Why bustle for room with hedge funds, or wait for Apple’s iPhone 15 to find an audience, when Hollywood heartthrob Ryan Reynolds’s acquisition of Wrexham FC, or that Kylie Jenner, the wee one of the Kardashian-clan (who’s also dating Timothee from Dune), has not only carved a new kind of lip on her face, but a name for herself as a builder of empires wherein she’s now leading the world’s youngest self-made billionaires who haven’t fleeced others with crypto.
These mugs are not playing the stockmarket like mugs.
And there are more of them than ever, with or without investment strategies to learn from.
Bipartisan: Our Taylor
The tsunamic-demand for Our Taylor’s Eras Tour was so tidal that it swamped and destroyed Ticketmaster’s website to the delight of many (surely). That got the notice of Washington, which swiftly set up a Congressional hearing into that co’s utter dominance of the ticketing industry.
‘Access to Swifty’ is now perhaps the sole issue which has bipartisan political support in the States.
“You have brought together Republicans and Democrats in an absolutely unified cause,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said with a tear of praise in his eye.
Before that, Tay-Tay was getting shout-outs from the US Federal Reserve.
“May was the strongest month for hotel revenue in Philadelphia since the onset of the pandemic, in large part due to an influx of guests for the Taylor Swift concerts in the city,” the Philadelphia Federal noted in their July Beige Book.
Taylor has already sorted out the modern music makers’ contract, the resilient US consumer can’t consume enough of her and now her surprise romance with a big US footy player from Kansas is doing wonders for the tomfoolery that is the NFL.
Our Taylor broke internets when she had a photo taken at the footy – “aggressively cheering the Kansas City Chiefs alongside Donna Kelce, mother of Chiefs tight end, Travis Kelce.”
That should mean something to many of us. It meant a lot to Fox Sports, which returned to vision of Our Taylor watching footy a reported nine times.
Poor dude’s just trying not to get his head knocked off.
The NFL flashed images of Swift in their graphics throughout the game, released 10 TikToks on the official NFL account — which changed its bio to read “9/24/23. Taylor was here.”
Fox, never one to miss an outstanding opportunity for promotion, swiftly ran an ad on NFL on Fox capitalising on her romantic link to this footy player, Mr Kelce.
The Swift Effect didn’t stop there. And that’s its charm.
The Kansas Chiefs windbreaker which Our Taylor donned to cheer on Kelce was all sold out at the Kansas City Chiefs merch shop by AM the next day a worker told Business Insider.
(Apologies, Swifties, but the store won’t be able to get anymore in, the worker told Insider.)
The windbreaker – I believe it’s a parka – also sold out online.
In a mad 24 hours after the game was shown live, Mr Kelce’s social media standing swelled to some 300,000 new followers and saw a 400% increase in merchandise sales.
Even his podcast ranked #1 on the Apple charts, according to Axios.
As social media exploded with the spotting, Swift’s attendance drove ratings among young, female viewers. Fox says the Chiefs vs. Bears game drew 24.3 million viewers, making it the most-viewed show of the week, period.
The movie of the record of the tour
This fall’s movie slate was looking pretty bare — until Swift delivered an unexpected jolt with the surprise announcement of her “Eras Tour” film, set for release in a few weeks on October 13.
Taylor’s film is moving so swiftly into the frame of a US$100mn plus domestic opening weekend, according to Deadline. That one analyst called the film itself a “unicorn.”
Swifty reportedly negotiated a distribution deal with meme-stock movie chain AMC all herself, skirting studio middlemen in a homemade deal which could rewrite how music cinema is released and distributed. And it already has.
In a breathless press release, AMC said that it took less than 24 hours for the film to “shatter AMC’s US record for the highest ticket-sales revenue during a single day in AMC’s 103-year history” – about $26 million worth, in fact.
Self-styled ‘music industry experts’ Music Industry How To says that ‘searches for the American theater (sic) chain skyrocketed by 1,150% worldwide.’
AMC Entertainment has also been tapped to serve as the distributor of Beyoncé’s upcoming concert film.
The move, announced overnight (Monday, US time) will see AMC use its distribution arm, AMC Theatres Distribution, and its sub-distribution partners for “Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé,” according to a press release.
Searches for the AMC had increased by 1,566% in the US within 24 hours of the Swifty movie announcement, which also coincided with a 30% spike in AMC stock prices from a low of US$10.73 on August 30 to a high of US$13.90 on August 31, the day the movie was announced.
While AMC stock prices currently trade closer to $7.18 a pop, punters in on the AMC adventure surely remain hopeful that Taylor Swift’s impressive impact will mean a rally for the company’s stock prices.
