At Red Bull, after the death of Didi Mateschitz, the question of succession and inheritance will be clarified. There is a scandal at the Thai Red Bull heir.
After the death of Red Bull boss Dietrich Mateschitz, the energy drink manufacturer with its headquarters in Fuschl is also concerned with succession and inheritance issues. The global triumph with Red Bull has made Dietrich Mateschitz by far the richest Austrian. The US magazine “Forbes” listed him in 2022 with a fortune of 27.4 billion dollars in 51st place in the global billionaire ranking.
In addition to his partner Marion Feichtner (39), Mateschitz also leaves his son Mark (30) – and a global empire of billions with more than 13,000 employees worldwide. It is considered unlikely that the fate of the group will be placed directly in the hands of Mateschitz’ son Mark. So far, he has only been operationally involved in the business on the very edge.
Killed police officers with Ferrari?
But questions of inheritance are not only an issue at the Red Bull headquarters in Salzburg. In Thailand, where Mateschitz discovered the energy drink in the 1980s, a Red Bull legacy has been causing a scandal for a decade.
It’s about the Thai Red Bull scion Vorayuth Yoovidhya (40), the grandson of Red Bull inventor Chaleo Yoovidhya, who died in 2012.
During a business trip, Mateschitz became aware of the market for stimulant drinks in Asia. He acquired the licensing rights to the Thai energy drink “Krating Daeng”, adapted the recipe to Western tastes and founded the company together with the Yoovidhya manufacturing family.
The Yoovidhya family still holds 51 percent of the group’s shares. According to Forbes, they are the second richest family in Thailand.
cocaine in the blood
In 2012, however, the family hit the headlines negatively: Vorayuth Yoovidhya, the grandson of the company founder, is said to have run over and killed a police officer with his Ferrari. He is said to have dragged the body hundreds of meters after the accident in downtown Bangkok. The police followed the trail of oil from the damaged vehicle, the silver Ferrari was parked in the Yoovidha clan’s garage.
A blood test revealed that Yoovidha had also used cocaine on the night of the crime. The indictment material later disappeared from the files – on the orders of superiors, as investigators were later to testify.
The future heir to a billion-dollar fortune never presented himself to the judiciary, he played cat and mouse with her much more and shied away from the judges. His lawyers said he was ill or abroad on business. Photos showed him enjoying life to the fullest.
The charges gradually became statute-barred. In 2017, Vorayuth fled Thailand by private jet.
In 2020, Thai authorities announced that all charges against Vorayuth Yoovidhya were dropped. Eight years after the accident, he was once again an impeccable man. He is allowed to travel to Thailand again without having to reckon with legal problems.
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