Peter Lim, the Singapore billionaire who owns Valencia but hasn’t watched them play for 1,500 days

Valencia’s owner Peter Lim was not at their Mestalla ground as his team played a Copa del Rey quarter-final against Barcelona on February 7. They lost that match, 5-0.

Nor was he present for the 7-1 away defeat to the same opponents in La Liga a couple of weeks earlier. 

His absence was no surprise. The Singaporean billionaire has not watched Valencia play in person since December 2019, when he attended a 1-1 home draw against Real Madrid.

In the intervening 1,500 days or so, there has been an ever-deepening divide between La Liga’s most infamous foreign owner and many of those around a club currently involved in a desperate fight against a potentially calamitous relegation to Spain’s second tier.

Meanwhile, the now 71-year-old Lim, who has a personal wealth of €1.75billion (£1.47bn; $1.89bn), according to Forbes, has continued to cultivate and value his friendships with top football figures including Cristiano Ronaldo, David Beckham and Gary Neville. 

Still, for many both in Singapore and Valencia, the man remains an enigma — known for his business acumen and philanthropic generosity, yet rarely seen or heard from in recent years.

The Athletic talked to more than a dozen people who have worked for or dealt with him over the past two decades — many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to protect relationships — to try to discover who Lim is, why he got involved in football and what his plans are for a club where, just last week, he unexpectedly appointed his son Kiat as executive president.

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The son of a fishmonger, Lim was born in May 1953 and grew up with seven siblings in a two-bedroom apartment in one of Singapore’s oldest public housing estates, Bukit Ho Swee.

After attending secondary school at the prestigious Raffles Institution, and completing national service, Lim studied for a degree in finance and accounting at the University of Western Australia in Perth. He told Singapore’s New Paper in 2007 that he worked as a taxi driver, a cook and a waiter at fast-food chain Red Rooster to make ends meet while studying.

On returning to Singapore, Lim became a stockbroker, earning millions in commissions from clients, including — according to reports — the sons of then Indonesian president Suharto and former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad.

In the early 1990s, Lim invested about $10million of his own money in an emerging palm-oil company called Wilmar, run by Kuok Khoon Hong, nephew of Malaysian billionaire Robert ‘Sugar King’ Kuok. By 2010, Lim’s stake was worth around $1.5bn.

“From the moment I first spoke to (Kuok Khoon Hong), I thought, ‘I’d better follow this man because he can make a lot of money for me’,” Lim told Forbes in a 2008 interview which mentioned Ferraris, Porsches and Lamborghinis parked at his luxury apartment.

Lim soon diversified his investments into fashion, film production, solar cells and private schools, with particular focus on the real-estate firm Rowsley and healthcare conglomerate Thomson Medical Group.

“Maybe it’s in the blood,” he told The Business Times in 2007 about the buzz of deal-making. “It’s like a chess game — you make this move, the next one I make.”

Lim also got a buzz from his involvement in sports. He became an investor in sports-car manufacturer McLaren in 2011. But multiple sources who have worked with him say his real passion has always been Manchester United. His fashion chain FJ Benjamin signed a 10-year deal with United in 1999, which was called a “major step in the roll-out of Manchester United’s retail offering outside the UK” by the club’s then chief executive Peter Kenyon.

Over time, Lim retreated from public view in Singapore, especially after a very public divorce from first wife Venus Tan in the mid-1990s. His second wife, Cherie Lim, is famous herself — a soap opera actress turned modelling-agency founder.

The couple’s rare media appearances are generally to do with their philanthropy — such as the $20million donated over the years to the Singapore Olympic Foundation to fund the training of hundreds of young athletes, including the swimmer Joseph Schooling, who won the country’s first-ever Olympic gold medal in 2016.

“Most people who donate that kind of money go and give a speech, but Peter doesn’t,” says a Singaporean former employee. “He doesn’t need to do these things.”

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Once he had made his fortune, Lim looked for opportunities to get into European top-level football.

Before buying Valencia, he was linked with takeovers at Atletico Madrid and Deportivo La Coruna in Spain, England’s Middlesbrough, Rangers in Scotland and Italy’s Milan. In 2010, he bid £320million for Liverpool but lost out to their present owners at Fenway Sports Group. 