“So far, Swift’s impressive star power has boosted the GDP in multiple stops of her Eras Tour, including Philadelphia and LA.”
“The AMC website was wholly dedicated to the sale of the Eras Tour concert film tickets, and customers interested in purchasing tickets for other films were directed to visit their nearby AMC theaters or check the website later,” Music Industry How To informs me.
“Searches for AMC are also up 400% in the UK alone, although the UK release date for the movie has not been announced, given that the UK’s Eras Tour dates have yet to commence.”
Renaissance Tour
Before Beyoncé’s “Renaissance Tour” kicked off, Forbes estimated she’d earn circa US$2.1 billion for the shows running from May 10 in Sweden to the weekend just passed which ended – rather appropriately – in Kansas City.
The tour set multiple records over the American summer, including back-to-back August and July records for the highest single-month gross in US history when she clocked US$127.6 million and $179 million respectively, as per Billboard, making Renaissance the highest grossing tour by a female artist, surpassing Madonna’s “Sticky & Sweet Tour” with $461.3 million.
Mobiles, Gin and Soccer
Reynolds meantime has a net worth somewhere around US$350 million, according to the extremely useful Celebrity Net Worth website. No billionaire yet, but this is a fairly decent return on the circa US$71.5mn Forbes pegged back in 2020.
Reynolds’ first investment payday came in March this year after Mint Mobile, of which he had a reported 25% stake in, was sold to T-Mobile for US$1.35bn.
That gave Reynolds circa US$300m and followed on from the successful sale of Aviation Gin which – reportedly for some US$600m – including Reynolds’ 10% holding.
Reynolds has also made plenty of money from acting, with his Marvel Cinematic Universe gig as Deadpool reportedly pocketing him US$40 million across the franchise to date.
In June 2023, he and Rob McElhenney from that Philadelphia Sunny show entered another business in the world of sports. This time Formula 1, as it was announced they purchased a 24% equity stake in Alpine Racing.
Neither were short a dollar when looking for a footy team to back, and make into a TV show, and they jumped at the chance to invest in a club that had fallen on tough times.
Reynolds, in particular, has seen his wealth skyrocket in the past few years and that’s set to hold Wrexham in good stead moving forward, especially after securing promotion to England’s fourth division — a mere three tiers below the Premier League and not far at all off a game with Sheffield Wednesday.
Reynolds and McElhenney paid just US$2.5mn for Wrexham in 2021, which suddenly looks an astute piece of daylight robbery.
Wrexham AFC are now reported (ok, by Goal.com) to be worth some 300% more than the £2 million it cost to buy the club in 2020.
Total Succession
A FOREX.com analysis of celebrity investments across various asset classes, including luxury properties, business ventures, intellectual property, financial instruments and collectables, reveals just how celebratory so many of these celebrity investments have been.
The table below shows that top celebrity investors easily beat the average S&P 500 index return of 8.4% over the past 20 years – in fact, many of the celebrities in the rating earned more than 5x the average market return.
Top 10 celebrities generating the highest return on their net worth
The ’90s superstar formerly known as Kenneth Brian Edmonds, now Babyface, is far ahead as the celebrity who makes the highest return on their investments — with over 134.40% return on his net worth.
This is nearly 10 times what singers typically make on average compared to their net worth (13.51%).
Le Infant Visage owns more than 20 properties across the globe, including a $3 million mansion in Paris and a $7 million New York property.
The star is also known to own at least five vehicles, including a Bugatti Chiron, which reputedly goes for a staggering $3 million.
TikTok star Chase Hudson (Huddy), one of the youngest celebrities in the ranking and certainly someone I’ve never heard of, ranks second, with Forex.com pegging this chap with “a whopping 68.70% return on his net worth of $11 million.”
“Huddy has invested his wealth into real estate and luxury vehicles, including a 6-bedroom luxury home in California valued at $9 million and an impressive car collection which includes two Jaguars and a $590,000 Ferrari F8.”
Billy Joel, with a net worth of $225 million, has proven to be a savvy investor, if not a savvy piano player – his 52.20% return on net worth earns him third place in the ratings.
“His impressive real estate portfolio includes a 14,000-square-foot mansion in New York and a Manhattan apartment. Notably, his New York mansion has been listed for sale with an asking price of $49 million, showcasing his keen eye for valuable real estate. Beyond music and property, Billy Joel’s financial empire extends to his record label and publishing company, stocks and various other lucrative ventures.”
And apparently it is not just the top celebrity investors that beat the average return of the S&P 500 over the past 20 years, but the average return of all celebrity categories – except for actors, chefs and comedians – beat the market’s average 20-year return of 8.14%.