King Power: A Tale of Rise and Ruin

[Jon the Hat]

8 minutes ago, Sly said:

It’s more a case of the Thai airport aren’t making a lot, neither are King Power, so therefore it’s about sharing the pain. 

 

It’ll never return to lucrative market it was, therefore the KP cash cow has basically had its legs chopped off. 

its not impossible the numbers pick up again.

 

[Sly]

Just now, Jon the Hat said:

its not impossible the numbers pick up again.

 

Is it more a case of people aren’t buying as much in Duty free? The traveler numbers I read yesterday, actually had 2024 on par with 2019, as Thailand is still externally popular.

 

I guess if King Power navigate this storm, then the real challenge then comes when they have to bid for the contracts again, which all range from 2031 - 2033, depending on which airport. 
 

King Power moving out of those airports now would be challenging. However could a larger Duty Free business like Lotte, DFS, CDFG or Shilla mobilise quickly and take that space. They’ve got better buying power so could diversify staff if required.

 

CDFG sort of makes sense, as it could utilise its Chinese links to generate quick, higher end products and they’d no doubt have links to sort taxes etc out for shipping cheaper. 
 

Lotte is the one though that might throw money at it to make it work. They wanted it in 2019 and made noise about the bidding process. They’re also supported by the South Korean government. 
 

 

 

 

[Guest Lako42]

6 hours ago, CornwallFox said:

There are many factors to our downfall, having an incredible training ground isn't one of them.

How do you know?

[brookfox]

13 minutes ago, Lako42 said:

How do you know?

Because all the best clubs in the world have great training facilities and it doesn’t impact them. If it has contributed to a lackadaisical attitude that’s on the people who work there not the facility. It’s just buildings at the end of the day and most successful businesses have great buildings to attract talent, inspire people and provide them with the facilities needed to do their job. You then need to fill it with the right people and culture to benefit from the facilities, that’s probably where our problem is not Seagrave per se.

[Guest Lako42]

3 minutes ago, brookfox said:

Because all the best clubs in the world have great training facilities and it doesn’t impact them. If it has contributed to a lackadaisical attitude that’s on the people who work there not the facility. It’s just buildings at the end of the day and most successful businesses have great buildings to attract talent, inspire people and provide them with the facilities needed to do their job. You then need to fill it with the right people and culture to benefit from the facilities, that’s probably where our problem is not Seagrave per se.

The building is completely useless without the people and vice versa. 

 

The two things impact each other and people have already spoken of the impact the facility has had on mentality and other aspects of performance.

 

You can't blame a building as such, but it does have an impact, good or bad. 

[Happy Fox]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2025/06/25/leicester-owners-thai-empire-in-serious-financial-trouble/?recomm_id=12a942a9-cda2-458e-9329-0c40f0002a7e

 

 

[Happy Fox]

Good to see these articles coming out, put more pressure on those charlatans to sell up.

[RoboFox]

7 hours ago, Jon the Hat said:

its not impossible the numbers pick up again.

 

The customers are there. They're just not interested in Duty Free. 

 

Transient market issues are of course part of it but the cornerstone of duty free sales are starting to evaporate with generational shifts in consumer behaviour. 

 

IMO this is a massive failure of King Power to diversify their business model to adapt. Pure complacency.

 

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

[The_77]

6 hours ago, RoboFox said:

The customers are there. They're just not interested in Duty Free. 

 

Transient market issues are of course part of it but the cornerstone of duty free sales are starting to evaporate with generational shifts in consumer behaviour. 

 

IMO this is a massive failure of King Power to diversify their business model to adapt. Pure complacency.

 

Sounds familiar, doesn't it?

The LCFC online shop has not been able to accept payments from the States for a while now and they don’t have an ETA on when that will be fixed.
 

Both entities are a total mess. As King Power drifts further into crisis, I can’t see things getting any better for the club. 

[Richmondfox]

13 hours ago, Sly said:

Is it more a case of people aren’t buying as much in Duty free? The traveler numbers I read yesterday, actually had 2024 on par with 2019, as Thailand is still externally popular.

 

I guess if King Power navigate this storm, then the real challenge then comes when they have to bid for the contracts again, which all range from 2031 - 2033, depending on which airport. 
 

