SAIL eyes UK sports investment
Posted Wed, 09 Jan 2008
South African sports and entertainment investment company SAIL Group is in discussions with England-based Premier Team Holdings to acquire a stake in that company, which owns the Premier League rugby club Saracens among others, for an undisclosed amount.
SAIL Group chief executive Brand de Villiers told SAinfo on Tuesday that the transaction would be a financial investment into the holding company, with involvement from SAIL on a board level.
Making the deal attractive for SAIL is that the investment in Premier Team Holdings not only exposes it to the Watford-based Saracens, but also to two other sports-related companies, RT Marketing and MBN Promotions.
"Rugby is only a part of the possible investment, which also includes a hospitality company and [a] promotions company," De Villiers said. "It is a business opportunity which has presented itself in line with our current business."
This is SAIL's first venture back into overseas markets since its delisting from
the JSE in 2002, when it disposed of its existing overseas investments.
Locally, the group owns stakes in the Blue Bulls Company, Western Province Rugby and Griffons Rugby. Its previous investments in South African sport included the Border Bears cricket team based in the Eastern Cape province.
It wholly owns SA World of Tennis, a training academy for young players being run under the auspices of the South African Tennis Association
Its non-sport investments include Edusport Travel, sport-travel company; Circa, a hospitality company; SAIL Sport & Entertainment, an events management company; and Navitute, a company that specialises in conceptualising and packaging sports rights.
Local Afrikaans newspaper Sondag this week quoted De Villiers as saying that there was a big South African rugby market in Britain. "We hope that Saracens will become a home away from home for South Africans living in Britain," he told the publication
De Villiers further
told SAinfo that opportunities to invest in English clubs arose from time to time and that SAIL had previously had discussions with some of those clubs.
He added that the present investment gives SAIL an entry into the UK and European market, while also providing an opportunity to unlock the synergies between the SAIL group of companies and the UK-based group of companies.
"SAIL are looking to expand not only geographically, but also [expand] its services," he said.
According to De Villiers, the move to invest overseas also makes good financial sense for SAIL. "Investment in sport in SA is difficult, with most of the sporting codes and clubs under continued financial pressure."
Recent media reports on the deal have pointed out to possible player-swaps between Saracens and any of the local rugby clubs that SAIL has invested in, should the deal come to fruition, though De Villiers was more circumspect.
"The benefits would depend on how successfully we can
manage the obvious synergies that exists between our group investments," he said.
"One of the conditions to the possible transaction is that [the South African Rugby Union] must support such an investment, especially as they are our current partners via our local investments."
The deal is expected to be finalised in the next six weeks.
SAinfo reporter
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