Tony Xia
Tony Jiantong Xia () is a Chinese businessman. He is the chairman, CEO and owner of Recon Group. Early life and education Xia was born in Quzhou, Zhejiang. At the age of 14, he left home to attend university in Beijing. He was amongst the first 25 of 1,000 selected to study abroad at Harvard (where he studied landscape design), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a five-month exchange to study at Trinity College, Oxford in 1998–99. He has a PhD as a doctor of design in urban planning. Career In March 1999, Xia founded design company XWHO in Boston, US co-owned by his then-girlfriend and one of his lecturers. The company relocated to Hangzhou, China where Xia started a planning company called Teamax, which he sold for £430 million. Recon Group Xia took over Chinese company Recon Group in 2004. The company is based in Beijing and Hangzhou and is the umbrella organisation for Xia's companies which operate in IT, health and agriculture, new energy and smart transportation, engineering and design, financial services, and sports, leisure, and tourism. Xia added he planned to invest in or buy football clubs in India, Spain, the US, and Australia to create a new 'sports sector' within his portfolio. In February 2017 Recon Group subsidiary Recon Holding agreed to purchase a 51% stake in Millennium Films, a Hollywood film studio specialising in action films including The Expendables series. Previous majority stakeholder and founder Avi Lerner would have remained as Chief Executive Officer with Xia becoming chairman. This deal was later announced to be off in August 2017 due to the Chinese government clamping down on overseas business investments. On 19 March 2020, Xia announced that the Recon Group had focused attention to their Healthcare and Bioscience division, which was producing and exporting COVID-19 testing kits, hand sanitizer, ventilators, thermometers and PPE to countries around the world that were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Aston Villa F.C. On 18 May 2016, it was announced that Recon Group had agreed to buy Aston Villa for a reported £60 million from American businessman Randy Lerner, with the club becoming part of Recon Group's Sports, Leisure and Tourism division. On 14 June 2016, the sale was completed for a reported £76 million after being approved by the Football League. Upon completion of the sale, Xia became chairman of the club. Xia's tenure at Aston Villa featured heavy investment in the club, but problems with moving cash out of China and into the United Kingdom soon hit Xia and Aston Villa hard. On 5 June 2018, Aston Villa missed the deadline for a £4 million tax bill, and the club was faced with a winding up order and the real possibility of going out of business. On 6 June 2018, Xia suspended Aston Villa's CEO Keith Wyness, who later resigned, after he was alleged to have discussed the prospect of Aston Villa's possible administration and subsequent 12-point deduction with third parties without Xia's knowledge. The following day,