King Power

Lore & Background

King Power began in 1989, with a license granted for Thailand's first downtown duty-free shop at Mahatun Plaza. In 1995, King Power won the sole concession to operate duty-free shops at Don Mueang Airport. In 1998, the government of Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh granted the company the sole right to manage duty-free business at the World Trade Centre in downtown Bangkok for 10 years. In 2004, the government of Thaksin Shinawatra granted King Power the right to operate duty-free shops at Suvarnabhumi Airport for 10 years. King Power received the royal warrant from the King of Thailand in December 2009. In August 2010, following a shirt sponsorship deal, Milan Mandarić sold Leicester City F.C. to a Thai-led consortium owned by King Power Group's Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha. On 27 October 2018, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha died in a helicopter crash after leaving King Power Stadium. In 2017, King Power was accused of failing to pay the Thai state 14 billion baht, but the case was dismissed in September 2018.

In Their Own Story

The floodlights hum to life over West Park on a cold February evening. The concourse is thick with the smell of hot chips and the murmur of a thousand conversations — half in English, half in Thai, a few in a dozen other tongues that Leicester has always spoken. A woman in a faded blue scarf presses her forehead against the glass of the upper tier, watching the players jog out. She was seven when her father first brought her to Filbert Street; she is thirty-four now, and the King Power is the only home she has ever known for a Leicester match. The away end is a sea of red, but here, in the main stand, the blue is absolute. The ball is struck, the crowd swells, and for ninety minutes the city outside the stadium simply stops. A goal. The roar is not loud so much as *total* — a physical pressure that you feel in your sternum before you hear it. She is crying. She does not care who sees.

Reader's Guide

King Power has outlets at nine Thai airports and stores in major tourist venues. Its duty free shopping mall in Bangkok's central business district covers over an unspecified area, and it has branches at Suvarnabhumi Airport and Thailand's other major airports. In 2015, King Power launched an online site selling duty-free and duty-paid items. King Power's monopoly status stands in sharp contrast to practice at other comparable international airports.

Did You Know?

• King Power began in 1989 with a license for Thailand's first downtown duty-free shop at Mahatun Plaza.
• King Power received the royal warrant from the King of Thailand in December 2009.
• In June 2016, King Power purchased a US$226 million stake in Thai AirAsia, becoming the second largest shareholder.
• King Power's Fox Hunt project gives scholarships to talented youngsters trained at the Leicester Football Academy in England.