The sale of Paris FC to French billionaire Bernard Arnault will bring billionaire backing to a historically second division soccer club with hopes of one day challenging rival Paris Saint-Germain.
Arnault, France’s richest person and owner of luxury brands LVMH and Christian Dior, is buying control of Paris FC, as first reported by the French newspaper L’Equipe and confirmed by a person familiar with the transaction who asked not to be named because the deal has yet to officially close.
According to L’Equipe, Arnault will buy about 55% of the club, while Red Bull will join as a minority owner with 15% of the team. Current majority shareholder Pierre Ferracci will retain a 30% stake in the team. While financial terms haven’t been publicly disclosed, the club is being sold at an enterprise value at €90 million ($98.3 million), the largest amount ever paid for a second-tier French club, according to the person familiar.
Enterprise value is the value of the club’s equity plus team debt being assumed by the buyers. Paris FC had debt of €8.2 million in 2023 and revenue of €15.1 million, according to Capology, a company that researches soccer finances.
The terms of the deal represent a windfall for the selling limited partners. Highest profile among them is Fubo CEO David Gandler, who leads a consortium that owns 17% of Paris FC, having first bought into the club in 2021 through his Sports Business Ventures and Sports Business Media Ventures, two organizations owned by Gandler and not affiliated with Fubo, according to the person familiar.
The Gandler group will book a 140% return on the investment in just over three years of ownership. Also selling is the Bahrain Sovereign Wealth Fund, which owns 15% of Paris FC it originally bought in 2020, and 10% owner BRI Sports Holdings, which is a vehicle of Sri Lankan telecommunications tycoon Allirajah Subaskaran. He bought into the club in late 2021.
Paris FC is a perennial also-ran in performance and popularity to Paris Saint-Germain. Paris FC was formed in 1969 and then merged in 1970 with another Parisian team, Stade Saint-Germain, to form Paris Saint-Germain, according to a history of the club on the PSG website. The Paris FC side of the merged team then split off from PSG in 1972, with PSG establishing itself as the top team in France while Paris FC spent much of its subsequent history on the second or third division. Its last season in Ligue 1 was 1978-79.
Presumably, the backing of Arnault, worth $182 billion, and Red Bull, which just hired former Liverpool and Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp as its soccer operations chief, means there is intent for Paris FC to evolve into a legitimate competitor of PSG, which has won Ligue 1 a dozen times. Arnault’s LVMH has been increasingly gravitating toward sports, having inked a 10-year sponsorship deal with Formula 1 this month.
Attempting to rival PSG is a high-stakes game: PSG had revenue of €807 million last year (about $882 million), according to Capology.
(This article has been corrected in the sixth and seventh paragraphs to note that Gandler’s group has a 17% stake and Bahrain’s wealth fund a 15% stake.)
