REYNOLDS INVESTS IN SPORTSWEAR MAKER AS JAY-Z’S COMPANY STARTS MERGER TALKS
▶ Kanye West drops selling price of his Malibu home while Will Ferrell buys a ‘large’ stake in the second-tier English football team Leeds United, reports Deepthi Nair
A few days after buying a minority interest in Club Necaxa, a Mexican football team, Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds led an investment round for Homage, an Ohio vintage-inspired sports and licensed apparel company.
Homage announced a strategic investment of growth capital from Maximum Effort Investments, an investment advisory firm co-founded by the Deadpool actor, according to investor database Crunchbase.
Maximum Effort Investments will serve as the lead investor for this round, the company said. The terms of the investment were not disclosed.
Homage plans to use this round of investment to expand its production capacity and operating team, invest in technology and expand its licensed business with new and existing partnerships.
As part of the deal, a representative of Maximum Effort Investments will join the Homage board of directors and Maximum Effort will contribute a “variety of strategic and creative resources”, Homage said.
Reynolds, 47, has a net worth of $350 million, according to estimates by wealth tracker Celebrity Net Worth.
He was appointed as Yas Island Abu Dhabi’s new chief island officer last month and will be responsible for promoting the destination to an international audience.
The vast majority of the Canadian actor’s net worth comes from his entrepreneurial endeavours, which includes Aviation American beverage brand and Mint Mobile, the website said.
Last year, he sold his stake in prepaid budget wireless provider Mint Mobile to telecoms operator T-Mobile US as part of a larger cash-andstock deal.
His stake in Mint was about 25 per cent, Fortune magazine reported. He purchased it in 2019 in what he billed as a way to make technology more accessible.
In February 2018, Reynolds acquired an “unspecified minority” ownership stake in Aviation American for an undisclosed amount, according to Celebrity Net Worth. In 2020, beverage company Diageo bought Aviation American for an initial payment of $335 million, The Guardian reported. Depending on how the brand performs over the next 10 years, he could receive an additional $275 million because of how the deal is structured.
In 2018, Reynolds founded Maximum Effort, a film production company and digital marketing agency with George Dewey. Two years later, he teamed up with fellow actor Rob McElhenney to buy Wrexham, the oldest football club in Wales.
Reynolds has also invested in the Renault-owned Alpine Formula One team through Maximum Effort. Last year, he and McElhenney joined a group of investors who took a 24 per cent equity stake in the F1 team.
A significant portion of his wealth also comes from his roles as a leading actor.
After the success of the Deadpool franchise, Reynolds is in the category of actors who can earn $20 million upfront to star in a movie, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Jay-Z
Marcy Venture Partners, the company co-founded by hip-hop star Jay-Z, is in advanced talks to merge with the investment arm of Pendulum Holdings, Bloomberg has reported.
A merger between the two California-based companies, which would have more than $1 billion in assets under management in a combination, is close to being finalised, the report said.
Marcy Venture Partners was co-founded in 2018 by Jay-Z, along with Jay Brown and Larry Marcus.
Pendulum was co-founded in 2019 by husband and wife Robbie and D’Rita Robinson, and has invested in companies such as Chinese food brand Fly by Jing, Founders Table Restaurant Group and co-working and warehouse provider Saltbox, Bloomberg reported.
Mr Robinson previously worked as a financial adviser to Barack Obama.
Jay-Z, whose real name is Shawn Carter and is married to Beyonce, has a net worth of $2 billion, according to Celebrity Net Worth estimates.
The 54-year-old makes investments through Marcy Venture Partners, which is named after the housing project where he grew up.
An active investor, his assets include entertainment company Roc Nation, which he founded in 2008. He also co-founded US clothing brand Rocawear with Damon Dash in 1999, which they sold to the Iconix Brand Group in 2007 for a reported $204 million.
“He (Jay-Z) maintains a small stake in [Rocawear] today and is involved in the brand’s marketing, development and licensing,” Celebrity Net Worth said.
Through his Marcy Venture Partners company, he was also an early investor in ride-sharing app Uber and has stakes in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Swedish oat milk brand Oatly and non-fungible token marketplace Bitski.
In 2021, Jay-Z, who became the world’s first billionaire rapper in 2019, sold a 50 per cent stake of Armand de Brignac beverage brand to luxury retailer LVMH at a valuation of $640 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Also in 2021, he sold Tidal to Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey’s Square for $300 million, about six years after buying the music streaming service for $56 million.
Jay-Z and Beyonce co-own a fine art collection worth about $100 million and a multimillion-dollar property portfolio, which includes a $26 million home in East Hampton, New York, an $88 million estate in Bel Air, California, and a $6.8 million penthouse in New York.
Together, the celebrity couple also own a $4 million private island in the Bahamas.
A significant portion of Jay-Z’s wealth stems from his music career, responsible for an estimated one billion streams annually on the back of more than 41 million album sales that include Reasonable Doubt, The Black Album and American Gangster. In any given year, he earns between $70 million and $80 million from touring, business ventures, music royalties and other assets, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Jay-Z and Beyonce were named pop music’s first billionaire couple in 2017. The pair perform together and have three children.
Will Ferrell
US actor and writer Will Ferrell is the latest Hollywood star to invest in an English football club, the PA news agency has reported.
The American actor, 56, is reported to have purchased a “large” stake in the owner of Leeds United football club, 49ers Enterprises, joining the likes of Gladiator actor Russell Crowe and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps.
Ferrell is also co-owner of Los Angeles FC football team.
Leeds United are in the Championship – the second tier of English football – but still have an opportunity to be promoted to the Premier League via the playoffs.
Ferrell, with an estimated net worth of $160 million, starred in comedy sketch show Saturday Night Live between 1995 and 2002.
He is best known for his comedy roles in films such as Elf, Anchorman and Blades Of Glory. He was also a part of the cast of blockbuster Barbie alongside Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
At the peak of his career in the early to late 2000s, Ferrell was one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood and consistently earned $20 million a movie, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
His earnings are a mix of lower base salary and back-end profit participation points, the website reported.
Kanye West
American rapper and fashion designer Kanye West, now called Ye, has dropped the price of his property in Malibu, California, to $39 million after buying it for $57 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth.
He purchased the Tadao Ando-designed beachfront home for $57.3 million in an off-market deal in 2021, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ye, 46, first listed the mansion at the beginning of this year with an asking price of $54 million, according the celebrity wealth tracker.
Buyers will need to be prepared to spend “several million dollars” to make the house liveable after Ye’s construction projects, which were never completed, according to the listing agent.
The rapper has a net worth of $400 million, the website estimates.
In 2022, Forbes revised his net worth down from $1.9 billion after sportswear retailer adidas ended a nine-year partnership over his anti-Semitic remarks.
The deal for his Yeezy line of trainers was worth $1.5 billion, calculated on a multiple of annual earnings.
Other brands and companies that snapped ties with him include Gap, CAA and Balenciaga, Forbes reported.
His fortune is now derived from cash, property, the Yeezy brand, his music catalogue and a 5 per cent stake in former wife Kim Kardashian’s Skims shapewear brand.
His real estate portfolio is worth about $100 million.
It includes property in Chicago and the state of Wyoming, as well as other homes in California.
Ye’s music catalogue is worth $110 million and he earns between $150 million and $200 million in Yeezy royalties every year, according to Celebrity Net Worth.