Sheffield United the latest football club to get US takeover
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Sheffield United will be the latest English football club to come under American ownership.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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NEW YORK – An American consortium has agreed to buy Sheffield United, one of the biggest English football teams outside the top-flight Premier League.
Resilience Capital Partners co-founder Steven Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, chairman of biotechnology firm Guardant Health, signed a deal with Sheffield owner Prince Abdullah Mosaad Abdulaziz Al Saud on behalf of a group of investors, according to a statement from the buyers confirming an earlier Bloomberg News report.
The consortium, COH Sports, has received full clearance from the English Football League, it said. The financial details were not disclosed.
The takeover, if completed as expected, would be the latest United States deal for an English club outside the Premier League after investments in teams like Birmingham City, Ipswich Town, Carlisle United and Norwich City.
Ipswich have been promoted to the top flight this season.
More than a third of the 92 professional teams in England’s top four leagues now have some form of American ownership, including Wrexham, the Welsh team controlled by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.
A swift conclusion to the deal will allow the team to buy new players in the January transfer window, said Rosen and Eltoukhy in a statement.
“Like all Sheffield United supporters, we want to see the club building on its strong start to the season,” they said. “We look forward to moving forward to completion as soon as possible.”
Sheffield, currently in first place in the second-tier Championship, have been for sale since at least May 2023, according to an investor presentation seen by Bloomberg News.
The club were relegated from the Premier League last season, causing their value to decline. Investment firm Lazard has reportedly been helping Sheffield to identify new owners.
The two top teams in the Championship are automatically promoted to the Premier League at the end of the season. The teams that finish in third to sixth place enter a play-off tournament and the winners will gain promotion.
A return to the Premier League would add substantially to Sheffield’s revenues, which were £62 million (S$105.9 million) in the year ending June 2023, according to the club’s last reported set of accounts.
The club’s loss widened to £31 million in this period.
Rosen is also a co-founder of Zanite Acquisition Corp, a US-listed company that merged in 2022 with a company developing flying taxis. BLOOMBERG
