The sale of the club to the American Eagle Group of billionaire John Textor, delayed by negotiations, is imminent.
The listing of OL Groupe was suspended on Wednesday at the request of the holding company which oversees Olympique Lyonnais (Ligue 1 football), pending the sale to the American Eagle Group of billionaire John Textor, scheduled for Friday, according to a press release from OL.
«Euronext will suspend the listing of the shares […] as of market open today and pending issuance of a press release relating to the transaction with Eagle Football», Says the brief press release from OL.
Originally scheduled for September 30, the formalization of this takeover, valued at nearly 800 million euros, has been deferred to October 21, the group headed by Jean-Michel Aulas for 37 years referring to technical stages to be finalize. On Tuesday, OL Groupe shares closed on the Paris Stock Exchange down 1.415%, at 2.80 euros.
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Through Eagle Football Holdings LLC, John Textor is to acquire all of the shares and half of the Osranes (bonds convertible into shares to finance the construction of the Groupama stadium) held by Holnest -the holding company of the Aulas family-, plus the all shares and Osranes held by Pathé (Jérôme Seydoux) and the Chinese investment fund IDG Capitals.
Holnest holds 27.72% of the capital. Pathé and IDG, which have 19.36% and 19.85% respectively, announced on March 9 that they wanted to sell their shares by mandating the Raine bank to do so.
However, to finance the operation, Textor, which must initially take 79% of the shares against 8% for Holnest, is not coming alone. The American businessman relied on investors like James Salter (owner of around thirty brands like Reebok and Sports Illustrated) and Bill Foley (owner of the Las Vegas ice hockey club).
John Textor is already present in the capital of the London club Crystal Palace and majority shareholder of Botafogo, a first division club in Brazil, and RWD Molenbeek (2nd Belgian division).
OL Groupe experienced a “not rebound» of its post-health crisis activity at the end of its 2021/2022 financial year, which enabled it to raise the bar after a historic loss linked to the pandemic during the previous financial year, even if it still posted a loss net of 55 million euros, compared to -107.5 million for the previous financial year.
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