Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?
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In fern tradition, I haven't read the article. It's cricket season, good time to release depressing news like this.
I'd rather nerd out on cricket stats than read a depressing article about private equity in the All Blacks. I'm going to assume it isn't true ... sometimes foreign media use the terms "All Blacks" and "NZRU" as meaning the same thing, I'm going to hope NZRU are looking for equity for a competition, not the team ... please?
Would it even be legal? Form a WR perspective? NZRU have 3 votes on the world council, as a representative of NZRU which is a representative of the provincial unions which are are representatives of the clubs.
Could we go all 1990 retrospective a-la every post from MN5 and speculate on a Rupert Murdoch buying 3 SARU votes from rugby-hating ANC stooges? etc etc
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@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Snowy yeah I think WR had offered cash to the Unions, but NZ opted not to take thier's just yet?
Hadn't heard that. Any idea what the terms were? Why would you not take it...
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I'd rather NZRU just gave up on competing at sub-national level, settled for top players being foreign based. Come back to play test rugby.
Obviously will play less tests per year (fine with me).
Then, if they are playing for foreign clubs I don't give a shit about, I won't even need to be angry ever again about terrible bland tribeless franchise rugby kits. Sub-national rugby has become so identity-less that I don't really care anymore.
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@Snowy said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Snowy yeah I think WR had offered cash to the Unions, but NZ opted not to take thier's just yet?
Hadn't heard that. Any idea what the terms were? Why would you not take it...
It's just bringing forward the payout from RWC years, where the Big 10 tier 1 unions get 'compensated' for not playing November and June EOYTs in a RWC year.
So, ARU had a cashflow crisis, WR paid them their future income 3 years early.
NZRU hasn't as they had 5 x this amount in their own reserves.
Just Australia and Wales, I think, have tapped it.
There is a separate, much smaller, pot. That WR have created as a covid crisis fund for tier 2s. I believe. -
@Machpants said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@Victor-Meldrew is not covid related, it was talked about before. NZ rugby is totally unsustainable with the current structure, so they need to do something about it if we want to stay a world power
Thanks. Is it the structure, the money from Silver Lake or both?
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I'm not going to read up anything on it, until there is local source. I assume the sky link above is sky UK?
As I say, foreign media mixing "All Blacks" and "NZRU" means I'll probably just get unnecesarily annoyed.
If there's a local source other than a crap NZ website quoting parts of a foreign article, then please post on here.
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@Rapido said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
other than a crap NZ website quoting parts of a foreign article
jeez, why do you come here then
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Report: NZ Rugby for sale in mega deal
A small percentage of NZ Rugby could be up for sale - for a mammoth price.
NZ Herald?
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@Kiwiwomble said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
NZ Herald?
He didn't want a crap NZ website...
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@Kiwiwomble said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
Report: NZ Rugby for sale in mega deal
A small percentage of NZ Rugby could be up for sale - for a mammoth price.
NZ Herald?
Thank you.
With the realisation that NZ Rugby's financial model can no longer rely solely on the All Blacks to fund the game, a high ranking NZ Rugby source explained how a private investment could be carried out.
"You would set up a subsidiary company of NZ Rugby and get investment into that company in some form of partnership," the source told the Herald in May. "You put commercial assets into that company — whether that's in combination with Sanzaar partners and something like Super Rugby in its reincarnated form, or the Rugby Championship.
and
Following the Herald's report, which stated negotiations with Silver Lake and other private investment firms would resume once Super Rugby's future had a firm blueprint, Sky News UK now suggests a 15 per cent stake could be sold.
That's what I thought.
Some NZRU and maybe SANZAAR cmpetitions. Not 'The All Blacks'.
Panic over.
Good old useless foreign rugby media and use of the term All Blacks. A BBC article I read last year made it sound like the All Blacks teams were in financial negotiations in the build up to a test match. Would have needed to select Ben from Accounts.
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$2B for a 15% stake would make the ABs worth over $13B?
Doesnt seem right.
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@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
$2B for a 15% stake would make the ABs worth over $13B?
Doesnt seem right.
No, it doesn't.
