Sports Sponsorship Insider has new owners following the completion of the acquisition of its parent company SportBusiness Group by Silva International Investments, the investment group owned by sports and media entrepreneur Riccardo Silva.
Sport Business Acquisitions Limited (SBA Limited), a new company created and managed by Silva International, acquired the entire issued share capital of Electric World PLC, SportBusiness Group’s parent company, in a deal that closed this morning.
Silva International said it plans to invest to improve SportBusiness Group’s “content, data and technology” in order to drive growth at the business.
SportBusiness Group CEO Ben Speight said: “In the last few years, the company has successfully completed a transition from being reliant on advertising funding to being built on customers subscribing to business-critical information in the form of high quality, exclusive data and independent analysis. We have enjoyed significant growth by realigning the business in this way and we have a clear roadmap of how we can provide further value to our customers by developing our existing products and pushing into new areas. Therefore, to have this new investment is timely and hugely exciting for us. Moreover, it is a massive endorsement of the work we have done so far to receive the backing from new owners who have such a strong knowledge of the industry."
SportBusiness Group is the producer of this news service and a range of information and data products, including SportBusiness International magazine, TV Sports Markets, Sports Sponsorship Insider, and consultancy division SportBusiness Intelligence. It was formed in 1996 and is one of the leading businesses in its sector, with hundreds of subscribing sports business customers around the globe and publications reaching an audience of 130,000 each month across all channels including social media and email.
A governance charter is being agreed between SportBusiness Group and Silva International such that the integrity and independence of SportBusiness Group content will remain unchanged, considering that this includes news and analysis covering Silva International companies.
“We are delighted to have found a partner that believes in the value of our products, and that understands and is pledged to protect our independent journalism and analysis," Speight said. "Together, we believe we can create a bigger, broader, richer, more compelling service that customers will love, and that will help them build better-informed, more competitive, and more successful sports businesses.”
Silva International Investments CEO Marco Auletta said: “This is a great deal for both SportBusiness Group and Silva International Investments. We are confident that we will be able to support SportBusiness Group in maintaining high quality standards and editorial independence as it seeks to strengthen and increase its growth. SportBusiness Group has established a reputation for the quality of its independent market intelligence, consulting expertise and journalistic content, and this is testament to the capability of its staff, at all levels.”
Silva International Investments’ portfolio includes a stake in the MP & Silva sports marketing agency, football team Miami FC, real estate company Mast Capital, and modelling agency MP Management, among other investments. Silva and Auletta are perhaps best known in the sports industry building MP & Silva into one of the leading global sports media rights agencies. The two businessmen retain stakes in MP & Silva. Silva remains non-executive vice chairman with no operational role in the firm. Auletta left his position as CEO last year.
Link to press release announcing takeover