it has; it’s said that current owner Guochuan Lai has three ‘credible’ bids on the table and that he’s since named his preferred bidder.
John Percy recently revealed that Floridan-based businessman Patel is ‘understood’ to be the club’s preferred bidder and that talks are ongoing at The Hawthorns.
Shilen Patel in West Brom takeover bid
Patel’s West Brom takeover bid is thought to be supported by MSD Holdings, who are currently the Baggies’ biggest creditor having loaned the club £27million in recent years.
Patel has made his fortune in the software and healthcare industry, founding a company called HealthAxis Group which is a ‘leading provider of modern Core Administrative Processing Solutions and related software and services to healthcare payors’, as per Business Insider.
Patel is the son of a wealthy father, Dr Kiran Patel, who is widely reported to have a net worth of $400million; a cardiologist by trade, he formed several businesses in healthcare and insurance and became a leading name in both fields in the US.
In 2017, one of Dr Kiran Patel’s companies, Insurers Freedom Health and Optimum Healthcare, agreed to pay out more than $30million in a whistleblower case in which he’d be named a defendant, along with his brother Rupesh Shah.
The case alleged ‘systemic Medicare Advantage fraud’, though there’s no evidence of Shilen being involved in the case.
Shilen Patel net worth
Patel’s net worth isn’t reported anywhere, but we have his father’s wealth to give us an idea of Shilen’s.
Dr Kiran Patel is worth $400million, as mentioned above, and numerous online reports on Shilen suggest that he’s inherited his family’s wealth, as well as taking on his own business ventures.
So we can assume that Patel has a net worth of at least, or around $400million, with the West Brom takeover said to be costing the eventual buyer around £60million.
Shilen Patel’s experience in football ownership
It is reported that Patel currently owns a stake in Serie A outfit Bologna; they currently sit in 7th place of the Italian top flight table having enjoyed a strong 2023/24 season to date.
And Patel is reported to have said in a previous interview that he’s tried and failed to buy football clubs in the past, and that owning one remains his ambition.
As quoted by Birmingham Live, Patel said: “My goal is to own a soccer team. I’ve made a few attempts, but I’m not there yet.”
And Patel appears to be trying to make connections with people involved at West Brom, after it was recently revealed that an account on X going by the name ‘Shilen Patel’ had followed the likes of Carlos Corberan, as well as Express & Star’s West Brom reporter Lewis Cox.
West Brom takeover latest news
It appears that everything is moving in the right drection.
The club is working within a very tight timeframe after it was previously revealed that West Brom’s financial situation would drastically worsen this month and next month.
So a lot pins on this takeover. Patel, for the time being, is one of a few names in the frame, though it certainly seems like he’s the front-runner.
He looks like a legitimate businessman with a wealthy background and he could yet be the man to save West Brom’s long-term future.