Skip to main content

Liverpool in talks to sell minority stake to Mittal

A consortium of investors led by Amit Bhatia and backed by the Mittal family is in talks to buy a significant minority stake in Liverpool Football Club, in a deal that would value the English Premier League side at more than $6bn.   Owners Fenway Sports Group are interested in capital investment rather than a complete takeover.

The investor group headed by Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel tycoon and billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, has hired advisers to work on the offer and is in active talks with Liverpool’s current US owners Fenway Sports Group, according to people familiar with the matter.

The football club was expected to be valued at more than $6bn in any transaction, three people said, one of the highest in football history. The attempted deal underlines the continued appeal of England’s top-tier football clubs and the global reach of the Premier League.

People familiar with the talks stressed to th Financial Times  that no deal had yet been struck and there was no certainty an agreement would be reached. It would be the latest big-money deal in English football, following the £2.5bn takeover of Chelsea FC in 2022 and Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s purchase of a minority stake in Manchester United, which valued Liverpool’s arch-rivals at more than $6.3bn, including debt, in 2023.

Liverpool is owned by FSG, which is controlled by American billionaire John Henry, who made his fortune in commodities trading. His group bought Liverpool for £300mn in 2010. FSG also owns the Boston Red Sox baseball team and in 2024 led a consortium in a $1.5bn investment into the commercial arm of the PGA Tour golf competition. In December last year, FSG sold the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey franchise to the Hoffman family for $1.7bn.

Ahead of the potential deal, Bhatia agreed to transfer his shareholding in Queens Park Rangers, which plays in the English second tier, to majority owner Ruben Gnanalingam. This is to avoid holding stakes in two clubs. The Liverpool talks come two months after the Mittal family agreed in May to buy a minority stake in the Rajasthan Royals, the Indian Premier League cricket franchise.

Liverpool is one of the biggest brands in global sport. The club has won the Uefa Champions League six times and the English top flight a joint-record 20 times. Under FSG, it has undergone a turnaround on and off the pitch. T

 Liverpool’s revenue rose to north of £700mn in the 2024-2025 season, a club record, from £613mn the prior year. Its commercial partners include bank Standard Chartered, German sportswear maker Adidas and Google Pixel.  FSG sold a minority stake in September 2023 to US private equity firm Dynasty Equity.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Spurs CEO attacks luxury training base

The Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has issued a withering assessment of the way the club was run under Daniel Levy, likening the state-of-the-art training centre to a five-star hotel rather than a centre of high performance.  Venkatesham was appointed to his role in April 2025, having stepped down as chief executive at Arsenal the previous summer. However, he has said that some aspects of the club were “in a significantly worse state” than he expected.  “Our training centre is amazing, one of the best, if not the best in the world,” Venkatesham told BBC Sport. “But when you look around, it looks more like a five-star hotel than it does a performance environment. That will change over the summer. I think there are many areas where the club hasn’t got the right level of expertise.”  He explained that the football side of operations was the club’s main downfall when he arrived last year. [One Spurs fan wryly observed that it was like a water company sayi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Fulham requires big funding from owner

After lengthy delays, Fulham’s shiny, new Riverside Stand has finally opened, creating “a unique Thameside destination with first class facilities for supporters and partners on match days, as well as for the wider community year-round”. This ambitious project has increased Craven Cottage’s capacity by around 4,000 to 29,600, while it has also taken advantage of the club’s fantastic location and wealthy catchment area by including two Michelin star restaurants, a rooftop swimming pool, corporate hospitality and event space, all benefiting from views of the Thames. Chief executive Alistair Mackintosh observed, “Fulham is the sort of club that can have a business class or first class and have fans that turn left on a plane.” Indeed, there is also an exclusive members club – with a football season ticket as an optional extra. It’s fair to say that “the times they are a-changing”, as this is a long way from the traditional pie and a pint. However, in a world where clubs face the tw...
Post a Comment
Read more