Lim’s real entrance into the industry came through another self-made man who climbed from humble origins — the Portuguese superagent Jorge Mendes. They began working together just as third-party ownership (TPO) funds including Quality Sports Investments (in which Kenyon and Mendes’ Gestifute agency were involved) were buying shares in the ‘economic rights’ of promising players, potentially making a profit when the players were sold for a big fee.

Lim’s TPO fund Meriton Capital made investments mostly in players represented by Gestifute — including promising youngsters Andre Gomes, Rodrigo and Joao Cancelo, who at that point were all playing for the Portuguese club Benfica.

In May 2015, football’s world governing body FIFA banned TPO due to concerns over conflicts of interest, especially in the setting of transfer prices. By that stage, Lim had bought Valencia (the deal was finalised the previous October), and Gomes, Rodrigo and Cancelo had all been signed by the club.

Lim had by then built a relationship with then Real Madrid galactico Ronaldo, another Mendes client.

Ronaldo made regular visits to Singapore for events, including in 2013 for one about the conservation of mangrove swamps in Indonesia (where Wilmar has extensive palm-oil operations, which have been criticised for contributing to deforestation). Also in attendance were former Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the country’s First Lady Ani Yudhoyono.

In 2015, Lim’s company Mint Media paid an undisclosed sum (at least €75million, according to Football Leaks) to own and manage Ronaldo’s personal image rights for the next six years. In July 2017, the player flew to Singapore three days after Lim’s daughter Kim gave birth to her first son at the Thomson Medical Centre. The same trip also saw other Mint Media events organised in China for sponsors including Nike.

“All these things are connected, he uses football to help out with his other things,” says a source who worked for Lim publicising such events. “We did some mangrove (projects) too, you can call it greenwashing, sportswashing, whatever.” Mint Media and Thomson Medical did not reply when asked about these connections by The Athletic, particularly whether Ronaldo’s trip to Bali in 2013 served as good PR for Wilmar at a time when they were being criticised for deforestation.

Also in summer 2017, Ronaldo was asked about his relationship with Lim in a Spanish court, where he was being prosecuted for hiding image-rights earnings from the tax authorities.

“I got paid in advance, in case something happened in my career,” Ronaldo told the court. “Our career (as footballers) has risks. I partnered with Peter to guarantee my future.”

In January 2019, Ronaldo accepted he had broken the law and paid a settlement of €18.8million. Lim was not accused of any wrongdoing.

The Portugal star has continued to regularly visit Singapore, often to publicise Lim’s philanthropic efforts while promoting corporate brands in deals organised by Mint Media.

Other big names who have travelled to Singapore and promoted Lim’s charitable donations include former Madrid and United manager Jose Mourinho and Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton. Ronaldo has plugged Lim’s son Kiat’s personal business projects, including the ZujuGP networking and e-commerce digital platform.

“Being able to call the likes of Ronaldo ‘friends’ adds to this gravitas,” says another Singaporean. “Whenever they’re in town, there’s a lot of buzz for kids, fans and scholarship recipients. There isn’t much cynicism surrounding such events.”

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Going back to the 2000s, Lim’s links to Manchester United helped him get to know the ‘Class of 92’ group of Beckham, Gary and Phil Neville, Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes.

This relationship was formalised in September 2014 when Lim bought 50 per cent of Salford City for an undisclosed sum a few months after the former players took control of a Greater Manchester club then in English football’s eighth tier. They are now in League Two, the fourth tier.

The following year, Rowsley — a Singapore real-estate company in which Lim is a big shareholder — became involved in Neville’s long-standing plans for a hotel, residential and commercial development in central Manchester.

In August 2015, the Manchester Evening News reported Rowsley was investing £40million in the ‘St Michael’s’ project, with Neville saying he gave “huge credit to Rowsley” for its involvement. A month later, Rowsley bought 75 per cent of the Class of 92’s real-estate holdings for £29.1m (US$64.1m, €39.7m). These included the 133-bedroom Hotel Football opposite Old Trafford and the now-closed 120-seat Cafe Football restaurant in east London.

The relationship then took an unexpected twist when Lim hired Neville, who did not speak Spanish and had never coached at club level, as Valencia’s manager that December. After winning just three of 16 La Liga games, and a 7-0 Copa del Rey humiliation at Barcelona, Lim sacked his friend.

