Bezos-Backed Consortium Buys into Liverpool

This month, Fenway Sports Group agreed to sell a minority stake in Liverpool to 1892 Holdings, a consortium led by Amit Bhatia and backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin and the Mittal family trusts. The consortium is named after the year Liverpool was founded. Reports put the stake at around a third of the club, at a valuation of more than $7 billion, a record for an investment in a football club and above the roughly $5.8 billion enterprise value in Sir Jim Ratcliffe's 2024 Manchester United deal.

FSG bought Liverpool in 2010 for £300 million and has raised outside money before, selling a stake in FSG itself to RedBird Capital in 2021 and a small stake in the club to Dynasty Equity in 2023. This deal is on a much larger scale. Bhatia, a former co-owner of Queens Park Rangers and son-in-law of steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, led the process and will become the club's vice chairman. He will join an expanded board alongside two other consortium members, Elaine Saverin and Bryan Baum of K5 Sports, the fund through which Bezos is investing. Bezos himself will not take a board seat.

The most notable feature of the deal is that FSG keeps majority ownership and operational control of the club despite selling such a large stake. As with Ineos at Manchester United, a significant investment and board seats do not by themselves mean control. Some reports suggest the consortium may have an option to pursue majority control in future, which would make this a possible first step towards a change of ownership. Completion depends on regulatory approvals and other customary conditions, including Premier League approval of the new investors and directors.

Minority sales let American owners realise value from their clubs without giving up control. At record valuations, they are also bringing some of the world's wealthiest investors into English football.