Sports corporation Arctos seizes a $36 million share in Italian soccer club Atalanta
Arctos Sports Partners, a private equity fund based in the United States, has made its first major sports investment outside of North America with the purchase of a minority stake in Atalanta, an Italian Serie A soccer club based in Bergamo.
The deal, worth €34 million, was facilitated by Steve Pagliuca, the managing owner of the Boston Celtics. Arctos Sports Partners has previously invested in around 18 sports teams, primarily in baseball, basketball, and hockey.
Atalanta Bergamasca Calcio is one of the more successful teams in Italian soccer, having finished third in the top-flight league for the past three seasons. The club generated approximately $255 million in revenue, $56 million in net income, and had roughly $53 million in long-term debt at the end of 2020.
Despite the investment, Arctos Sports Partners was not involved in the bidding for Chelsea. The winning group for the bidding was a Todd Boehly-led consortium.
Interestingly, Pagliuca had been a finalist in the bidding for English club Chelsea. However, his group lost the bidding war formally on Friday. It is unclear whether the Atalanta equity Arctos bought was a condition for reducing Pagliuca's control of Atalanta, given the bidding for Chelsea.
Arctos Sports Partners' investment strategy focuses on buying minority stakes across sports franchises in both North America and Europe. Beyond soccer and North America, the fund has invested in a multi-club ownership model that spans different sports and regions in Europe. However, specific team names outside soccer were not detailed in the available sources.
The trend Arctos is part of involves expanding holdings across various leagues, regions, and sometimes sports, including professional basketball (NBA), baseball (MLB), hockey (NHL), and American football (NFL), as private equity increasingly acquires minority stakes in these U.S. leagues, with some teams’ ownership structures evolving rapidly.
However, there is no direct citation that Arctos owns specific teams in these other sports; the mention is more about the general private equity investment context. Arctos Sports Partners has more than $5 billion in total assets and has just closed on a new fund of $1.1 billion. The Atalanta purchase is through Arctos' first fund, which has $3.9 billion in capital.
Meanwhile, another related story is that Dan Friedkin is forming Pursuit Sports to house soccer clubs and hunt for a Big 4 team. It remains to be seen how these developments will shape the landscape of sports ownership in the future.
Arctos Sports Partners, with its focus on buying minority stakes across sports franchises in both North America and Europe, is now expanding its investments into European soccer, having purchased a minority stake in Atalanta – a move that follows their previous investments in around 18 sports teams, primarily in baseball, basketball, and hockey. Despite not being involved in the bidding for Chelsea, it's interesting to note that one of their partners, Steve Pagliuca, had been a finalist in the bidding for the English club.
