Brian Kennedy is a British businessman, who has owned and managed businesses in the UK and the United States. They include Everest Home Improvement and Genesis Communications. In 2019,

The Sunday Times ''The Sunday Times'' is a British Sunday newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of N ...

listed him as the 460th richest person in the United Kingdom. In sport, he has owned both Stockport County and

Sale Sharks Sale Sharks are a professional rugby union club from Greater Manchester, England, United Kingdom. Its team play in Premiership Rugby, and have been in England's top division of rugby union continuously since 1995. Originally founded in 1861 as ...

. He also made unsuccessful bids for two Scottish football clubs, Rangers F.C. and Hibernian F.C..

Life and career

Kennedy grew up in

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

, Scotland and attended Tynecastle High School. In 1999, Kennedy purchased a group of companies that included glazing manufacturer,

Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its ...

. Latium Enterprises was formed around this time, which has gone on to serve as

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the Security (finance), securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own Share ...

to many of his business interests. In 2004, he sold his founding stake in Genesis Communications to Dixons for £31 million. In 2006, Kennedy agreed to acquire Ultraframe in a £29.2m takeover deal. Kennedy sold his stake in Everest in 2007. In 2010, Patrick Properties which is owned and managed by Kennedy, secured £60 million to be used for expanding the property firm. In 2013, Kennedy Renewables setup Little Raith

wind farm A wind farm, also called a wind park or wind power plant, is a group of wind turbines in the same location used to produce electricity. Wind farms vary in size from a small number of turbines to several hundred wind turbines covering an exten ...

near

Fife Fife ( , ; ; ) is a council areas of Scotland, council area and lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area in Scotland. A peninsula, it is bordered by the Firth of Tay to the north, the North Sea to the east, the Firth of Forth to the s ...

, Scotland. It became the biggest wind farm in the region at the time. In 2014, Kennedy partly funded and co-produced the film The Homesman. A year later, Kennedy also had a similar financing and production arrangement on the film The Great Gilly Hopkins. Kennedy's Latium Enterprises reached £810 million in annual turnover in 2019, according to

. During the same year, he featured in the

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

documentary The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, after Kennedy helped fund the search for missing child with numerous donations.

Sports

Kennedy previously owned

and won the European Challenge Cup in both 2002 and 2005 during his tenure. He sold the

rugby union Rugby union football, commonly known simply as rugby union in English-speaking countries and rugby 15/XV in non-English-speaking world, Anglophone Europe, or often just rugby, is a Contact sport#Terminology, close-contact team sport that orig ...

team in 2016 to a consortium. He was also the owner of Edgeley Park and football club Stockport County. He also was one of a number of bidders for Scottish side Rangers in 2012. He also attempted to purchase Hibernian F.C., based in his home city of

. However his offer was rejected.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kennedy, Brian Living people Sale Sharks Year of birth missing (living people)