How Do "Buy Out" Takeovers Of Football Clubs Work?

This is an extract from the equity finance section of our article series A Guide To Financing Football Clubs. The extract examines legal and financial aspects of various forms of club buy outs, including:
- Leveraged Buy Outs
- Unleveraged (Or Cash) Buy Out – Majority Investment
- Unleveraged (Or Cash) Buy Out – Minority Investment
Using the examples of:
- Manchester United/Glazer family
- Burnley/ALK Capital
- Liverpool
- Girondins Bordeaux/King Street
- The “Moneyball” approach in the Barnsley takeover
- City Football Group/Silver Lake
- FSG/RedBird
The full three-part article series is available to access here: Part 1: debt finance; Part 2: equity finance and ownership structures; Part 3: financing trends resulting from Covid-19.
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- Tags: Commercial Law | Corporate Law | Equity | Football | France | Investment | Italy | New Zealand | Private Equity | Public Listing | Regulation & Governance | Sports | United Kingdom (UK)
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Written by
Michael Savva
Michael is a Solicitor in the Asset Finance practice at Watson, Farley & Williams LLP. He specializes in advising clients in relation to sports finance including: loan finance, financing of broadcasting and ticket revenues and the player transfer finance.
Stuart Bolton
Stuart is an associate in the Assets & Structured Finance group, based in Dubai. Stuart predominately advises investment banks on complex cross-border asset finance transactions in the aviation sector, and also practises sports finance and general corporate banking.
Since starting with Watson Farley & Williams as a trainee in 2016, Stuart has worked in London, Hamburg and Dubai.