King Power moving out of those airports now would be challenging. However could a larger Duty Free business like Lotte, DFS, CDFG or Shilla mobilise quickly and take that space. They’ve got better buying power so could diversify staff if required.

 

CDFG sort of makes sense, as it could utilise its Chinese links to generate quick, higher end products and they’d no doubt have links to sort taxes etc out for shipping cheaper. 
 

Lotte is the one though that might throw money at it to make it work. They wanted it in 2019 and made noise about the bidding process. They’re also supported by the South Korean government. 
 

 

 

 

Foreign companies wouldn’t get the contract, they would have to be 51% majority Thai shareholders,

which is worked around by hiring proxy shareholders. 
 

It seems like a case of hard ball rather than total impending doom for KP.  They renewed a contract when things were going well.  Now things aren't as flush, the contract isn’t sustainable for KP but AOT don’t care even though something is better than nothing.  
 

https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2025/06/16/aot-forms-task-force-after-king-power-requests-contract-exit/

 

KP make up 17% of AOTs revenue, 1 billion baht revenue to the ministry of finance who are also shareholders in AOT. 

 

[Lambert09]

14 hours ago, Sly said:

Is it more a case of people aren’t buying as much in Duty free? The traveler numbers I read yesterday, actually had 2024 on par with 2019, as Thailand is still externally popular.

 

I guess if King Power navigate this storm, then the real challenge then comes when they have to bid for the contracts again, which all range from 2031 - 2033, depending on which airport. 
 

King Power moving out of those airports now would be challenging. However could a larger Duty Free business like Lotte, DFS, CDFG or Shilla mobilise quickly and take that space. They’ve got better buying power so could diversify staff if required.

 

CDFG sort of makes sense, as it could utilise its Chinese links to generate quick, higher end products and they’d no doubt have links to sort taxes etc out for shipping cheaper. 
 

Lotte is the one though that might throw money at it to make it work. They wanted it in 2019 and made noise about the bidding process. They’re also supported by the South Korean government. 
 

 

 

 

It’s easy for king power to blame less tourism when it’s obvious the drop is not that large. 
 

What the real issue is, is that they made a terrible deal. They set an unrealistic threshold because they needed to guarantee their monopoly but didn’t analyze the market properly. Essentially if they weren’t smashing it at their highest levels they’d be struggling to make good money from it…. Incompetence as per. 

[Claudio Fannieri]

1 minute ago, Lambert09 said:

It’s easy for king power to blame less tourism when it’s obvious the drop is not that large. 
 

What the real issue is, is that they made a terrible deal. They set an unrealistic threshold because they needed to guarantee their monopoly but didn’t analyze the market properly. Essentially if they weren’t smashing it at their highest levels they’d be struggling to make good money from it…. Incompetence as per. 

Very similar to budgeting for European football and top 8 finishes then getting relegated, the similarities are frightening and just shows how inept the board/ownership are. 

[Lambert09]

4 minutes ago, Claudio Fannieri said:

Very similar to budgeting for European football and top 8 finishes then getting relegated, the similarities are frightening and just shows how inept the board/ownership are. 

Absolutely spot on. Assuming the best is always going to happen. 

I think his entitled upbringing has disconnected him from what work it takes to actually achieve those results. He’s a lovely guy but seems to live in rainbows & butterflies 

 

Edited 26 June 2025 by Lambert09

[cityfanlee23]

58 minutes ago, Lambert09 said:

Absolutely spot on. Assuming the best is always going to happen. 

I think his entitled upbringing has disconnected him from what work it takes to actually achieve those results. He’s a lovely guy but seems to live in rainbows & butterflies 

 

For years we have been watching the club being decimated from the inside out, but even though on the pitch it was doom and gloom, the fact we had such a big brand backing the club it somewhat felt like we had a bit of a security blanket, it's okay, we might be in a mess but we have money.... Turns out the entire Empire was being run the same way the club was. 

It really is sad to see, I'm not a huge fan of generational wealth on this scale, but to completely decimate a multi billion pound company that had a monopoly over an entire industry is wild. The industry got hit hard, but by the looks of it, they carried on spending as if nothing had changed. You'd think with more and more people visiting Thailand year on year since covid this would be the best year for the company of the last 5, but instead they are facing record losses and are potentially unable to service airport contracts worth multiple hundreds of millions. 

