Endeavor Group Holdings, a holding firm that owns the namesake expertise company and several other different sports activities and leisure enterprises, is exploring promoting off a few of its occasion property, together with Frieze, the corporate introduced Thursday. The potential sale of property additionally covers, however is just not restricted to, two tennis tournaments, the Miami Open and the Madrid Open, based on a launch.
The information comes after Silver Lake, a non-public fairness agency primarily based in Menlo Park, California, introduced it might take Endeavor personal after being listed on the New York Inventory Trade for 3 years. The fairness worth of the deal was set at $13 billion, with Silver Lake agreeing to pay $27.50 per share, representing a 55 precent premium on its October 2023 share worth. On the time of the deal, Silver Lake already managed round 71 % of Endeavor’s voting rights, based on the Monetary Occasions.
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Endeavor bought a stake in Frieze, which incorporates the namesake London-based artwork journal in addition to a number of artwork festivals, in 2016. On the time, Frieze operated two festivals in London—Frieze London, for up to date artwork, and Frieze Masters, for artwork from antiquity to the twentieth century—in addition to one in New York.
Since Endeavor’s acquisition of Frieze, the corporate has launched annual festivals in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Final summer time, in a shock transfer, Frieze additionally acquired two US festivals, Expo Chicago and the Armory Present, Frieze’s primary competitor in New York. And in 2021, Frieze launched No.9 Cork Avenue, a everlasting exhibition house in London’s tony Mayfair district.
All of those property below the Frieze umbrella are to evaluated as a part of the sale. The corporate’s artwork festivals for 2025 are nonetheless scheduled to proceed as deliberate.
The announcement seemingly represents an general strategic shift for Endeavor that might see the corporate recalibrate towards focusing extra on the expertise rep aspect of its enterprise. TKO Group Holdings, a sports activities and leisure firm that’s majority owned by Endeavor, additionally introduced right this moment that it had acquired Skilled Bull Riders (“PBR”), IMG, and On Location (the organizer of 1,200 sporting occasions from the Tremendous Bowl to the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the Olympic and Paralympic Video games) from Endeavor for all-equity transaction valued at $3.25 billion. In 2023, Endeavor’s Final Preventing Championship merged with World Wrestling Leisure; each of these corporations are actually owned by TKO.
In an announcement, Endeavor’s president and COO Mark Shapiro mentioned, “Endeavor’s portfolio contains iconic, world, and must-attend occasions spanning sports activities, leisure, and the humanities. As a part of Endeavor, Frieze and the Miami and Madrid Open tournaments have every grown considerably, from Frieze launching profitable festivals in Los Angeles and Seoul to the Miami and Madrid Opens setting year-over-year attendance and sponsorship data. We’re happy with this progress and assured that these distinctive property are well-positioned for achievement sooner or later.”
The discharge said that there is no such thing as a set timeline for a way lengthy the evaluation would take and that the evaluation doesn’t essentially imply there shall be any gross sales, including, “Endeavor doesn’t intend to remark additional relating to the potential sale of its occasion property as described herein until and till it determines that additional disclosure is important or advisable.”