BREAKING: Jeff Bezos consortium's Liverpool ownership % confirmed following FSG sale
It has been all change at Liverpool Football Club this summer. Andon Iraola is the new head coach and three long-serving players have all departed, but this extends all the way up to ownership level too.
On Friday, the club confirmed that Fenway Sports Group had accepted a "strategic minority investment".
We'll come onto who exactly has made this investment in just a second, but what has been revealed on Tuesday is just how much of the club they have acquired.
According to Simon Hughes and Dan Sheldon of the Athletic, the newly formed 1892 Holdings will purchase around 40% of Liverpool.
Initial reports claimed that they had taken control over closer to 30%, but it appears to be significantly more. It is not public knowledge how much they have paid for this stake, but Liverpool as a whole is estimated to be worth around £4.5 billion.
The Athletic's report also notes that 1892 Holdings hold an option to buy a controlling stake in the Reds in the next 12 months, so this could be just the start of a full-scale takeover. So, what does this mean for Liverpool, for FSG's ownership and who has bought into Liverpool?
Well, the consortium is led by Amit Bhatia. He is a British-Indian businessman, who served as co-owner of Queens Park Rangers for 19 years, before resigning earlier in the summer so that he could be involved at Liverpool. His father-in-law Lakshmi Mittal is one of the owners of QPR.
Alongside is Jeff Bezos, owner of Amazon, who has a net worth of around €270 billion. Meantime, the other key figure in 1892 Holdings is Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, alongside his wife Elaine. The fact this group now reportedly owns 40% of Liverpool, with the potential to increase this share in the very near future, strongly suggests that they intend to take over fully.
FSG President Mike Gordon asserted that this investment was with "the club’s long-term interests in mind", adding "Amit and the consortium shared our long-term philosophy and appreciation for what makes Liverpool special". Well, John W. Henry and Tom Werner have owned Liverpool for 16 years, paying £300 million to Hicks and Gillett in 2010, set to make an enormous profit were they to cash in.
Fenway Sports Group earned plenty of plaudits for the support they gave Jürgen Klopp during his successful stint, but perhaps now feel they can no longer compete with nation state clubs. Thus, it would be no surprise if Bezos, Bhatia and Saverin are running the show in the next year or two.
