Mel Morris (businessman)

Melvyn Morris CBE is an English businessman, who currently owns Championship football club, Derby County F.C and is listed as one of the richest people in the UK. He gained a large part of his fortune through his backing of King, the firm behind the mobile game Candy Crush Saga.

He was born and raised in the Littleover area of Derby. Out of school, he first worked as a tile and flooring manager at a company he helped to establish in Spain, before venturing into entrepreneurship. After leaving the flooring firm, he returned to the UK to develop a dating website called uDate, which he went on to sell for £100 million. He used the money secured from the sale to invest in Prevx, an internet security firm, which was later sold to Webroot. He then helped to set up King, which he chaired from 2003 onwards until stepping down in 2014. When King was sold to Activision Blizzard, Morris collected £450 million.

On the Sunday Times Rich List, Morris sits tied for 228th place.[1] In the late 90s and early 2000s, he resided in Belper, though his current residence is near Brailsford in Derbyshire.[2]

He bought out Derby County's previous owner, the United States holding company American Partners, in September 2015. He first bought into the club in May 2014 for a 22% stake, shortly after the club's 2014 Football League Championship play-off Final defeat to the Queens Park Rangers.[3] He has been involved in a league-wide push to increase TV revenue for non-Premier League clubs.[4]

Morris was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2017 Birthday Honours for services to business and charitable services.[5]

References

  1. ↑ Johnson, Robin (2016-04-22). "Find out how rich Derby County owner Mel Morris is now". Derby Telegraph. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  2. ↑ Duell, Mark (2014-03-13). "Candy Crush's Mel Morris will become one of Britain's richest men after IPO | Daily Mail Online". Dailymail.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  3. ↑ Press Association. "Derby chairman Mel Morris becomes club's sole owner after finalising takeover | Football". The Guardian. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  4. ↑ 23:15, 1 DEC 2016 (2016-12-01). "Derby owner Mel Morris leading rebellion against Football League in bid to increase TV cash - Mirror Online". Mirror.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-04-17.
  5. ↑ "No. 61962". The London Gazette (Supplement). 17 June 2017. p. B9.
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