Ligue 1. Who is David Blitzer, candidate for the takeover of Saint-Etienne?

AS Saint-Etienne is preparing to defend its place in Ligue 1 on the lawn of FC Nantes, this Saturday, during the final day of the championship. It is however behind the scenes that a large part of the future of the current nineteenth of L1 could be being played out. According to information from The Independent a new suitor would have declared himself for the takeover of the Greens: the American businessman David Blitzer, owner of the company Bolt Football Holding.

Invested in the world of sport

Blitzer is far from unknown in the sports world. He has even devoted a large part of his investments to it, whether in the United States, where the 52-year-old man is a shareholder in several major franchises (Philadelphia 76ers in the NBA, New Jersey Devils in the NHL and New York Yankees in baseball. ), or in Europe with an entry into the capital of several football clubs.

This is the case of the London club Crystal Palace, currently 13th in the Premier League, of which he became the co-owner in 2015. The American also owns shares in FC Augsburg (14th in the Bundesliga), AD Alcorcon (Spanish D2) and Waasland-Beveren (Belgian D2).

An activity in football that has continued to grow in recent months. On January 6, David Blitzer invested in Real Salt Lake City (MLS), before entering the capital of ADO Den Haag (Dutch D2) on February 27. Before arriving in France?

A fortune of 5 billion dollars

David Blitzer would get there with an alluring tag. The co-leader of The Blackstone Group, which manages more than 600 billion dollars in assets worldwide, has a personal fortune valued at 5 billion dollars, or approximately 4.8 billion euros. If successful in the AS Saint-Etienne takeover process, he would become the seventh billionaire owner of Ligue 1.

His fortune would even place him fifth among the richest French club owners, behind the Pinault family (Stade Rennais), Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (Troyes), Jim Ratcliffe (Nice) and Dmitry Rybolovlev (Monaco).

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It remains to be seen in what form the American would like to invest in the Saint-Etienne club: as a strong minority shareholder or as a new owner? The intentions of the pretender still remain unknown.