As a man who has negotiated with Roman Abramovich and Daniel Levy, Jonathan Goldstein is no novice when it comes to investing in sport, but even he professes to have been stunned and thrilled when participating in last month’s Hundred auction.
The Chelsea director “maintained discipline” as a rival Silicon Valley consortium featuring the chief executives of Microsoft and Google paid £144m for 49% of London Spirit. He then returned to the England and Wales Cricket Board’s virtual auction room the following week to buy half of Trent Rockets for £40m, in partnership with Todd Boehly, the Chelsea co-owner and chair, and the private equity company Ares Management.
