Germany’s professional football governing body DFL picked private equity firms CVC Capital Partners and Blackstone Inc. as final suitors for a stake in the league’s media rights, according to a statement on Wednesday.
DFL Deutsche Fussball Liga GmbH’s supervisory board on Wednesday decided to eliminate EQT AB from the bidding. A representative for EQT declined to comment.
DFL is seeking bids of up to €1 billion ($1.1 billion) for a stake of as much as 8% in a subsidiary housing the Bundesliga broadcasting rights, Bloomberg News has reported.
Luxembourg-based CVC has long pursued investments in live sporting events from cricket to tennis and in 2021 paid about €2 billion for about 8% of the company that manages broadcast and sponsorship revenues for Spain’s top football league.. The company would appoint Alex Dibelius and Daniel Pindur, the people added, declining to be identified because the information is private. Both men are Frankfurt-based managing partners at the firm.
Blackstone has signaled to the DFL that it would appoint Juergen Pinker and Johannes Ruppert as representatives for the executive committee of the broadcasting rights arm, according to people familiar with the matter. Pinker is the firm’s head of private equity in Germany. Ruppert — an alumnus of Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and the German league — works at Blackstone as well as Bolt Ventures, the investment vehicle of Blackstone senior managing director David Blitzer.
Blackstone and CVC declined to comment.
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(Additional reporting by Emery P. Dalesio)