Silver Lake counter: Kiwi-owned investment company Forsyth Barr enters battle to buy into New Zealand Rugby
14 May, 2021 12:00 AM
5 minutes to read
Everything you need to know about the Forsyth Barr deal. Video / NZ Herald
An alternative offer to Silver Lake, valuing New Zealand Rugby at a colossal $3.8 billion, has been tabled by local investment manager Forsyth Barr.
The Auckland head-quartered company has conducted due diligence on the prospect of NZR selling a five per cent stake in its future commercial revenues through an NZX listing and believes investor demand could potentially raise as much as $650m.
Under the terms of the Forsyth proposal – conducted at the request of the New Zealand Rugby Players Association which is not supportive of selling a stake in the national game to US fund manager Silver Lake - NZR would be able to raise between $170m and $190m, with as much as 40 per cent of the offering being open to mum and dad investors who could buy in for as little
OPINION: While the $387.5m investment will inject much-needed cash into the game, there are fears it could see rugby descend into a spectacle of greed.
The Chiefs Arihiana Marino-Tauhinu makes a break against the Blues on Saturday.
OPINION: Watching the Blues v Chiefs women play on Saturday was like an antidote to the embarrassing finger pointing and leaking that has been going on between New Zealand Rugby and the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association over the past week. The row over the Silver Lake deal is ‘not about the money’, we are assured, although when either side is pressed about why a deal has not been done it quickly degenerates into a fight over player pool percentages, what goes where, and who gets what. In other words, the money.
Rugby: NZRPA chief executive Rob Nichol confident of reaching deal with New Zealand Rugby
1 May, 2021 06:00 PM
3 minutes to read
Cheree Kinnear explains the key points in the Silver Lake buy-in.
NZ Herald
New Zealand Rugby Players Association boss Rob Nichol believes they will find an agreement with New Zealand Rugby over the Silver Lake deal soon, but some questions still need to be answered.
The disagreement between the two parties is all that is preventing the sale of 12.5 per cent of future commercial income to the US fund manager for $387m after the provincial unions unanimously agreed to the sale.