€250 million! Bayern Munich seal mega-deal with global corporation

Fresh funds for Bayern Munich: the German record champions have, as expected, sold the last available block of shares in their joint-stock company.

According to media reports, Bayern Munich's partnership with global corporation Viessmann will bring the club €250 million.

Viessmann will become the fourth shareholder in Germany's leading club alongside majority shareholder FC Bayern eV, following adidas (which bought a stake in 2002 for €77 million), Audi (2010/€90 million) and Allianz (2014/€110 million). Under the club's statutes, FC Bayern eV must retain 70 per cent of the shares.

Heating technology specialist Viessmann is acquiring a stake originally amounting to five per cent. Because the transaction forms part of a capital increase, the calculated value of the holding is just under 6.7 per cent. The other three shareholders will then each hold slightly less than 7.8 per cent.

FC Bayern to expand supervisory board including Uli Hoeneß

As part of the deal, company chief Max Viessmann is set to join the Munich club's supervisory board. The board, chaired by president Herbert Hainer and also including former club grandees Uli Hoeneß and Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, will grow from nine members to ten.

Hainer said the new shareholder, a business partner of the club since 2018, "stands for values such as tradition, ambition and innovation, just like FC Bayern". The move "strengthens the ownership structure of FC Bayern München AG", he added, stressing: "Furthermore, a substantially improved equity base further increases our scope for action at a time of constant change."

Max Viessmann said his company wanted, "as a fourth-generation family business, to bring not only capital but also our entrepreneurial experience to the partnership. We want to make our contribution to a strong FC Bayern – as a club with its own identity, economically independent and sustainably successful."

Already a member of FC Bayern eV's advisory board, Viessmann is expanding a partnership that those involved say covers "projects in the areas of sustainability, internationalisation and digitalisation in particular".

The company operates in more than 40 countries and employs around 6,000 people in its industrial core business, with annual turnover of around €2 billion. It has been heavily involved in sport for many years.