Football League World
·22. Februar 2025
How wealthy the Coventry City owner Doug King is compared to the EFL's richest clubs
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Yahoo sportsFootball League World
·22. Februar 2025
FLW have looked at Doug King's net worth compared to other owners across the Championship, League One and League Two
Doug King has been the sole owner of Coventry City for over two years now, and his main focus is on taking the club back to the Premier League after a turbulent few years under previous chiefs Sisu Capital Limited.
The Sky Blues were once a staple in the top-flight in the 1990s, but suffered relegation in 2001 and were regulars in the second-tier before Sisu took over in 2007 with the club close to administration.
Coventry were supposed to return to their former glory under their Mayfair-based hedge fund owners, but instead sunk as low as League Two before Mark Robins was appointed in 2017 and miraculously took them back to the second-tier within three seasons.
King took over as majority shareholder of the club in early January 2023, and was the new sole owner by the end of that same month. The club have progressed pretty well since his arrival, and are now perennial play-off chasers after a loss in the final in the same year he took over.
He has been able to steady the ship at the CBS Arena, and has invested money into the squad to allow them to compete at the top level year-on-year, while being unafraid to make big decisions that will heavily dictate the club's future in the Championship for years to come.
King is a savvy businessman that knows how to operate a company at the highest level, and his journey in business has led him to accrue a current estimated net worth of $400 million, or around £317m.
That is certainly a sizeable figure in general, but is dwarfed by some of the net worths of other owners in the Football League, and particularly the Championship. Queens Park Rangers' owner Lakshmi Mittal, for example, is the richest in the second-tier, with his net worth believed to be over £13 billion right now.
The current second-richest owners in the EFL are actually believed to be overseeing proceedings at League One outfit Barnsley. Neerav Parekh, Julie Anne Quay, Chien Lee and the Cryne Family are believed to have a combined wealth of around £7.2 billion, with Parekh hailing from a family that boasts a combined net worth of £11.6 billion through part-ownership of India-based sealant company Pidilite Industries.
In third place are Championship high-flyers Leeds United, with the American-based York Family, who also own 49ers Enterprises alongside the Whites, thought to be worth around £5.3 billion right now. Stoke City are not too far behind as the fourth-richest, with club owner and bet365 co-founder and co-CEO John Coates believed to boast a current net worth of £3.6 billion.
The Championship understandably produces the majority of the wealthiest owners in the EFL, with it being the highest league in the pyramid just below the Premier League, and Coventry owner King currently sits around mid-table in terms of net worth compared to the rest of the second-tier's owners.
Those of similar wealth in the Championship to King are Derby County owner David Clowes, who has an estimated net worth of around £350 million, as well as Burnley majority shareholder and chairman Alan Pace, who is believed to boast a wealth of over £190 million.
Lowestoft-born King is a businessman who has had his irons in numerous fires over the years while building his wealth. Interestingly enough, he revealed upon his arrival at Coventry that he had actually grown up as a Norwich City supporter.
King graduated with a degree in Mathematical Engineering from Loughborough University, and as a Bachelor of Science, he started his career with food company Cargill in 1990, and was based in Switzerland as a manager of oil trading between 1997 and 2000.
After 10 years, he left to become head of oil trading for Crown Resources, then also worked as a consultant for Catequil Asset Management in New York between 2003 and 2004. He founded Aisling Analytics that same year alongside business partner Michael Coleman, which later changed its name to RCMA Capital LLP.
He has been the CEO of RCMA Capital ever since, and the chairman of RCMA Group since 2010. The company is the investment manager of The Merchant Commodity Fund, and say they provide 'a fundamental approach to investing in commodity markets based on a detailed understanding of supply and demand dynamics and an extensive knowledge of the real world.'
RCMA Capital LLP usually oversees investments of over $400 million, but that is not the only business he currently operates in. King has also been CEO of Yelo Enterprises, a company utilising renewable energy to process oilseed, since April 2020.