FAN ARTICLES
An expose of Green and Earl
Comments (19) : First of all, Phil Green, whose wealth has been assessed at over £4 billion and is said to be Britain's 4th wealthies person:
The retail entrepreneur Philip Green has banked £1.2bn after awarding himself the biggest pay cheque in British corporate history. The huge dividend has come from the Arcadia fashion business, which has 2,000 outlets and spans high street names including Top Shop, Wallis and Burton. It is more than four times the group's pre-tax profits of £253m. Mr Green's £1.2bn will not be taxed as it will be paid to his wife, Tina, who lives in Monaco. Mrs Green is the direct owner of Arcadia.
Four of his Arcadia chains ? Top Shop, Wallis, Evans and Burton ? had a record year. Miss Selfridge, he said, had shown a small improvement while the contribution from Dorothy Perkins and Burton had declined slightly.
Journalists Stewart Lansley and Andy Forrester have written a compelling biography of Philip Green. They point out that Green has tended to present himself as a self-made outsider in a rag trade to riches story, which blurs some aspects of his early days.
His skills are those of the intuitive trader. The pattern of his success is as the quick-witted entrepreneur who prefers to hunt alone, drawing on a network of allies to finance deals as unquoted companies. He has leveraged the scale of his deals, but as he repeatedly incorporated experiences to play with bigger and bigger stakes. The game remains largely the same ? which is far easier to describe than to achieve in practice.
Green plays the indomitable ruthless outsider. A UK resident, Green is based in the week at a London hotel, while his South African wife Christina is a Monaco resident with their children Chloe and Brandon, in a multi-million pound apartment.
Green plays tennis with Prince Albert of Monaco and counts as his friends, David and Simon Reuben, Lord Hanson, Tom Hunter, Mohamed al-Fayed of Harrods, Ian Grabiner, Bill Kenwright, Simon Cowell and Michael Winner. He is also real life friends with John Cena. He is known to be a keen football fan and is a Tottenham Hotspur supporter. He is heavily involved with Everton Football Club due to his friendship with chairman Bill Kenwright but has no intention of formally investing in the club.
He arranged for another friend, Planet Hollywood's owner Robert Earl to purchase shares from former director Paul Gregg during a struggle for control of Everton in 2004. He offers business advice to the club alongside Tesco CEO Terry Leahy and helps negotiates player transfer fees with agents.
(So we now know who to blame for the agent fiasco)
Robert Earl, whose wealth is assessed at about £200 million, is a relative pauper and said by some to be just "holding" the shares on behalf of Green. Fearless maverick, savvy business man, grand schemer, magnanimous host, jet-setting entrepreneur ? Robert Earl is one of the most charismatic and best-connected characters in global entertainment, hotel and casino business.
Most famous as the proprietor of the formidable Planet Hollywood restaurant chain, he is now concentrating on the casino business. With Las Vegas now established as his operational base. Aug. 22, 2005 - A year after a Robert Earl - led investor group bought the Aladdin, the re-branding of the property is under way and the renovation work is about to start.
Earl, chief executive officer of Planet Hollywood International and co-chairman of Aladdin owner OpBiz, said reconstruction of the hotel and casino complex in Las Vegas will begin in October and take a year. OpBiz is a partnership of Earl, Bay Harbour Management and Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. Billboards saying "Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino Coming 2006" stretch around the casino's upper levels. Gradually, interior signs are changing. The original $90 million construction budget has been increased to match escalating costs and more comprehensive plans, but Earl declined to say by how much. Las Vegas-based MJ Dean Construction Co is general contractor.
One criticism of the current casino is that visitors walk past without seeing any clear entryways into Desert Passage or the casino. Earl said the essential element of the redesign is to correct that shortcoming and ease access. "The reconstruction will completely, 100 percent address the Strip. It'll make a massive entrance in the middle, converting the whole front into one, huge plaza," he said. It will also include a more visible entry on Harmon Avenue, which Earl said is important because every inch of the street from the Strip to Paradise Road is being redeveloped with condo projects.
Earl expressed confidence that with the renovation, a large number of the guests will spend at least part of their time in its casino, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and shopping areas. Whatever its long-term fate, Earl said it's been a successful year for the new owners.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas professor Bill Thompson, who specializes in gaming studies, said the biggest problem for any owner is location. "No other single location has failed as often or repeatedly as the Aladdin has," he said. Still, Thompson said the longer they wait, the more they miss out on the boom going on in the Las Vegas market.
Jim Medick, chief executive officer of the MRC Group, Nevada's largest market research firm, took a wait-and-see attitude on how long Planet Hollywood will wait to start delivering on its public relations announcements. "However, the longer they wait, the 'behinder' they get as construction costs continue to climb and the competition locks in their market shares," Medick said.
Rothman was skeptical of the Planet Hollywood brand. "As for Planet Hollywood, its purchase of the Aladdin is one declining brand buying another," Rothman said. "As a brand, Planet Hollywood has seen much better days, roughly about 10 years ago." But Earl expressed confidence the Planet Hollywood brand will enhance the property's long-term success.