With the mess KP is in right now and Top stepping down as CEO, I really can't see us being much of a priority, bare minimum at best. KP need to sell up. 

[cityfanlee23]

There were big rumours that the Walton family (owners of Walmart) were willing to spend £100m on Wednesday, but Chansiri being who he is (and set to lose £50m+ as part of that deal) won't sell. 
If they want to buy a Championship club, right now I'd welcome them with open arms. 

[Bluearmyfox28]

1 hour ago, cityfanlee23 said:

There were big rumours that the Walton family (owners of Walmart) were willing to spend £100m on Wednesday, but Chansiri being who he is (and set to lose £50m+ as part of that deal) won't sell. 
If they want to buy a Championship club, right now I'd welcome them with open arms. 

Even in our current mess we are worth more than £100m.

[splinterdream]

12 hours ago, Lako42 said:

How do you know?

Our downfall came from giving Rodgers a contract we couldn't get out of, giving sub standard players over inflated contracts so when we wanted to, we couldn't move them on, everything going stale with squad and management, amd then coming to a PSR dead end. Absolutely nothing to do with Seagrave.

[cityfanlee23]

25 minutes ago, Bluearmyfox28 said:

Even in our current mess we are worth more than £100m.

I’d say so yeah, but that was just the amount Walton’s were offering for Wednesday, they can afford us easily

[Jon the Hat]

6 hours ago, Lambert09 said:

It’s easy for king power to blame less tourism when it’s obvious the drop is not that large. 
 

What the real issue is, is that they made a terrible deal. They set an unrealistic threshold because they needed to guarantee their monopoly but didn’t analyze the market properly. Essentially if they weren’t smashing it at their highest levels they’d be struggling to make good money from it…. Incompetence as per. 

They had very little choice in the matter at the time.  Lots of politics involved, and it was not acceptable to be seen as taking too large a share when the other party is the state.  They had a decent deal, then the AOT saw them making "too much profit" and demanded an increase.  KP were making a fortune so not well placed to deny it, and political pressure saw them essentially forced to accept the deal which they are now rightly going back and saying doesn't work anymore.

[Jon the Hat]

3 hours ago, cityfanlee23 said:

I’d say so yeah, but that was just the amount Walton’s were offering for Wednesday, they can afford us easily

The statement from SW seems to contradict that - offered 40M plus some addons if and when they make the premier league.  I doubt he can afford to accept that, probably more debt against the club personally that he needs to repay.

[Winstonthedog]

On 26/06/2025 at 04:11, Sly said:

To put this into perspective.

 

 

If King Power call in that loan of £100m to balance the books in Thailand for instance, the quickest way to generate cash would be sell players.

 

If we went on a fire sale …. We’d need to sell half the squad to cover that bill.

 

Then we’d still owe Harry Maquires Australian bank £120m+ as well. 

If we need to pay to sack RVN, that isn’t happening. The delay could be dealing with the impending issue in Thailand. Therefore stop and halt all non critical spending at Leicester.
 

We’d be playing with kids if it reached that point, as we’d have no squads. 
 

Jokes aside, we then come to next summer, where we owe King Power a further £23m for the stadium …. How are we funding that? 
 

 

The incompetence of how the club is being run ..... should be a example to all other clubs of .... HOW NOT TO RUN YOUR FOOTBALL CLUB 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

They're finished. The longer they stick around the lower we sink. It's about how much of the club we can salvage now. 

[Happy Fox]

11 minutes ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

They're finished. The longer they stick around the lower we sink. It's about how much of the club we can salvage now. 

 

They are finished, it's just of matter of time now. We are more attractive prospect than Sheffield Wednesday for a new incoming owner. Hope it happens soon.

[VLC86]

https://www.nationthailand.com/business/corporate/40051815

[VLC86]

2 minutes ago, VLC86 said:

https://www.nationthailand.com/business/corporate/40051815

Makes you wonder what they are planning to sell during the 8 months to be able to pay it back… I suspect it’s not Larb sticks.