Their relationship was not damaged, though. In August 2016, Neville was in Singapore announcing a Rowsley-backed plan for 25 football-themed hotels across Asia and continental Europe. “We’re looking at 5,000 rooms in the next 10 years,” he told the Financial Times.

In January 2019, Beckham announced he had purchased a 10 per cent share in Salford City, reducing Lim’s ownership to 40 per cent. Also a co-owner of MLS team Inter Miami, Beckham has regularly visited Singapore for commercial opportunities and attended May 2019’s Copa del Rey final with Lim to see Valencia beat Barcelona 2-1 to lift the club’s first trophy in 11 years.

Lim did not congratulate the team afterwards, instead out going for dinner with Beckham and other friends. “We beat Barca with Leo Messi in a final, and Lim didn’t take any part in the celebrations. It was just really strange,” a director at Valencia at the time told The Athletic. The club did not comment when asked about this in 2020. 

Lim’s emotional connection to Salford City, as regular investment fuelled their climb up the English football ladder, also remained unclear — Covid-19 meant it was impossible to attend when they beat Portsmouth 4-2 on penalties in the 2020 EFL Trophy final at Wembley.

Visits the other way continued after the pandemic. Neville, Giggs and Butt were at Singapore’s Cafe Football in October 2022, posing with an oversized cheque for $680,000 — Lim’s philanthropic contribution to a project to encourage young girls to study science and technology.

“Peter has invested so much money in all these guys,” says a former Lim employee in Singapore. “Basically, if he wants them to come here, they come.”

The London branch of Cafe Football closed in 2019, although a restaurant within Hotel Football (which Neville owns) now has that branding. New backers were required to finally get the £400million St Michael’s development project going, and Neville has said that Rowsley is no longer involved.

Lim’s connection with Salford City also formally ended in August last year, when Neville bought out his stake for an undisclosed sum. 

A Salford City spokesperson told The Athletic that Lim had left on “good terms” and there was gratitude for his “years of investment”. That has included funding the redevelopment of their Moor Lane home ground into a 5,000-seater stadium the Leauge Two club now own.

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When Lim first arrived at Valencia in 2014, paying €94million for a controlling 70 per cent stake, he was widely welcomed as a saviour given the club’s deep financial problems and previous institutional instability.

The optimism and positivity did not last long.

Lim’s decade as owner has seen the team’s general level continue to drop, as 12 head coaches and seven sporting directors came and went. Even the glow of that 2019 Copa del Rey success did not last long  — coach Marcelino Garcia Toral and sporting director Mateu Alemany both left within months after clashing with him.

“The way Peter sees it, he has put the money in, he owns the shares, he has the right to do what he sees necessary,” says a Singaporean source who has worked with Lim. 

Lim’s confidence in his ability to trade in the football transfer market remains, say sources who have dealt with him. He has negotiated directly with peers including Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and Atletico Madrid chief executive Miguel Angel Gil Marin. He regularly mingles with big-name players and executives at Ballon D’Or galas and Champions League finals.

“Once, we were having dinner, all the (club) owners, at one of the Champions League finals,” Lim told the Financial Times in May 2021. “You’ve got sheikhs, kings, Mafia, black, white and yellow, and we were arguing about, ‘Why did you buy this player for so much?’. We were like kids… this game can equalise everything.”

Over time, there has been less money to play with at Valencia.

Annual cuts to the wage bill have created a squad whose only objective is avoiding relegation from La Liga, disappointing fans who want to challenge for trophies again and return to playing in the European competitions having seen their team win two Spanish titles and the UEFA Cup (today’s Europa League) and reach back-to-back Champions League finals in the early years of this century. ‘Lim go home’ banners and chants are now seen and heard inside and outside Mestalla at all home games, while former players and local media outlets constantly call for him to sell up and leave.

There was a huge outcry last October when two Valencia supporters, Dani Cuesta and Mireia Saez, were arrested under Singapore’s strict vandalism laws, after placing a sticker saying ‘Lim must go’ outside his luxury apartment building. The two were released without charge after receiving what police called a “stern warning”, but the mutual misunderstanding between Singapore and Valencia had been further underlined.

