Soccer

New Chelsea owners: Who is behind the richest takeover in sports history?

A guide to the players involved in the Todd Boehly consortium that will buy Chelsea

Chelsea confirmed on Saturday that a consortium led by LA Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly has won the battle to buy the Premier League club. Photograph: Justin Tallis/AFP

Sat May 7 2022 - 11:51

Todd Boehly’s consortium has won the £4.25billion race to buy Chelsea from Roman Abramovich.

Here is a look at the main players in the most lucrative takeover in sports franchise history.

Todd Boehly is co-owner of the LA dodgers and face of this new ownership group. Photograph: Patrick T Fallon/AFP

Todd Boehly

The Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner is the co-founder and chief executive of Eldridge Industries. Boehly set up the private investment firm in 2015, having flourished at Guggenheim Partners since 2001. The 46-year-old boasts a personal net worth of 4.6 billion US dollars according to Forbes. Boehly made a bid to buy Chelsea in 2019, carrying out significant due diligence on the Stamford Bridge club. That groundwork handed Boehly an edge this time around, with just eight weeks to race through a takeover that could take nine or more months under no pressure.

Clearlake Capital

Behdad Eghbali will act as Clearlake’s main voice in the incoming Chelsea ownership set-up. The Clearlake co-founder will tuck in behind Boehly but provides an important presence in explaining the US investment firm’s role in the new Stamford Bridge ownership structure. Clearlake’s majority stake in Chelsea could rise as high as 60 per cent, but the Boehly consortium is understood to have agreed to a number of clauses in the sale designed to protect Chelsea’s future. Founded in 2006, Clearlake now boasts more than 72 billion US dollars of assets under management.

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Mark Walter also co-owns the Dodgers and is seen to have played a big role in their 2020 World Series win. Photograph: Maxx Wolfson/Getty Images

Mark Walter

The US tycoon is chief executive officer of Guggenheim Partners, which now holds more than 310 billion US dollars under management. Walter helped found the firm in the late 1990s. Walter has co-owned the LA Dodgers since 2012 when his investment group bought the baseball outfit for 2.2 billion US dollars. Walter’s personal net worth is rated at 3.3 billion US dollars by Forbes. Walter had a clear hand in the Dodgers’ 2020 World Series triumph and impressive administration, raising hopes of similar influences now at Chelsea.

Hansjorg Wyss (left), pictured here with Michael Bloomberg and Sam Waterston afounded a medical device manufacturer. Photograph: Craig Barritt/Getty Images

Hansjorg Wyss

Swiss billionaire Wyss founded medical device manufacturer Synthes Holding AG. The Wyss Foundation has more than 2 billion US dollars in assets. Wyss is thought to be among the world’s biggest philanthropists, especially in donations to environmental causes. Wyss gained degrees from Zurich’s Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School. Stints in the textile, steel and aviation industries followed, before his switch to medical devices.

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