October 24 - Smartworking (6 hours)

This day I focused on the relationship between sport and investments by private equity firms. Private equity operators have collectively invested more than $13 billion in sports. Football, basketball, volleyball, motorcycling, rugby, motor racing, martial arts: buyout specialists like entertainment. An overview of the deals Private equity operators have collectively invested more than $13 billion in sports. This is what emerges from a survey by the Enca study, which only takes into account initial investments and does not consider subsequent capital injections (add-ons). Among the factors paving the way for private equity funds to enter the world of sport are the negative effects on the revenues of clubs, leagues and organizations due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. The most active private equity funds in sport by number of deals and amounts invested are American (11 transactions out of 21). Of the top ten deals by size, eight involve US funds; of these, five target sports with stars and stripes. The most significant operation concerns the sale in 2016 of Formula 1 to Liberty Media by CVC, a deal worth 8 billion dollars. In this case, obviously, the buyer is a broadcaster, and not a fund. But the four-wheel circus is an emblematic operation of the value that buyout specialists manage to extract from sport. According to a report by the BDO, in fact, CVC invested 965.5 million dollars in 2016 (part of a total deal worth 2 billion), achieved returns from the investment in eleven years of partnership of 4.3 billion dollars and exit raised $1.5 billion in cash and stock.