(Bloomberg) -- Lenore Sports Partners, an investment group that includes the co-founder of Crescent Capital, is looking to raise about €49 million ($54 million) to fund a potential purchase of a stake in the Portuguese football club Benfica.
The firm is working to gauge investor interest in a plan to acquire 16.38% of Lisbon-listed Benfica SAD, according to a pitch document reviewed by Bloomberg News. That could value Benfica SAD, which manages the professional football team, at about €300 million.
Lenore has approached Jose Antonio dos Santos, Benfica SAD’s second-biggest shareholder, according to a person familiar with the matter. Dos Santos, together with his family’s poultry producer Grupo Valouro, owns 16.38% of Benfica, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.
Deliberations are at an early stage and there’s no guarantee they’ll result in a transaction, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information.
Jean-Mark Chapus, the co-founder of private equity firm Crescent Capital, is one of four partners at Lenore, the document shows. Chapus’s existing sporting investments include stakes in US baseball team the Milwaukee Brewers and English football club Norwich City FC.
Lenore’s other partners are Elliot Hayes, a former investor in French football club OGC Nice; Omar Imtiaz, who also previously invested in Nice; and Alex Pomeroy, managing partner at Quail Hill Holdings.
Lenore Sports couldn’t be reached for comment. Hayes and a representative for Chapus declined to comment, while other partners didn’t respond to requests for comment. Dos Santos declined to comment on investor interest and the possible sale of his stake in Benfica SAD. A representative for SL Benfica said they are not aware of any initiative to buy a stake in the club and have no plans to sell their shares.
American investors have been pouring money into European football clubs in recent years, looking to capitalize on untapped revenue potential in the world’s most popular sport. In 2019, MSP Sports Capital co-led a group of US investors to acquire Estoril Praia Futebol SAD, a Portuguese football club based near Lisbon. Olympique Lyonnais in France is owned by American businessman John Textor and Chelsea FC in England by the US private equity firm Clearlake Capital.
Founded in 1904, Benfica is one of the so-called big three teams in Portugal, alongside FC Porto and Sporting Lisbon. It finished second in the country’s Primeira Liga and reached the quarter-finals in the UEFA Europa League in the latest season. The team plays in a roughly 65,000-seat stadium in Lisbon, the largest in the country.
Benfica runs a football academy that has become a breeding ground for top Portuguese football players that are later sold to other European clubs. Striker Goncalo Ramos was sold to Paris Saint-Germain last year for €65 million, plus as much as €15 million in performance-based bonuses.
(Updates Benfica’s comment in seventh paragraph.)
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