David Cunningham King is a Scottish-born, South African based former chairman of Rangers Football Club.
Early life
King, one of seven children, was born and brought up in the Castlemilk area of Glasgow. He attended Allan Glen's School in the city after passing a bursary examination. He worked at Weir's Pumps in the nearby Cathcart area, before he was transferred to its South African operation in 1976.
Business career
Following the transfer to South Africa by his employer, King took on several business roles and accumulated substantial personal wealth. The extent of King's wealth remains undisclosed but was sufficient for him to be included in a South African 'Rich List' in 2012. He was an adviser for the South African Post Office and the South African Reserve Bank in his early stages before establishing a management company, Specialised Outsourcing, that won a contract to manage the treasury operations of Umgeni Water. On 14 June 2002 BBC News referred to South African reports that King faced eleven counts of fraud when he appeared at the Regional Court in Randburg, near Johannesburg. He was alleged to owe the tax authorities over 900 million rand: approximately £60m. King's tax problems began after he bought an Irma Stern painting at an auction for R1.7 million in 2000. This attracted the attention of Charles Chipps, special investigator at the South African Revenue Service, SARS, who was surprised to discover that King had declared a taxable income of only R60,000. After a decade of legal process, including an agreed, but vetoed, settlement, King eventually reached an agreement with the South African High Court whereby he pleaded guilty to 41 criminal counts of contravening the South Africa Income Tax Act and agreed to pay a fine of 80,000 rand per criminal conviction or 3.28 million rand in total. King also agreed that he would pay the Criminal Assets Recovery Account of the South African Authorities 8.75 million rand in compensation. King was originally indicted on 322 counts including fraud, tax evasion and evasion of exchange control regulations, as well as money-laundering and racketeering, but these charges were dropped. King was represented by Barry Roux, the lawyer who would later become well known for his defence of Oscar Pistorius.
Shareholding in Rangers Football Club
King joined the board of directors of Rangers Football Club as a non-executive director on 30 March 2000. He then invested £20 million of his personal wealth into Murray Sports Ltd. The football club entered administration on 14 February 2012. On 22 February 2012 King had a meeting with the club's administrators along with manager Ally McCoist. On 7 June 2012 King called for the rejection of the proposed Company Voluntary Arrangement to bring Rangers out of administration. The proposal was subsequently turned down by the club's largest creditor, HM Revenue and Customs, and Rangers FC entered Liquidation. Despite the loss of his £20 million investment because of the club's financial collapse, King had indicated a willingness to invest in Rangers again. On 2 January 2015, King acquired almost 15% of shares in Rangers International Football Club, the owner of Rangers FC, from two separate shareholders. This came just two days after a trio of Scottish businessmen, known as the Three Bears, bought a large percentage of shares from the Laxey Partners. Both King and the Three Bears announced that they would work together to try and steer the club out of financial trouble. King's purchase made him the largest sole shareholder of the club. On 6 March 2015, the Company held an Extraordinary General Meeting at 11am. Shareholders approved the appointment of King as non-executive chairman, Paul Murray as interim chairman and non-executive director and John Gilligan as a non-executive director of Rangers International Football Club plc, with immediate effect. King indicated prior to the meeting that he would not take up the appointment immediately and was later appointed chairman on 22 May 2015. Shareholders voted Chief executive officerDerek Llambias and Finance director Barry Leach off the board.
Personal life
King is married to Ladina Jean Wylde King with whom he has four children. King was close friends with South African golfer Gary Player and caddied for him at the 2000 US Masters in Augusta. The two, however, had a dispute about a $1 million transaction in 1999 that was not settled until 2013.
