Australia: Silver Lake acquires 1/3 of the economic and voting interests in the Pro Football Leagues

The US investment firm Silver Lake has acquired "33.33% of the economic and voting interests" in the Australian Professional Leagues (APL), the umbrella body for Australia's men's and women's professional football leagues (A-Leagues), announced Football Australia on 13/12/2021. "Silver Lake have the right to appoint a director to the board of the APL. The newly appointed director will be Stephen Evans. Football Australia will also take up its right to appoint a Director to the APL Board early in 2022." The firm is said to have invested around $100m (€88m) for the stake in the APL, according to Bloomberg the same day.

"The transaction follows the unbundling of the professional leagues from Football Australia, endorsed unanimously by the game's stakeholders in late 2020 and effective from 01/07/2021, where a key objective of the unbundling process was to establish a corporate model for the professional game in Australia that would allow it to attract third-party capital investment more readily. Under the new model, Football Australia - as the game's regulatory body with a 'good of…