(And who was leading the charge to Kirkby)
And as a post script note:-
Anil Ambani (born June 4, 1959) is an Indian businessman. As of October 6th 2007, he has a net-worth of US$42 billion, making him the 6th richest person in the world. His was the world's fastest-growing multi-billion-dollar fortune in percentage terms as his wealth tripled in 1 year. Both the brothers are worth around 85 Billion US dollars
On August 3rd 2008, it had emerged Ambani has become a leading conteneder to take over English Premier League team, Newcastle United in a £230m deal. Should this bid fall through, it has also been rumoured that he would be interested in a takover bid of League One club, Leeds United.
Eagle-eyed viewers of Setanta Sports spotted his son, Joi Anmol conversing with Bill Kenwright and Rober Earl, the majority shareholders of English Premier League side Everton FC, during their final preseason game against PSV Eindhoven on 9th August 2008. Kenwright has recently confirmed that the club is looking for investment and is potentially for sale (sources for this include the club's official website) but it is not known if Joi Anmol's presence at the game indicates any interest in acquiring the club or simply reflects social connections...
Reader Comments
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Not exactly expose of the year is it Jay?
Any other revelations you have?nt told us about yet.
Can?t really understand the point of this ?article?. Good job you didn?t submit it as an academic contribution, otherwise it would have been thrown out on the grounds of blatant plagiarism!!
There was talk last year that Mittal (the steel magnate and richest Briton ?) was interested in buying the Blues. But, didn’t he put his money into QPR ?
What he has done, though - and pretty successfully I would say - has been to crystallise things into one handy reference point.
For example, I knew some things about Green. I knew other things about Earl. I also knew I’d read "something somewhere but couldn’t remember where".
Jay’s now gathered everything together and I, for one, have certainly increased my knowledge base of these two men who, it can’t be disputed, are absolutely central to the executive affairs of EFC right now.
I think the more we can learn about Green and Earl the better.
Jay’s piece is a perfectly executed use of Toffeeweb, in my opinion.
I see it that he’s provided us with a service.
And a good one at that.
thank you.
You are the only person who understood what I was trying to achieve i.e. provide a bit more information on these 2 characters that now seem to be in control of our club.
I decided to do it when one of our posters described Earl as a multi - billionaire and thought we really dont know enough about these 2.
I also thought it was interesting that Ambani’s son was a guest of Kenwright at the Newcastle match
For those of you who thought it was something more than that I’m sorry to have disappointed you.
Thanks, Jay. An interesting read. With 2 Spurs men doing our negotiating and Tottenham sudenly needing a new striker or two, I wonder waht would happen if both Clubs were after the same forward? A very unsatisfactory state of affairs isn’t it?
I’ve said in another posting that I wouldn’t have any problem for any other race, creed, colour or nationality taking over Everton if they were a better businessman than BK and the Indian’s I have worked with again in banking (TCS) had greater wealth and acumen than BK could ever dream of.
I also knew Earl had been bankrupt from his Planet Hollywood work and had resurrected the brand but it’s novelty value had wained.
I found this to be a good overview of two of the key players in the GP hierarchy.
Its a pity Mr Green couldn?t be tempted to make a mere token investment as he is obviously a very rich man.
Probably more chance of Sly Stallone investing than Mr Ambani, but ya never know.
Due to the lack of visibility of the pair we have had (in my opinion) severe and misplaced criticism of David Moyes who has had to endure a lack of ambition from at least one of these two.
As a die hard Evertonian, Moyes has looked increasingly angry and frustrated, and has personally endorsed Bill Kenwright while quietly and subserviently criticising the aforementioned. David is more than aware that if he wants to keep his job then any overt criticism leveled at the pair would mean his arse!
Last season we saw John Cena wearing a Tottenham Hotspur kit at White Hart Lane.
Thanks to this article I now know that he is a friend of Spurs fan Sir Phillip Green (coincidence ? maybe).
However it disturbs me to think that one of our senior board members is marketing and moonlighting for the enemy. It has also made me aware that the people running the club have no interest in her as a traditional institution. For them it?s not personal, it?s just soulless, financial mathematics? or at best, a play thing!
We have witnessed the institution being sold off in almost every aspect and are aware that the power and the problems do not all lie at the feet of one Bill Kenwright.
Further I was not aware that Robert Earl had only £200 million as apposed to the £1 Billion that I had heard elsewhere.
What Jay has done is what any good Journalist or student would do... gather the facts and educate others.
I for one have no problem with that and am more than happy to use this as a reference point for future threads.
As a major critic of this current board I did not seek to denigrate Green nor Earls’s achievements nor their contribution,questionable though it may be’ to EFC.
I firmly believe that the chairman by the very nature of his position is the one the sets out the culture and ethos of the club and though we question the involvement of this pair I believe there is only one person accountable for the results of their involvement ,good and bad.
At least you have had the decency not to pass of the work as your own.
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1 Posted 24/08/2008 at 16:18:33
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