US businessman John Textor has tabled a bid of over £400 million ($532.2 million) to acquire English Premier League soccer side Wolverhampton Wanderers from its current owner, China’s Fosun Group.
The deal, which is composed of around $200 million in cash as well as $350 million shares in Textor’s Eagle Football Group multi-club operation, which he is looking to reformat over the coming months, is likely to be rejected, however, with Fosun in favor of a cash-only sale of a minority stake in the team.
Indeed, Fosun has been shopping a minority stake in the team via prominent banking group Moelis & Co, but Textor is instead looking to purchase a majority stake in a team to add to his multi-club group for the English market.
Other names in the English second tier have been floated in the media as more likely Textor acquisitions due to their cheaper price point and willingness to sell, including the likes of Charlton Athletic, Derby County, Queens Park Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday, and Watford.
In early 2024, Jinyuan (Jenny) Wang, the wife of Fosun chair Guangchang Guo, sold her majority stake in Swiss soccer club Grasshopper Club Zürich, a move that at the time looked to pre-empt Fosun’s divestment from soccer, especially given that Chinese club owners across Europe are largely exiting their investments at the moment, but Fosun has stayed firm.
Fosun acquired Wolves for a fee of just £45 million back in July 2016, when the club was in the English second tier, and immediately injected significant funding into the side, resulting in promotion to the Premier League and its longest-ever top-flight stay (a stay that is under threat this season due to poor on-field performances).
Despite the team’s poor form of late, Fosun would stand to generate a significant uplift on that £45 million, even in the case of a minority stake sale.
For Textor’s part, the likely rejection of his Wolves bid comes amid a period of significant turmoil for his Eagle Football Group project, as he is currently embroiled in a number of court cases that could have significant effects on his future as a soccer investor.
Chief among these is the feud with Ares Capital Management, the investment fund that underwrote his acquisition of French giants Lyon, which is attempting to recoup its investment after years of poor financial results at the club and significant losses.
Elsewhere, Textor is also in court opposite the Iconic Sports Eagle Investment fund, backed by US investors James Dinan and Alexander Knaster, over whether Textor is obliged to buy back the pair’s shares in Eagle Football Group after the failed 2023 IPO.
Textor still desires a future IPO, with it likely to come from a reformatted Eagle Football Group that still includes Botafogo (Brazil), RWD Molenbeek (Belgium), and an English soccer club of some description, and his facial recognition ticketing tech company Facebank.
