US Private Equity Firm 777 Partners Seek to Raise £171M to Buy Premier League Club After Everton Talks

777 Partners had been in talks with Everton owner Farhad Moshiri over a potential takeover, and are seeking to raise €200m (£171m) for its football portfolio.

Miami-based 777 Partners held talks with Moshiri and his representatives with regard to an equity stake in the Blues before Moshiri entered into an exclusivity agreement with New York fund MSP Sports Capital over a 25 per cent deal via a preferential share structure, which are effectively loans with warrants that could be turned into equity.

It is understood that 777 Partners, who had considered a full takeover of Everton, wanted greater assurances over Premier League status being secured, while MSP’s desire to be a junior partner in any deal, with the focus being on the upside of the stadium build at Bramley-Moore Dock and bringing considerable business building expertise, were the preferred option for Moshiri.

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The deal with MSP is fully expected to go through later this summer, while 777 Partners have now moved on from their interest in the Blues and have set their sights on acquiring another club to add to their growing portfolio, with the desire to purchase a Premier League club understood to be strong. Among those who are reportedly of interest to 777 are West Ham United and newly-promoted Sheffield United.

According to Bloomberg, 777 are looking to raise as much as €200m for their football investments by tapping into the interest in the sport, which has seen a flood of private equity capital arrive in recent years from investors buoyed by booming media rights and the continued upward trajectory when it comes to team valuations.

The Bloomberg report states that 777 Partners, founded in 2015 by Steven Pasko and Josh Wander, have enlisted Tifosy Capital & Advisory to identify new equity for the firm’s football platform.

In recent years 777 Partners has been growing its multi-club model, one that includes controlling stakes in Italian side Genoa, Brazilian club Vasco da Gama, Belgian outfit Standard Liege, Germany’s Hertha Berlin, French team Red Star FC and Melbourne Victory of the Australian A-League. The firm also have a minority stake in Spanish La Liga outfit Sevilla.

Back in March, Bloomberg reported that 777 had held exploratory discussions with PCP Capital Partners, the fund that part owns Newcastle United and which is run and was co-founded by Amanda Staveley.

The discussions were said to centre around 777 raising debt and equity with a view to expanding the ambitions of PCP to acquire stakes in more football clubs to create a multi-club portfolio, something that has grown in popularity in recent years as ownership groups look to find synergies, both financially and competitively, across their assets.

Deliberations, the report claimed, were at the early stages back in March and there was no certainty that any deal would be reached.

Source: ECHO

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