Stan Kroenke, and his wife, Ann Walton Kroenke, heir to the Walmart fortune, have purchased a second luxury condo in the Maybourne Beverly Hills for a record price of $23.8m.

Maybourne Beverly Hills
Maybourne Beverly Hills

The 4,900-square-foot apartment in the complex where the Kroenke’s already own another unit, sits in the prestigious Golden Triangle section of Beverly Hills, bounded by Santa Monica Boulevard, Wilshire Boulevard and Crescent Drive.

It also includes the famous Rodeo Drive shopping district with names such as Breitling, Henry Jaques, Gucci, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, G-Star RAW, Prada, Alexander McQuee, Hermes (not the delivery people), Rolex, Tom Ford, Jimmy Choo, and many others all have flagship stores.

Rodeo Drive
Rodeo Drive

Kroenke bought his first apartment there 10 years ago.

Back in 2016, Stan Kroenke splashed $725m on the world’s highest-priced private estate when he purchased the Waggoner Ranch.

The property spans some 800 miles and is stretched out over six counties in north Texas and is said to be the largest ranch behind one fence.

An iconic ranch around three-hours drive from Dallas, the Waggoner was founded in 1849 and this is the first time it has been sold since it was established.

“This is an incredible opportunity and an even greater responsibility,” Kroenke said in a statement. “We are honoured to assume ownership of the Waggoner – a true Texas and American landmark.”

At the time of purchase, the ranch employed 120 people and 56,000 acres had been developed for oil with a further 450,000 untapped.

There are around 1,200 wells on the property and it produces approximately 35,000 barrels of oil a month.

You can see the ranch in the video below:

Stan Kroenke one of the stingiest billionaires in world

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 29: Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke on the sidelines before playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 29, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 29: Los Angeles Rams owner Stan Kroenke on the sidelines before playing the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 29, 2019 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images)

Stan Kroenke may be worth a whole heap of money but that doesn’t mean he does anything good with it and in 2018 he was named one of the worst when it comes to charitable giving.

An investigation by Forbes in 2018 found that the Arsenal owner, who was then said to be worth a sickening $8.5bn, had donated a total of $1m to charity over his lifetime.

While, of course, $1m is a lot of money to most normal people, it is pennies for a billionaire, especially when compared to some others who have given away close to $1bn of their own money over their lifetimes.

Many don’t seem to realise the difference between 1 million and 1 billion, but this might help – If I ask you to wait for me for one million seconds, you’ll be hanging around for 11-and-a-half days. But if I ask you to wait one billion seconds, you won’t see me again for over 35 years.

To put it another way, the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.

If you earned £40k-per-year for 20 years, you would have to give pennies over that period to give the same percentage as Stan Kroenke.

Kroenke, however, loves to take from the people, receiving (or demanding) state handouts to increase his profit margins.

You can read more about that below.

Forbes noted that it was possible that Kroenke donates anonymously and that his spokespeople did not respond to a request for clarification.

2018

The Amsterdam Tavern stands next to a vacant lot in St. Louis, but for the city’s football supporters, it’s the place to be.

who owns premier league 1

Its black and red ‘Dam exterior, reminiscent of Manchester United, opens up to a world of football as you are greeted by shirts from around the globe. It is here that St Louis’ Arsenal fans come to watch matches, even if that means being here before breakfast for English lunchtime kick-offs.

Fans of all clubs watch their matches here but a noticeable trend is developing – more Spurs fans are emerging.

The reasoning is simple and has nothing to do with a personal preference for Tottenham over Arsenal. It’s all to do with the city’s hatred for the Arsenal owner, Stan Kroenke.

The people in St Louis don’t care that the value of the Rams has doubled since Kroenke moved them to LA any more than Arsenal fans would care about the value of the club if he moved Arsenal to Athens, a comparable distance between the Rams former home and their new one. For Rams fans, Kroenke is enemy number one and if that means actively supporting the rivals of any of his teams, that’s what they are going to do.

It’s hard to blame them.

They watched Kroenke hold St Louis to ransom before upending the team, moving it over 1,800 miles away to a tax-payer funded stadium that removed the cheapest seats to fit in more corporate boxes. The poorest people, who are helping to pay for his mega stadium through their taxes that could go to schools or transport or healthcare, are priced out of attending games at the new complex.

I thought it unlikely that Kroenke would move Arsenal. That sort of thing just doesn’t happen in England, but that was before the Super League news. I thought, ‘where better than London to be’, at least pre-Brexit? But the way Kroenke does business, the power he is willing to wield over local councils to extract public funding that is desperately needed elsewhere, should have served as a warning not just to Arsenal fans but to the whole of football in England – that was where we are heading.

