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Thread: Redbird Capital Partners & £530m Investment

  1. #1
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    Redbird Capital Partners & £530m Investment

    Not seen anything else on here about it so I thought I’d start a thread. Gerry Cardinale’s saying all the right things at least.
    Stick with the article lifted from the Echo, a £530m injection into our Parent Company must surely have some sort of positive knock on affect... well you would hope so.


    Gerry Cardinale, the man whose RedBird Capital Partners firm is closing in on an investment deal with Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group, is someone with a keen interest in European football.

    The American billionaire financier is, as reported in the USA, to close a deal with John W. Henry's FSG for a 10 per cent stake in the company through his private equity firm RedBird in as little as six weeks time.

    Cardinale already owns French Ligue 2 side Toulouse through RedBird FC, part of RedBird Capital, and there are mutual benefits that could arise for Liverpool and Les Violets through the potential deal, worth around $750m according to Sportico.

    Being able to work around the strict new rules for signing European players and those under 18 from outside the UK following Brexit will be a key consideration, as will the sharing of data analytics - something Cardinale is keen on and has actively invested in recently - as well as the potential to loan out players and share best practice in other elements of the business.

    RedBird's investment, should it come to pass, is different to that proposed by the special purpose acquisition company Cardinale and baseball's 'Moneyball' guru Billy Beane were in talks with FSG over until last month. Those talks, which involved taking FSG onto the stock market, fell down after their RedBall Acquisitions Corp firm were unable to gain the rest of the investment needed to proceed, the SPAC instead focusing their attentions elsewhere.
    Cardinale stayed at the table with RedBird and FSG look set to hand over 10 per cent of the overall business to RedBird, a business which also includes the Boston Red Sox, NASCAR team Roush Fenway Racing and the US regional cable sports channel NESN.
    Quite how RedBird's influence will play out on the teams under FSG ownership remains to be seen, and whether the investment is used for infrastructure or reinforcing the playing squads is also up for debate.
    But Cardinale is someone with a passion for European football and someone who notes the obligation of ownership to put out a winning team on the pitch.

    Speaking on the Are You Not Entertained Podcast last summer, Cardinale said: "Today's world, it's all about the money. But sometimes you have got to stop yourself and say that 'hey, it can't just be about the money'.

    "When you are on your death bed looking back at life it would be a shame if it was just about the money.
    "One thing I've noticed as I spend more time in Europe and bring our type of investment to the European sports landscape is that divergence.
    "Whether in America or Europe you have to have respect for the fan. You have to have respect for the community and civic obligation that team owners have to the community in which they play.

    "That connectivity to the community is so apparent in Europe.

    "The fans really own the team, you as an owner or a prospective owner you better get around the fact that you are just a caretaker at this moment in time, you've gotten the proverbial baton and you have an obligation to do right by those fans.

    "You have an obligation to put a winning team on the field, you have an obligation to create value to the fans and enhance the way that they experience their team.
    "That exists in America. In America you have multi generations of fans where it is a ritual, and baseball is a classic example.

    "On a Sunday afternoon in the summer a grandfather and his son, and his son's son go to a game and it is a great four hour experience and it is a ritual. It is such a core to family values in America.

    "That hasn't gone away but what has challenged it is money and technology.

    "Sports in America has become big business and as a result of that there is a greater need for better infrastructure and many of the seats that fans have have for generations get priced out of their ability to pay for them. That makes it tough.

    "There is a lot of debate where there has to be a balance. You have to grow, you have to keep fuelling the evolution and development to continue to provide the value proposition to the fan, particularly in a world where the competition for eyeballs has never been greater.

    "Sport comes up against video games, it comes up against eSports, it comes up against sitting at home and watching video on demand. There has to be a value proposition and that involves bringing money into the game.

    "That can't come at the expense of the grandfather, the son and the grandson being priced out of a generational experience."
    Cardinale's venture into football with Toulouse last season was not born out of a whim, more the culmination of much 'watching and studying' of the game on the continent.

    He said: "I've been looking at European football now for about the past four years and I have been learning and I have been studying and I have been watching.

    ""That's why I have an appreciation of the fan and the role of European football in its community.

    "The difference for me in Europe is that I can tweak my investment model and become the rights holder myself. In America it is harder to do that as the rules are such.

    "I can come in and do everything I have done for the last 30 years and bring that and be the rights holder and integrate our approach into player performance and on the field performance.

    "I have three decades apprenticing to some of the greatest sports owners in America and to bring that now to Europe excites me very much as now we have an opportunity to put it all together.

    "Being able to do what I do on the business side and put that together will feed into better cash flow management which feeds into more liquidity and resources to put the best players on the field. That's really interesting to me and that is the next focus for me and for Redbird."
    "I am the Normal One."

  2. #2
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    That's the M’Bappe, Schuurs, Ruiz,Neto and Neuhas money in the bank then
    "If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”

  3. #3
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    They’re valuing the group at over £5bn then if that’s a 10% stake.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by miller0863 View Post
    They’re valuing the group at over £5bn then if that’s a 10% stake.
    I've Visions of Peter Jones just shaking his head and laughing.

  5. #5
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    The club/owners, if they so choose, can spend all of that money investing in the team and comply with FFP
    "If Everton were playing at the bottom of my garden, i'd close the curtains”

  6. #6
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    It’s 10% of their entire portfolio. We are just one franchise.

  7. #7
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    Indeed. Still, if we are 25% of the business, there may be £125m in the kitty ??

  8. #8
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    To me it reads as more hands taking out than putting in. Albeit I’m drunk and read about 4 words of it but that’s the gist I get. It remains to be seen what plan we have to arrest the decline of the squad. I think we should be prioritising that and be capable of that without anymore hands in the pot.

  9. #9
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    Are we the first moneyball franchise to achieve success in football?

  10. #10
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    Quote Originally Posted by Nineteenx View Post
    The club/owners, if they so choose, can spend all of that money investing in the team and comply with FFP
    After the year Jurgen has had he'll need something to perk him up.

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