Months after its Premier League rival Chelsea traded hands in a deal worth $3 billion, Liverpool’s owners hired bankers and said they would entertain offers for the club.
The American owners of Liverpool F.C., one of soccer’s most storied teams, have hired Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to explore a sale of the club, a six-time European champion, according to two people with direct knowledge of the team’s plans.
The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the potential sale.
Word that Liverpool’s owners are mulling a potential sale comes only months after a group led by the California-based investment fund Clearlake paid a record $3 billion for Liverpool’s Premier League rival Chelsea. That deal was forced after Britain’s government slapped Chelsea’s former Russian billionaire owner with sanctions, but the sale price was high enough that it may have reset the market for the world’s biggest soccer teams.
Fenway Sports Group, which also owns the Boston Red Sox, the anchor of its portfolio of sports holdings, resurrected Liverpool into a dominant force after acquiring the team following a forced sale in 2010 by its lenders as Liverpool teetered on the brink of bankruptcy.
That £300 million price tag (roughly $400 million given exchange rates at the time) was described by its previous owners as an “epic swindle” that year; now looks like a steal in the other direction, with the club’s valuation soaring on the back of significant increases in broadcast and sponsorship income as Liverpool returned to the summit of domestic and international soccer.
In 2019, under the guidance of its inspirational German coach, Jurgen Klopp, Liverpool added its sixth European Cup, before adding its first Premier League title a year later. That was a trophy its fans craved more than any other, as it came 30 years after the last of its previous 18 English league championships.
Last season it fell just short of winning both when it lost the Premier League to Manchester City by one point and was defeated by Real Madrid in the final of the Champions League.
F.S.G., led by the financier John Henry, has been exploring selling strategic stakes in Liverpool for much of the past half decade. Last year Redbird, a private equity company with stakes in several other sports teams, secured an 11 percent share of F.S.G. for $735 million. At the time, the owners talked about looking to secure further growth opportunities without putting its most valuable asset up for sale.
News of the potential sale was first reported by The Athletic, a New York Times company. Liverpool’s response later on Monday only fueled more speculation about the ownership’s intentions.
What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.
“There have been a number of recent changes of ownership and rumors of changes in ownership at EPL clubs and inevitably we are asked regularly about Fenway Sports Group’s ownership in Liverpool,” the club said a statement. “FSG has frequently received expressions of interest from third parties seeking to become shareholders in Liverpool.”
“FSG has said before that under the right terms and conditions we would consider new shareholders if it was in the best interests of Liverpool as a club. FSG remains fully committed to the success of Liverpool, both on and off the pitch.”
In hiring Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, Liverpool’s owners have hired two banking giants, known for extracting significant fees for mergers and acquisition transactions. F.S.G. had by contrast used the same boutique firm it had used when it purchased Liverpool to sell the minority stake to Redbird last March. The sale is being handled out of London, where Liverpool also has an office. Both banks declined to comment.
The price paid for Chelsea was at the time more than had been spent on any franchise in any sport, and has only been bettered by the price secured by the outgoing owners of the National Football League’s Denver Broncos. Liverpool is more popular than both those teams, and most other clubs anywhere.
Other soccer teams have also been sold for significant sums in recent months. In August Redbird, the minority investor in F.S.G., bought AC Milan for the equivalent of $1.2 billion, the highest fee for a soccer franchise outside of the United Kingdom. John Textor, another American investor, has agreed to lead a buyout of Lyon for about $800 million, the most ever paid for a French team.
Forbes values Liverpool at $4.45 billion, about ten times what F.S.G. paid.
The Boston-based group has also invested in the team’s infrastructure, revamping its historic Anfield stadium with two new stands and also built a new practice facility.
But there has been growing concern privately among the ownership about whether the team can continue competing at the top of the league and in European competition against teams owned by Gulf states. Manchester City, which has been the dominant English team for much of the past decade, is owned by the brother of the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, and recently Newcastle was purchased by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. While Qatar has powered Paris St.-Germain’s rise to superiority in France.
City’s spending has been particularly hard to match, with Liverpool among a group of Premier League clubs frustrated at the pace of an ongoing investigation into allegations City breached the league’s financial rules to fuel its success.
Should a sale go through, Liverpool would yield an enormous profit for F.S.G., which has invested relatively little into the club compared to its biggest Premier League rivals in the decade it has owned the team. Sound management, smart appointments and success in the often fickle player trading market have instead allowed the team to compete atop English and European soccer.
Since hiring Klopp, the team has managed to compete with City by improving its roster largely through money raised by selling other players, a process that has not been universally popular, with some fans believing the ownership’s prudence has stunted prospects for sustained success.
The success has also been marked by moments of missteps, including an effort to raise ticket prices that was reversed following a fan revolt. But the biggest backlash came in 2021 when Liverpool joined 11 other top clubs in attempting to breakaway and create a new European Super League. Liverpool and American-owned Manchester United, Liverpool’s main domestic rival when it comes to global popularity, were at the forefront of those talks.
“I want to apologize to all the fans and supporters of Liverpool Football Club for the disruption I caused over the past 48 hours,” Henry said at the time, making a rare public statement. “It goes without saying but should be said that the project put forward was never going to stand without the support of the fans. No one ever thought differently in England.”
Those same fans now face new uncertainty.
Michael J. de la Merced contributed reporting.
Source: Soccer - nytimes.com
