Who owns Wentworth Golf Club?
The club issued a statement this week denying sale rumours.
Never a dull moment with Eddie Pepperell around! If you’re not following “The Chipping Forecast” podcast you’re missing out!
In last week’s pod Eddie speculated that the Saudi PIF was interested in buying Wentworth, one of the most prestigious courses in UK and venue for the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship. In a subsequent exclusive interview with Golf Monthly, the club denied its owners had any intentions to sell. Money in Sport noted the vanilla description of Reignwood Group in the article as, “a Thai-Chinese investment company” and decided that there must be more to it….
Yan Bin
Reignwood is the front for Yan Bin (Chanchai Ruayrungruang), a Chinese billionaire with Thai connections. He’s currently ranked at #40 on the Hurun China Rich List with wealth estimated at $11.3 billion:
Oddly Yan Bin doesn’t appear in Forbes China’s 100 Richest list for 2024 published just yesterday. Seems like one of these media outlets might have got their decimal point in the wrong place ; )
Red Bull
The Reignwood website summarises its various businesses. The primary source of Yan Bin’s wealth appears under the Industries/FMCG tab. Reignwood has the distribution rights to Red Bull in China…or at least it thinks it does!
The Red Bull brand is co-owned by the Yoovidhya family which happens to top the Forbes Thailand’s 50 Richest list with a net worth of $36 billion.
The Yoovichya family owns 51% of Red Bull GmbH, the Austrian company which controls Red Bull globally. Btw, the 49% minority stake in Red Bull is now held by Mark Mateschitz, the son of Dietrich Mateschitz who passed away in 2022. Dietrich was the co-founder of Red Bull and built the Red Bull Racing Formula 1 team.
Billionaire-to-billionaire legal dispute….
The Thai co-owners of Red Bull believe that Reignwood’s exclusive right to produce and sell Red Bull in China expired in 2016 and have been in litigation with Reignwood since then. Reignwood maintains that it has a 50 year agreement which does not expire until 2045. Here is a tasty detail from an online report on the court case in 2022:
“One of the reasons why the authenticity of the “50-year-effective agreement” in the final-instance judgment of China’s Supreme People’s Court was questionable was that the 50-year cooperation agreement provided by Reignwood to the court was a copy.
Red Bull China suddenly announced in February that it had submitted the original “agreement” valid for 50 years to the judicial authorities.”
Pine Valley course, Beijing
Wentworth is not the only course in Reignwood’s portfolio. It owns the Pine Valley club in Beijing with 2 Jack Nicklaus courses dating back to the noughties. The members of Pine Valley NJ must be thrilled.
Btw, that’s a hotel, not the clubhouse! Not sure what the fancy bunker is doing there though….
You’ll find a description of the golf courses on the Reignwood site under the “Green & Wellness Industry” menu.
Ares Asia
Lastly, Money in Sport reports that Reignwood’s list of portfolio companies on its website is incomplete. It owns a 65.76% stake in a Hong Kong company called Ares Asia Limited. Yan Bin’s daughter is a Non-executive Director of Ares Asia having previously served as Chairman & CEO between 2018 to 2022.
Here’s a summary from the company’s review of operations: “The Group mainly sold coals originated from Indonesia and Philippines, to Mainland China and Vietnam.” Its revenues were $70 million in the year to 31 March 2024, up 33.8% on the previous year…clearly business is booming.
The company’s annual report helpfully provides an “Environmental, Social and Governance Report” with a climate change section:
Who knew that the quality of coal can be affected by climate change….