High net worth magnates invest in QPR football club
Probably, good times have started for football club Queens Park Rangers (QPR), with such investors as Formula One tycoons Bernie Ecclestone (worth £2.25 billion) and Flavio Briatore (worth £110 million). There is one more new investor of the club – a well-known Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal.
It is known that Briatore and Ecclestone have pledged to return the club into a Premier League force within the next three years. They completed their £14 million takeover in November, and spent £690,000 to acquire their 69% majority stake in the club. Ecclestone bought 15% for £150,000, while Briatore, through his British Virgin Islands-registered company Sarita Capital, bought 54% for £540,000. However, since the time of this deal with BVI company he has sold on 20% of his stake to Lakshmi Mittal. Mittal, who is the richest resident of Great Britain worth about £19.25 billion, has spent only £200,000 to purchase this stake.
However, Mittal is not likely to spend so much money and probably will remain a silent investor in the project, leaving Briatore and Ecclestone to push the non-successful club to the Premier League.
Also, Briatore and Ecclestone have made no attempt to pay off a £10 million loan to the ABC Corporation which carries a punitive £1 million annual interest charge – that is a massive burden on a team with an annual turnover of £10-£15 million a year. Another £2 million is owed to former director and major shareholder Antonio Caliendo who waived £4.5 million of loans he was owed when he sold out to Briatore and Ecclestone.
Now it is the question whether Mittal, Ecclestone and Briatore are prepared to highten their investment and to put the club on the highest level.