This is the American sports ownership model and it is firmly embedded in the Premier League now. It’s not just Kroenke who has form in this area, Manchester United’s owners, the Glazers, wrote the playbook on how to extract public money for private profit. There are five American owners in the Premier League now.who owns premier league 1

who owns premier league 2
via Daily Mail, 2018

Arsenal funded the building of the Emirates through sponsorship deals and loans. Unlike Tottenham, they did not try to take any public money. It’s likely that the stadium will be expanded and upgraded at some point in the not-too-distant future and while the previous shareholders had the foresight to protect the club from being loaded with buy-out debt the way Manchester United was so shackled, I’m not sure they would have anticipated this sort of business practice.

By exacting money from local councils, billionaire sports owners are loading a lot of the risk of stadium development on to the government while they privatise the profits for themselves. Government intervention is desperately needed to stop this sort of thing becoming a regular feature of football in England but it’s hard to see that happening, especially with a Tory government that has allegedly shown itself willing to turn a blind eye to up to 14 murders on UK soil to stay sweet with Russia and its Oligarchs.

from russia with blood

“I detest how Stan Kroenke is affecting my life,” says an Amsterdam Tavern regular, identified only as ‘Mike’ in James’s Montague’s excellent ‘The Billionaire’s Club’. “Not only with Arsenal but with the Rams in so many ways.

“I hate the lack of control we have over things in the face of this billionaire. There’s loads of Tottenham fans now. Sure, there were a lot of Americans who played for Spurs. That’s is one reason. But the other if you are a St Louisan…well, you’re not going to pick the one with Kroenke. You’ll pick his mortal enemy.”

Louisan Mike has supported Arsenal for 20 years and was speaking in 2015, three years before Stan Kroenke took full control of the club. But he warned this was coming. “It is something a lot of Britons are not familiar with. When the Glazers took over [Manchester United], there was a lot of shock that private stock owners were getting enriched. And that is just America. That is going to be the new future for English football; a lot of private enrichment.

“At least the slave-owning emirates and the mob-tied Russian billionaires spend money on their club to get results,” he joked. “The man ripping apart the fabric of America with Wal-Mart is doing nothing for the team.”

Ah yes. Wal-Mart. The family business of Stan’s wife that he is involved with that took out life insurance policies on its employees where Wal-Mart were the sole beneficiary. This is called ‘Dead Peasants’ Insurance’, a practice they stopped in 2000 because it was ‘costing them money’ according to Florida State University radio but not before they were sued for millions. Here are another 10 reasons Walmart is the worst company in America.

“Despite the Walton family’s apparent championing of small government policies,” Montague writes, “Wal-Mart has famously become a huge recipient of government subsidies, dubbed by critics as ‘Corporate Welfare’: by paying rock-bottom wages to its 1.4 million staff, the state effectively has to subsidise them with food stamps, housing, and other benefits.

“A 2014 report by the political advocacy group Americans for Tax Fairness placed that figure at a staggering $6.2 billion. Wal-Mart’s employment practices became a campaign issue during the 2016 American presidential election primaries, and that perhaps explains why Kroenke backed Clinton [against Trump].”

Many Arsenal fans are mourning the loss of the club as an entity that was answerable to them, but the truth is that day came and went a long time ago. Stan Kroenke entered Arsenal’s universe and this was always his endgame. As it tends to, greed won out over sentimentality for the Arsenal board who were meant to be custodians of the club. It turns out they were only human.

As Montague and Mike both point out, there are no good guys anymore. “It is either an emirate or a dodgy Russian former Soviet-enriched billionaire.

“Which way do you want to be ethically compromised?”

Welcome to modern football, Arsenal. We’ve been waiting on you.

Stan Kronke set to profit from public once again

In 2019, Stan Kroenke won a legal fight that allowed him to purchase land owned by the public and valued at over $12m for just $1 in 2024.

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 27: Stan Kroenke makes an appearance ahead of the game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CA – SEPTEMBER 27: Stan Kroenke makes an appearance ahead of the game between the Los Angeles Rams and the Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on September 27, 2018 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

According to STL Today, “The deal that allowed the Rams to leave St. Louis has now given the team a parting gift — its 27-acre practice facility in Earth City, worth at least $12.7 million.

“An arbitration panel ruled on Wednesday that an option in the Rams training camp lease allows the departed National Football League team to buy the buildings, fields and grounds from the public in 2024 for just $1.

“That property, which also housed team offices, was once appraised by St. Louis County for nearly $19 million. But building values dropped, and it was appraised in 2019 for $12.7 million.”

“I’m disappointed,” said St. Louis Regional Convention and Sports Complex Authority board chairman Jim Shrewsbury. “It’s a significant asset, and it’s worth a significant amount of value.”

This is, sadly, part of Kroenke’s modus operandi – taking from the public to enrich his own pockets.