Premiership Rugby considering selling controlling ownership for £275m
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The English Premiership is considering selling controlling ownership of the league for about £275-million to CVC Capital Partners, a private equity firm based in Luxembourg.
According to Owen Slot writing for The Times, the Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) executive has been in year-long negotiations with CVC Capital Partners, which made £8-billion from its decade-long ownership of Formula One motorsport.
It is understood that CVC regards the Premiership to have been severely under-commercialised in the past decade and plans to be a quiet partner, but will, however, be hard on commercial rights.
The Premiership is a struggling financial model with high wages and small crowds, with the clubs collectively losing about £30m a year, around £2.3m on average each. A deal with CVC Capital would deliver about £17-million overnight to every club that could help wipe out their debt.
The 12 current Premiership teams and second division London Irish club owners will have a meeting on Tuesday where the executive committee will present the deal with CVC.
