In the past he's told different audiences contradictory things about the way he spends his time, according to what he thinks they want to hear. He certainly gets involved with lots of different things with 'interesting' business models, in which debt, accounting tricks and PR play a big part.
Yes, Ellers, that is very interesting. He is right to concentrate on his flagship company. Hopefully, the new co-chairman can oversee things OK at QPR?
Exit plan part 3 rolled out This is about rebuilding TF to the public because he has been really foolish at our club Business plan was to copy the model of cheap airlines borrow a ****e load of other people's money and make a load from it ... If that's something to praise then good for him I see a lot of his projects as total failures
Harsh word in my opinion. I would not mind being a failure as TF! I personally think he is a very succesful entrepereneur and admire him for that. However, I envisage and personally agree that "project QPR" not gone fully to plan. Today QPR is not his no 1 business priority. As a result, it is best delegated.
To be fair, he has been let down by an awful lot of people, but he has been often naive with the running of the club?
Fernandes indirectly owns 20% of Air Asia, though Tune Group (which is a private company). Air Asia shares, never very highly priced, have fallen in value by 40% so far this year. So I'd guess that Tony's personal (on paper) worth is now considerably lower that the estimated $530m from last year, especially given that he got rid of Caterham at a massive loss, has ongoing and huge losses and non interest earning loans to QPR. I'm sure his Tune Hotels chain is profitable but this is not a big margin business at the budget end when you have city centre locations, and he is considering offloading Tune Insurance. The increasingly slim chance of building some flats at Old Oak may be his big hope for the future. Smoke and mirrors springs to mind.
sincerely hoping Air Asia can sought it out but if he runs it like our club, one has to wonder how he is still flying. Also hope he doesn't do a ' Mike Ashley' and shun us. Where is a crystal ball when you need one!
i am not sure about anything with TF at present. i have stuck up for him in the past and really want him to come good. We need him to succeed as this will only be good for us at QPR. However taking a back seat and disappearing into the shadows, by that i mean less twitter rubbish/ not talking QPR as much and now concentrating on Air Asia could be a good thing for us but also start alarm bells ringing. Not really much we can do anyway. He says he is committed to QPR and i hope he is.
In what way do you think he is a very successful entrepreneur? Flavour of the month? Right place right time? Consistent ability to build a business successfully from scratch or a one off? You'll have to justify that in the same way that investors no longer judge a good investment manager on the basis that he made a few lucky choices during a bullmarket and therefore made a slightly bigger profit for his investors than everyone else did.
He built a successful airline company from scratch. That for me is not an everyday feat and I personally classify it as an entrepreneurial achievement.
Running a football club is completely different to running a business (from what i have read and heard on TV/Radio). Before we knock TF remember in his business world he is thought of very highly and is well respected. I just think that he had too many people advising him and tried to run the same philosophy as his airline. The only problem is was that he had Harry Redknapp advising and that idiot wouldn't even get the lowest job in his airlines.
As Yorkie says, he got lucky with timing. His involvement with Caterham was, frankly, disastrous and his involvement with QPR is going the same way. He built up his airline following other successful 'sell 'em cheap' airlines at just the right time in that area, he's now under pressure in that business as well and we will now see whether he is a businessman or someone who just happened to be successful when it was virtually impossible to fail...
That is an extremely concerning report which makes me question TF's liquidity and ability (at least in the short to medium term) to continue his element of financial support of the R's. Clearly, it seems to me he has spread his abilities too thin and should concentrate his efforts on his core business. His footballing experiment/venture has failed magnificently and I would not be at all surprised to see TF bail out.
Regret to say I find it difficult to see how it can be profitable. I stay regularly at the one in Newcastle. Fabulous location just under the Tyne Bridge on the Quayside. It is ridiculously cheap. Now I understand the concept of loss leaders as much as the next man but it is still ridiculously cheap. Almost a year after opening and shows no sign of .ever being sold out unlike most of the decent hotels in Newcastle. It's a listed building and the internal renovations must have cost a bob or two. There is a large enough market in professionals visiting Newcastle regularly for business who would be attracted by this hotel's location yet all the marketing emphasis goes on students backpackers and cheap cheerful beds for the night for stag weekends. Shrewd entrepreneur? We all want good wifi for free but being able to get onto Twitter and Facebook for free is not the priority that Tune Hotels seem to think when booking a hotel room for the night.. Cheap and cheerful is how he made his fortune. He chucked that philosophy out of the window at Loftus Road. However cheap and cheerful is not necessarily the right model for all commodities. Time will tell whether it is any more successful.than his other failed business ventures.
Never had the pleasure of staying at one of these places to be honest, and it is difficult to track down the accounts. I thought low margin based on the business model, but if they are not full you are probably right. By his own admission Fernandes is a 'risk taker'. Obviously worked for him initially with the airline, but his luck/judgement have clearly deserted him recently. 4 years of poorly judged gambles on managers, players, facilities developments and we are worse off than where we started, and we feel a lot worse because we were promised so much.
