Todd Boehly and Mark Walter to sell stakes in Chelsea?
Todd Boehly and Mark Walters could cease being co-owners of Premier League club Chelsea after engaging in talks to sell their respective stakes to Clearlake Capital.
The move could value the club at £5.5bn just years after a Boehly-fronted consortium purchased the club for £4.25bn – including promised funds for stadium developments – from the sanctioned Roman Abramovich.
And it comes after Walter sold the LA Lakers NBA franchise for over $12bn in an astonishing deal that followed a number of opened investigations into firms he has interests in.
Boehly and Walter’s side of the consortium that purchased Chelsea have clashed with fellow investors Clearlake Capital, according to reporting from the Financial Times, despite the private equity fund owning nearly two thirds of the Premier League club that begins its season on Monday away to Fulham.
But what do football finance experts think of the potential stake sale?
Chelsea owners can make money
Professor Kieran Maguire told Morning Wire: “A sale from the perspective of Boehly and Walter makes sense from their perspective. They don’t really have an operational say in the way that Chelsea is being run. Behdad Eghbali has has taken over that position, so it does mean that Boehly’s position has become marginalised.
“I think his enthusiasm for watching football isn’t as necessarily as as significant as it used to be. And given the the increase in market valuations in the past couple of years – we saw Forbes were saying 5.6 times revenue, a KPMG report was reporting around about 4.9 times – there’s still a chance for these two partners to get most of their money back, although it has to be looked at from a group level that Chelsea’s finances are still quite scary.
“But Clearlake might have a different plan for them. So, you can see the logic in going through such a route.”
Spokespeople for Walter and Boehly did not respond to the FT requests for comment. Chelsea and Clearlake declined to comment to the publication.
The endgame
Professor Rob Wilson told Morning Wire: “Chelsea’s ownership story seems to be heading towards a pretty significant endgame. Boehly arrived in 2022 as the public face of the takeover, but Clearlake always provided the majority of the capital and owned the biggest stake.
“If Boehly and Walter now sell to Clearlake, it would effectively settle the power struggle that has hung over the club and leave Clearlake unquestionably in control. It’s quite remarkable to see how Boehly has managed to control the narrative as his buy out at times. There’s also a real irony to the direction of travel. Not long ago the conversation was about whether Boehly might find a way to buy out Clearlake and take greater control himself.
“Now it’s Clearlake potentially buying out Boehly. For a club that has often appeared to have competing voices at ownership level, one dominant shareholder could at least bring much greater clarity over who is making the big calls. The other fascinating element is valuation. If a transaction points towards Chelsea being worth north of £5bn, it underlines how dramatically the economics of elite Premier League clubs continue to move, and is hot on the heels of the Liverpool story last week.
“Whatever you make of the sporting performance and the enormous transfer spending since 2022, Chelsea appears to have become a substantially more valuable asset and Clearlake seemingly wants to own even more of it.”