Illustration by Lorenzo Gordon
Private equity giant Silver Lake is buying the minority of Endeavor Group it doesn’t own and taking the TKO and WME parent private at $27.50 a share, a 9% premium to Monday’s closing price.
In a midday Tuesday press release announcing the transaction, Silver Lake says the all-cash transaction involves participation from Mubadala, the United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund; the Michael Dell family office DFO Management; private equity firm Lexington Partners; and funds managed by Goldman Sachs. An undisclosed level of new debt on the business financed by a clutch of Wall Street firms is also involved, according to the announcement.
Silver Lake says the deal is one of the largest private equity transactions of the past decade. The $13 billion equity valuation put on Endeavor, plus the $12 billion equity value of UFC and WWE parent TKO Group Holdings, a publicly traded company in which Endeavor controls 51% of the voting power, brings the combined total enterprise value to $25 billion, according to Silver Lake. There is no indication Silver Lake plans on taking TKO private soon.
Silver Lake says the take-private price of $27.50 is a 55% premium to the “unaffected share price” of Endeavor—that is, the share price of Endeavor prior to Silver Lake announcing in October it wanted to take the business private. It is a 15% premium to the $24 IPO price Endeavor came to market with in April 2021. Silver Lake owns 71% of the voting power of Endeavor and therefore has the ability to approve the deal itself.
Endeavor’s senior management team, including Ari Emanuel and Patrick Whitesell, are rolling over the equity in the business. The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2025.
Endeavor shares rose about 3% midday to $25.93. TKO shares were up 5% to $90.25.