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21 July 2025

Daily Newsletter

21 July 2025

CVC forms SportsCo holding company, starts recapitalization process

The private equity heavyweight is seeking a £9 billion valuation on its wide-ranging portfolio of sports investments.

Alex Donaldson July 21 2025

CVC Capital Partners, the global private equity investment firm that has become a major player in the international sports industry, has announced that it is refinancing its vast sports investment portfolio.

The firm has tapped legal and financial services heavyweights Goldman Sachs, PJT Partners, and Raine Group to lead the refinancing efforts.

These efforts will see CVC’s collective sports investments brought together into a new company called SportsCo, which will be valued at over £9 billion ($12 billion).

Among the assets in CVC’s versatile portfolio stand minority investments in the likes of the Six Nations Rugby annual competition, commercial entities set up by the major soccer leagues in France (Ligue 1) and Spain (LaLiga), the Gujarat Titans cricket franchise, and tennis’ WTA, among others.

The refinancing will see CVC borrow against that £9 billion portfolio, which will grant the firm more capital to play with, while the consolidation of its sports investments into a single holding company gives it more maneuverability concerning how it exploits those assets, either through the sale of a stake in the company, or an initial public offering (IPO) further down the road.

SportsCo is chaired by Marc Allera, who joined CVC from UK telecommunications business EE earlier in 2025.

In 2024, CVC undertook an IPO in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on the Euronext exchange.

Shares in that offering opened at an above estimation of €17.34 ($18.61 at the time) per share (initial pricings put CVC stock at €14 per share), leading to an overall valuation of the company at €14 billion in what was one of the continent’s biggest IPOs in 2024.  

Most recently, in the sports world, CVC was outbid by an Ari Emanuel-led consortium for the Madrid Open and Miami Open top-tier tennis tournaments.

This major capital raise could be seen as CVC expanding its spending power to better equip it to bid for future sports property stakes.

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