Transactions in the sport sector

Clubs are companies, and so are gyms and sports brands. Capital follows: from funds, from family offices, and more and more from athletes themselves. These are corporate transactions (capital, governance, shareholders’ agreements, sales) in a sector with constraints of its own. The firm runs them with the method it uses on every other deal: it frames, drafts, negotiates, and stays on board after signing.

Opening a club’s capital

A club opening its capital runs a standard investment transaction in a setting that is anything but standard. The supporting association sits next to the company, the local authority and the federation have a say, supporters are watching, and revenues follow the season. The firm structures the transaction, drafts the articles and the agreement between historic shareholders and new investors, organises governance (veto rights, information, committees) and sets the exit terms, within the rules of the sport concerned.

Investing in a club

In a club, results are decided on the pitch, the local authority and the federation weigh on governance, and the exit has to be prepared on the way in. An investor needs to know what it is buying and what it will be able to decide. The firm handles the corporate side for the investor: legal due diligence on the club and its commitments, investment documentation, shareholders’ agreement, liquidity mechanisms. For the club, it negotiates the same documents the other way, so that the club keeps control of the sporting project.

Athletes: preparing life after sport while still playing

Don’t wait for the end of your career to prepare what comes next.

A career’s income comes in over a few seasons. What gets decided during those seasons (a company, a holding, a first stake, a project with former teammates) shapes what will be in place the day the contract ends. Prepared at 28, a project is built at your pace; decided at 35, it is put together in a rush.

The firm structures projects for active athletes: the company that carries your off-field activities, the holding that invests, a stake in a business with a shareholders’ agreement that protects the minority partner, a partnership with associates, the takeover of a business for life after sport. Tax and wealth planning are handled with your accountant and your wealth adviser, with whom the firm works directly.

Selling a company in the sector

Selling a gym, an event organiser, a brand or a training centre follows the course of any French share deal: preparation, letter of intent, due diligence, share purchase agreement, warranty and indemnity provisions, completion. The sector shows up in the representations and the conditions precedent: sponsorship contracts, relations with federations and leagues, seasonality of the metrics used for the price.

The stages of these transactions are detailed in the firm’s guides: how does a share sale work in France, what do French warranty and indemnity provisions contain, what is a French shareholders’ agreement for.