The owners of Atlético de Madrid They are in advanced negotiations to sell a majority participation in the Spanish club shareholders to the US Risk Capital Manager Global Management Apolloaccording to the local press, which quotes sources close to the operation.
Contacted by the AFP, both the American firm and the football entity declined on Tuesday to confirm the information published in the media.
According to the newspaper Expansión, Apollo would buy a part of the actions of the current four partners: Miguel Ángel Gil Marín (current CEO) and Enrique Cerezo (club president), Ares Management and Quantum Pacific.
Gil Marín is the majority shareholder of Atlético with Holdco, a company that controls the entity with a 70.39%participation, while Quantum Pacific, a British company created by the Israeli magnate Idan Offer, has 27.81%.
In the Holdco Society, Gil Marín holds 50.82% of the shares, but Ares Management has 33.96% and Cerezo, 15.22%.
The expansion newspaper, the first means to inform that the conversations focused on the sale of a majority participation, said that Apollo values Atlético at 2.5 billion euros ($ 2.9 billion).
For its part, the Madrid club has already declared that it would need a capital increase to invest in the workforce and finance the development of the city of sport, an urban project next to the Metropolitan Stadium.
Apollo, which is quoted in the New York Stock Exchange and manages more than 800,000 million dollars in assets, contemplates executing the operation through a 5,000 million dollars sport.
According to the sources, the parties are discussing the amount of the operation that would be allocated to the sale of the shares and the expansion of capital.
In addition, the agreement with Apollo, which is known in Spain for being a shareholder of the APPLUS certification company and participates in the Primaffrio Transport group and in the online store of Tradeinn sports material, plans to keep Gil Marín and Cerezo at the head of the club.
The possible landing of Apollo in Atlético would mean the second great step of ‘Private Equity’ in Spanish sport after the British manager CVC Capital Partners, shareholder of the League since 2021, according to expansion.