When Valencia was hit by disastrous floods in November, with more than 200 people killed and thousands left homeless, an Instagram photo of Lim and his son out for dinner with Beckham in Singapore the same weekend appeared insensitive. Lim did donate to reconstruction projects — personally matching the €325,000 gate receipts when Real Betis visited Mestalla a few weeks later — but many of the club’s fans felt that was too little, too late.

Nuestra portada de este domingo, 10 de noviembre pic.twitter.com/PmzGVdDADy

— Superdeporte (@superdeporte_es) November 9, 2024

Among his few supporters in Spain has been La Liga president Javier Tebas, who last September pointed out that Lim had invested lots of his own money — an estimated €300million, including loans — while Valencia’s previous, locally-based, owners left behind huge debts.

The club’s AGM in December at Mestalla was disrupted by several small shareholders protesting Lim’s ownership. Afterwards, then club president Lay Hoon Chan — a trusted figure who worked for Lim in his Singapore businesses — said: “If an attractive offer arrives, Lim will study it. If not, he’s in no hurry.” 

Industry sources who have tried to broker a deal have told The Athletic they believe at least €400million would be required for Lim to consider selling the 92 per cent shareholding held by his Meriton Holdings group. Recent weeks also saw reports that his friend Ronaldo, now playing for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, could receive personal backing from that country’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to launch a takeover, although sources with knowledge of Saudi’s sports investment strategy said any such move was unlikely.

It is likely no coincidence that Meriton released a rare statement to the media this week, saying “Valencia CF is not up for sale, and Meriton remains committed to the club” just days before Kiat was named as the club’s executive president. 

Some see evidence of a succession plan. Lim’s son became a club director in 2022, and since then has been a primary point of contact between Valencia and Singapore, including when transfer decisions were made. Sources say that Chan’s work in stabilising the club off the pitch — including a debt refinancing through Goldman Sachs last November and construction work finally restarting after a 16-year break on a new Mestalla stadium in January — has left a relatively less complex situation for Kiat to take over.

Others who have worked with the Lims doubt that Kiat, who is also a vice-president at Thomson Medical and has investments in cryptocurrencies and NFTs, has the experience or personality for the top job at such a big club.

After ex-West Bromwich Albion head coach Carlos Corberan replaced former Valencia player Ruben Baraja as coach in December, the team’s performances improved. Home wins against Real Sociedad, Celta Vigo, Leganes and Real Valladolid in La Liga have boosted their survival chances but relegation would be disastrous. 

Kiat Lim visited construction site of Nou Mestalla 🏟️

The new president of Valencia CF takes in the site of the new stadium, which will open in 2027.

— Valencia CF (@valenciacf_en) March 5, 2025

Kiat met with club staff and players at the club’s Paterna training ground this week, and visited the Nou Mestalla works, but did not speak to any local media or fans. He returned to Singapore before Saturday’s game at home to bottom team Valladolid, who have their own deeply unpopular owner in ex-Brazil forward Ronaldo Nazario. Neither man was present, but fellow-feeling among the two sets of supporters saw novel protest leaflets distributed saying ‘Lim and Ronaldo go home’.

🫂Acto de hermanamiento en la previa del partido en la lucha contra máximos accionistas déspotas.#Limgohome #Ronaldogohome #Cambiemoselfútbol

Los aficionados somos los verdaderos dueños del fútbol. pic.twitter.com/7EOC49QoYK

— Libertad VCF (@LibertadVCF) March 8, 2025

On the pitch, Corberan’s team went ahead early through a neatly-taken goal from Diego Lopez, but a terrible mistake by Liverpool-bound goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili helped Juanmi Latasa equalise just before the break. It led to a tense second half, but in the end January signing Umar Sadiq’s opportunistic strike just before the hour secured three points to lift Valencia out of the three relegation places for the first time since September.

Meanwhile, in Singapore, Lim Senior continues to enjoy regular visits from high-profile football friends who do appreciate him and with whom he feels more comfortable. Even those who have worked closely with Lim admit it is difficult to predict his moves — but they all say this born trader hates to lose money on a deal and is unlikely to sell Valencia at a loss.

“I do have some compassion for (Valencia’s fans),” Lim told the Financial Times in 2021, “but among ourselves, among friends, we say the smallest things give you the biggest headaches.” 

(Top photo: Manuel Queimadelos Alonso/Getty Images)