Red Bull Pays €554 Million Dividend to Mateschitz, Yoovidhya Family
Red Bull GmbH raised the annual payout to owners Dietrich Mateschitz and the Yoovidhya family to more than half a billion euros.
(Bloomberg) -- Red Bull GmbH, the energy drink maker that sponsors extreme sports, raised the annual payout to owners Dietrich Mateschitz and the Yoovidhya family to more than half a billion euros after sales and profit swelled.
Red Bull’s net income rose 10% last year to 818 million euros ($971 million) after revenue grew 8.6% and payouts from subsidiaries soared, according to a filing to the Austrian company register. The payout to founder and boss Mateschitz and Thailand’s Yoovidhya family was 554 million euros.
Red Bull, whose subsidiaries around the world handle local marketing and distribution, further shrank payroll in the Fuschl, Austria, based headquarters. Staff was reduced to 119 employees in 2019, from 160 a year earlier, according to the document. That lowered personnel costs by more than half to 30 million euros, implying the 41 people earned an average of more than 900,000 euros a year.
Thai entrepreneur and sometime duck farmer Chaleo Yoovidhya teamed up with Mateschitz in 1987 after the Austrian marketing whiz discovered the energy drink sold by Chaleo’s firm while looking to counteract jet lag on a business trip.
It’s proved a popular tonic. About 7.5 billion cans were sold in 2019, according to the company’s website, making its owners among the wealthiest people on the planet. Chaleo’s heirs control a $25 billion fortune and Mateschitz is Austria’s richest person with a $15.9 billion net worth, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The payout was made in two installments last year and split unevenly. Mateschitz got 343 million euros including extra payouts like a year earlier. Chalerm Yoovidhya received 11.4 million euros, while the Yoovidhya family’s TC Agro Trading Company Ltd.’s share was 200 million euros.
The energy drinks sector has created a fountain of wealth. The founders of Monster Beverage Corp., Rockstar and the chairman of rival Carabao Group Pcl also have become billionaires as the industry has boomed.
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