Bain Capital senior adviser Stephen Pagliuca remains on the lookout for investments in football, having missed out on England’s Chelsea FC last year.
(Bloomberg) — Bain Capital senior adviser Stephen Pagliuca remains on the lookout for investments in football, having missed out on England’s Chelsea FC last year.
The US investor is looking at many clubs but is wary of overpaying at a time when the price of deals in the sport is rising, he said in a Bloomberg TV interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday.
“We want to invest in a great club but we want to stay disciplined so we can invest in the club over the future,” Pagliuca said. “My fear is that some of these prices are getting so high that there might be disinvestment.”
Last year, Pagliuca led a bid to acquire English Premier League Chelsea, only to see the west London club sold to US businessman Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital in a £4.25 billion ($5.2 billion) deal that was one of the biggest ever in global sports.
Since then, Premier League clubs Manchester United FC and Liverpool FC have been put on the block by their owners and are expected to draw strong interest from investors in the US and Middle East.
Pagliuca is no stranger to investing in sports. He is the co-owner of the Boston Celtics basketball team in the US and also holds a stake in Italian football team Atalanta. Pagliuca said that before visiting Davos he attended Atalanta’s 8-2 victory over Salernitana.
This month, he said he is retiring as co-chairman of Bain Capital after more than 30 years with the $160 billion private equity investor. He’ll remain a senior adviser at the firm.
More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com
©2023 Bloomberg L.P.