The new owner has made no secret that he bought QPR not only for the love of football but as a sponsorship vehicle
Tony Fernandes said with a little understatement on becoming Queens Park Rangers' majority owner that he has "a communicative style", and supporters will justifiably expect their club to be more approachable now, after the high-handedness of the Bernie Ecclestone and Flavio Briatore roadshow. Fernandes, who, with three partners, built AirAsia from a loss-making company with two planes to Malaysia's version of EasyJet, has that modern businessman's touch of talking to people and an appreciation of publicity, for himself ? complete with famous Twitter account ? and for his businesses.
Expressing all the right sentiments to soothe QPR fans' sullen resentment over the price hikes that immediately followed May's promotion to the Premier League, Fernandes, in an interview with the Guardian, was not all soft soap, however. He made no secret that he was motivated to buy QPR for �45m not only for the love of football, but as a sponsorship, marketing vehicle for AirAsia, where he remains a significant shareholder, and Malaysian Airlines, in which he and a partner more recently bought a 20% stake.
"Many people do not realise the power of sport to market a brand," said Fernandes, whose Lotus Formula One team is sponsored by AirAsia, which also sponsored last year's British Grand Prix and, for a time, Manchester United. "You can spend �40m on advertising and have nothing like the same effect. Around the world, everybody watches Premier League football."
Through building up AirAsia, which has brought him decoration in several countries including a CBE here, his Formula One escapades and steady profile raising, Fernandes has become a public figure, whose career and success story have been serially told. Born in Kuala Lumpur, where he played the piano at the tupperware parties and conventions that made his mother's fortune, he was educated in England, at the Epsom College boarding school, then the London School of Economics.
He qualified as an accountant and worked in the music industry for 14 years, including for Time Warner. He did not agree with the AOL merger in 2000, and left the company to do the deal that made his real fortune ? buying the debt-laden AirAsia, with three partners, for a token one Malaysian ringgit in 2001.
He said he mortgaged his home and had just �250,000 to invest initially, but he and the partners reshaped AirAsia into a low-cost airline flying, according to its most recent annual report, 18 million passengers to 65 cities in Asia and around the world, turning over �790m and making a pre-tax profit of �200m. Tune Air, the company Fernandes and his partners formed to buy AirAsia, still owns 26%, and he said he sold shares in the airline to raise the cash to buy into QPR. Kamarudin Meranun, a co-investor, who will join the QPR board, is a longstanding Malaysian partner with Fernandes.
Eager to become involved in football, Fernandes tried twice to take over West Ham United, first in 2009 when it was being run by the insolvent Icelandic bank Straumur, then as recently as June. The club's co-owner, David Sullivan, rejected his offer as "derisory" and criticised him for talking about it on Twitter ? Fernandes claims he was already in negotiations and tweeted about it to clarify that he was interested to "hundreds" of people who were asking him. When it was clear there was no deal, he said he was approached by Ecclestone, who has nursed an apparently semi?detached attitude to QPR after taking over as Briatore's backer in 2007.
Amit Bhatia, who won respect from fans during his time as chairman before resigning in May after the price hikes and Ecclestone's rejection of his own takeover offer, will become involved again, and his father-in-law, the Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, is retaining his 33% stake. Bhatia, considered a smart young Indian executive, and Fernandes, aspiring to be something of a Malaysian Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the EasyJet founder, are said to have struck up a rapport and intend to run QPR efficiently with a modern, enlightened touch.
"I'm lucky," Fernandes said. "I love football, I love the Premier League, I am investing in something I love, and it is also good for my business."
Many, though, have arrived at Premier League clubs similarly proclaiming it a dream come true, then been taken aback at the scale of money required for the wages of players to have a hope of surviving. Fernandes, a relentless enthusiast who was beaming on Thursday, will hope his experience in football will always be a happy one.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/david-conn-inside-sport-blog/2011/aug/18/qpr-tony-fernandes
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