RedBird Capital Partners, the private equity firm that holds an 11 per cent stake in Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group, is to sell its 40 per cent stake in One Team Partners in a deal that will book profits of around $600m (£527m) for the New York-based fund.
RedBird were a founding investor in OneTeam back in 2019, the company created to look after the licensing and commercial rights for more than 10,000 athletes represented through the MLB Players' Association, NFL Players' Association, MLS Players' Association, US Women’s National Team PA, WNBAPA, NWSLPA, US Rugby PA, and the LCSPA, as well as college athletes.
The sale of RedBird's stake sees the three-year-old OneTeam valued at $1.9bn, meaning that RedBird have seen more than a 500 per cent return on their investment, a return that has far outpaced the average private equity return over the same period, which analysts at Pitch Book, via Sportico, had pegged at around 99 per cent.