But even more, not right, for just a stake in the competitions.
Panic re-commenced.
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@Rapido said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
@taniwharugby said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
$2B for a 15% stake would make the ABs worth over $13B?
Doesnt seem right.
No, it doesn't.
But even more, not right, for just a stake in the competitions.
Panic re-commenced.
It's not $2B for the 15% - I think they're saying NZRU in total is $2B:
NZ Rugby's entity has been tentatively valued at US$2 billion ($2.79b NZD).
So, they're saying they might carve a bit of that out, into it's own entity, and sell 15% of THAT... was my impression.
In general, the quotes from the "high ranking NZ Rugby source" - suggest that they're going to be very careful that there's zero foreign ownership of the actual NZRU/ABs... keeping this stake/investment fairly well firewalled. -
@Kruse They cannot sell the NZRFU as it is not owned by paid employees of that organisation. It is simply a body set up to organise and administer rugby in NZ and is effectively owned by the financial (and Life) members of each and every club affiliated to a provincial Rugby Union that is also affiliated to the NZRFU (and there are none that aren't!). .
They might be able to sell off or pledge assets/intellectual property or interests in things they own or run (eg broadcasting rights to the NPC, naming rights to teams or competitions etc) but they cannot "sell" part of the governing body as it is, in effect, a "Co-operative". -
Unless the NZ government comes to the rescue, NZR (like other nation unions and many sports organisations) is going to need a lot of investment to make up for revenue lost in the Covid-19 crisis. Silver Lake has a very strong track record of successful investments (Skype, Dell, UFC, Twitter).
For me, the chief stakeholders in New Zealand Rugby will always be the players and the fans, especially those closely involved in grassroots and Heartland Rugby. But if the piggy bank is so empty that Private Equity's involvement is necessary for competitive Rugby to survive in New Zealand then Silver Lake are a good organisation to be speaking to.
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@sparky Investment firms don’t give money away for free. They will want a return that is greater than current owners (Clubs & Provinces). No one can just magic new revenue sources out of nothing - so the plan has to be good and the chosen partner has to add value to that plan. I note the digital media stuff.
For me the worry is that the plan will be non existent and something will be lost.
I worked for Telecom (Spark) when it was sold to the Americans in the 80’s with the same type of story - they would magically bring investment and knowledge and the company would do wonderful things. All that happened is they bought a monopoly for a song - just after the Government had upgraded its network ( to digital exchanges at that time ). So with no major new investment required for the foreseeable future, and a rising share market they just cut costs (people) milked the company (read NZs ) for dividends and sold their shares at the top of the market. Best investment ever for them but they really added no long term value - they were nothing special. Still remember sharing the lift with the big Texan CEO of Telecom Auckland in his boots and smoking cigars - they just came and went.
So when the story is we need the foreign investment I say bullshit to that. Show me first how they will grow our revenue streams and why only they can do that for us and why they require ownership rights? It’s all fairies and unicorns - but with a good (?) chance they will just end up just being blood sucking leeches.
Just waiting for the full story but a little bit skeptical
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@Rapido said in Silver Lake buying a stake in the ABs?:
I'd rather NZRU just gave up on competing at sub-national level, settled for top players being foreign based. Come back to play test rugby.
Obviously will play less tests per year (fine with me).
Then, if they are playing for foreign clubs I don't give a shit about, I won't even need to be angry ever again about terrible bland tribeless franchise rugby kits. Sub-national rugby has become so identity-less that I don't really care anymore.
This is the crux of it for me too. What do they need the capital for? If it is just to prop of recurrent expenditure (player salaries, the franchises etc) and they don't intend to change the model then what is in it for Silver Lake?
If the model is going to be changed it's not clear why we would need additional capital to let players play overseas, cull unions or pull out of SANZAAR and auction off our test matches etc. If we were trying to renationalize the structure I could understand why you would need that injection.
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@rotated To me sub national rugby is everything. You undermine that and in 10-15 years the ABs will be also rans on the field and we will all be watching English football. When the ABs become a team of rich pricks coming back from Europe a few times a year then it’s game over for me as a spectator.
