America’s Cup: Billionaire team owners arrive in Auckland for the Prada Cup

Some of the richest people in the world are coming to New Zealand for the America’s Cup, with isolated billionaires in Hamilton hotels and superyachts quarantined on Auckland docks.

The Herald understands that the UK’s fifth richest person, Jim Ratcliffe, owner of Ineos Team UK, is traveling to New Zealand.

The 68-year-old with a net worth of $ 26 billion owns the Ineos group and has invested more than $ 200 million in his Portsmouth-based America’s Cup team since he founded the union in 2018.

The 66-meter superyacht owned by his colleague, Ineos director Andrew Currie, is now moored at Auckland’s Queens Wharf at a fenced-in quarantine pier overseen by Health Ministry officials.

Currie himself is worth $ 8 billion.

Meanwhile, American Magic team co-owner Doug DeVos, whose net worth is $ 7 billion, completed the managed isolation at the Hamilton Ibis hotel with his family on Monday.

DeVos spent Thursday in Auckland Harbor on America’s racing ship Magic, skippered by Terry Hutchinson.

The 56-year-old is co-president of the American multilevel marketing giant Amway, which specializes in health and beauty products.

DeVos, whose primary residence is a Michigan mansion, posted a photo on Instagram of himself and his family celebrating New Year’s Eve from the Ibis hotel.

“This New Year looked a bit different for us this year, as you can see! We celebrated last night from our managed isolation hotel room in New Zealand, as we await the America’s Cup race which begins in mid-January,” he posted. Of you. .

“We are also feeling a bit of deja-vu when we celebrated the new millennium in New Zealand just 20 years ago, while attending the America’s Cup in 2000. The circumstances are a little different this time!”

The arrival of Ineos director Andrew Currie, Hampshire’s $ 173 million yacht on 9 December in Auckland Harbor was also somewhat mysterious, as it had switched off its AIS tracking beacon weeks earlier.

An online tracking site for ship movements around the world still has the Hampshire last docked on the French Polynesian island of Uturoa.

In September last year, the Weekend Herald reported that the superyacht’s crew were among the few arrivals in New Zealand who were able to avoid the managed isolation facilities.

An exemption from the Ministry of Health is open to superyachts as long as they spend at least $ 50,000 on overhaul or repair at a New Zealand shipyard.

The crews of those superyachts that receive border exemptions can count the days at sea as part of their required 14-day quarantine before landing on New Zealand.

This exemption was not extended to multi-million dollar superyacht owners, just the crew, but Ratcliffe could avoid this because there is an essential service worker exemption for America’s Cup team owners.

The essential services border waiver visas were granted to all international owners of the three teams competing in the Copa América in the second half of last year: one for each Ineos and Prada Luna Rossa team, and three for American Magic.

It’s unclear if Ratcliffe, or Currie, is on Hampshire’s quarantined yacht at Queens Wharf.

But to be moored at that quarantine pier of the Ministry of Health, the crew on board must have required more isolation to arrive at 14 days since they left their last international port.

A spokesperson for Ineos Team UK said “we do not comment on the movements of our team owners”.

The owner of the Italian team Prada Luna Rossa Pirelli, Patrizio Bertelli, will not travel to Auckland.

“The Covid situation continues to be very serious in Italy, and he feels that in such a situation his duty and feelings are to stay in the country, in the production and management centers, together with his workers and collaborators,” said a team spokesperson .

However, Bertelli was in “constant contact” with the team.

The arrival of super-wealthy tourists of the team owner type has long been the money-generating mechanism for the Copa América host cities.

The Auckland Government and Council have invested $ 250 million in the event, and in 2017 had anticipated recouping $ 600 million to $ 1 billion in economic benefit to the local economy.

The arrival of hundreds of international superyacht owners to New Zealand, prior to the Covid-19 border closures, was estimated to have spent more than $ 400 million on the local economy.

Although a new business case for the event was never completed after 2017, NZ Initiative chief economist Eric Crampton is condemning the financial loss the event will now cause.

“All of this points to the risk of approving government funding for large megaprojects like this with a cost-benefit ratio so close to one that even minor changes put it below the threshold,” Crampton said.

Ratcliffe is notoriously secretive about his personal life, but owns several other high-profile sports teams, including the Mercedes F1 team and the Ineos Tour de France team, formerly known as Team Sky.

He also owns the Swiss league soccer team FC Lausanne-Sport, and has been linked to the purchase of English Premier League giant Chelsea in the past.

DeVos is one of three co-owners of the New York Yacht Club’s American Magic team and does not share any of Ratcliffe’s reservations.

On Friday, he returned to Instagram with photos of him practicing with the American Magic team at the Waitemata harbor.

“I had the privilege of being a guest on board during Wednesday’s practice races, and if you can’t tell, I sure had fun!” DeVos posted.

“We have arrived in Auckland and we are excited to cheer on the American Magic as they compete in the Prada Challenger Selection Series!”

DeVos is a competitive sailor, having won the world’s leading monohull racing circuit, the 52 series, in 2018.

The DeVos family also owns the NBA team, the Orlando Magic.

DeVos’ sister-in-law, Betsy DeVos, served as the 11th U.S. secretary of education from 2017 to 2021 under President Donald Trump, but resigned on January 8, 2021.