One more guest at the ball of the contenders for the takeover of Chelsea. Canadian Larry Tanenbaum, 77, chairman of the Board of Governors of the prestigious NBA and owner of numerous North American franchises (basketball, hockey, etc.) is one of the investors who support billionaire Steve Pagliuca’s offer for the club. of Stamford Bridge.
According to Sky News, other co-investors in the group would include John Burbank, founder of San Francisco-based Passport Capital hedge fund, and Eduardo Saverin, the co-founder of Facebook. President of Bain Capital and co-owner of the Boston Celtics in the NBA, Steve Pagliuca, who also owns a large stake in Atalanta de Bergamo in the Italian Serie A, attended the Blues’ victory in Southampton (6-0) last Saturday.
But Pagliuca has drawn the ire of supporters, who have pointed to racist remarks made by members of his family several years ago. One of the businessman’s supporters even told Sky News that Tanenbaum’s renowned work in combating anti-Semitism might give the offer a better echo.
The four consortia still in the running to replace Roman Abramovich after a 19-year tenure at the head of Chelsea must submit their final offers on Thursday, two days after the Champions League quarter-final second leg against Real Madrid (3-1 for people from Madrid on the way).
Raine Group, the merchant bank handling the sale process, pushed back the deadline last week to give suitors more time to finalize the details of their proposals. The four remaining candidates traveled to London last week to meet Chelsea board members, executives and Raine.
They have all been told that they must legally commit to guaranteeing an investment of at least 1 billion pounds (1.2 billion euros) in the infrastructure of the club, its academy and its women’s team if they do so. acquire in the coming weeks. According to sources familiar with the matter, the sale will not be concluded before May.
In addition to Steve Pagliuca’s consortium, the other candidacies come from a group led by Sir Martin Broughton, former chairman of Liverpool and British Airways, from an entity led by Todd Boehly, which has invested in particular in the Dodgers (baseball) and the Lakers and attempted to buy out Tottenham… and Chelsea in 2019, and the Ricketts family, owners of the Chicago Cubs baseball club.
Chelsea have been in crisis since the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and the freezing of the assets of Russian Abramovich, who first offered to entrust the club to his foundation before officially putting it on the market.