After months of twists and turns, a consortium led by Todd Boehly have agreed a deal to
buy Chelsea for £2.5bn, while pledging a further £1.75bn to invest in the club.
Boehly actually tried to buy Chelsea in 2019, but saw a £2.2bn offer rejected.
This time, however, he’s been successful.
But who is he?
Todd Boehly set up Eldridge Industries seven years ago, a holding company that owns stakes
in about 80 different finance, media, sports, real estate and tech companies.
Among his portfolio is a percentage in global franchises the LA Dodgers and the LA Lakers.
Boehly’s rise to prominence has been
pretty remarkable. He’s admitted to not being the best student at William & Mary,
the second-oldest university in the US after Harvard, and wasn’t sure how to get into finance.
Advice from his former geometry teacher at Landon School in Maryland, where he won state
tournament titles in wrestling, led to him applying for an internship in the UK,
which provided the opportunity to work at Citibank in London while also studying at the London School
of Economics. This kick-started his career and began his affection for England and its capital.
But he got his first full-time job at CS First Boston in New York, now known as Credit Suisse,
in 1996. His next move was to JH Whitney & Co, an old-school venture capital business,
where he learned a lot about valuing businesses and using debt. And that
led to a switch to Guggenheim Partners in 2000 where, later that year, he spotted that Enron,
the American energy company, was about to go bust and told investors to get out.
By the time he left to set up Eldridge in 2015, he was a co-owner of the LA Dodgers,
bought by a consortium he was involved in called Guggenheim Baseball Management
for $2.15 billion (£1.64 billion) a decade ago.
What will encourage those of a Chelsea persuasion is the success the Dodgers have enjoyed.
Boehly doesn’t run the Dodgers by himself but the way he operates might be instructive.
Talking to Yahoo Finance last year, he said: “You always just have to keep remembering that the fans
are the centre. And the second that you kind of veer, just go back to think about the fans.”
He doesn’t sound like a meddler, either, saying in the same interview that:
“…like any business, you have to have the people that are in the business run the business
and really feel like they own the outcome.”
In many ways, that doesn’t sound too different to how Abramovich has operated,
but Boehly would not be as carefree with spending as Abramovich. Sources talk about
the consortium running Chelsea similarly to how Fenway Sports Group operates at Liverpool.
The need to generate more revenue is high on the agenda. It is believed Boehly
is encouraged by the increased funds that foreign media rights could bring.
He also believes there is still a huge market in the USA that Chelsea have not made the most of
yet. Improving the stadium is regarded as another money maker.
Plans have already begun, although that isn’t a major development given that rebuilding the
ground is one of the conditions of the sale, and a clue as to what he might
want to do with Stamford Bridge came in a 2019 interview with Bloomberg.
“The new stadiums that English clubs are building, they’re starting to take
an American approach to stadiums and making them environments,” he said. “They were very
utilitarian historically but now they’re starting to think of them as ‘lifestyle’.
“Now they’re starting to think about entertaining you earlier and keeping you longer.”
Those who have met Boehly regard him as intelligent but also restrained,
rational and astute. Take, for instance, the first tech investment Eldridge made,
in a company called Replay Technologies. It involved putting nine cameras around
the home plate in Dodgers Stadium to give viewers a 360-degree replay.
Boehly’s company later sold that to Intel and it’s now used by all the US sports in their broadcasts.
Boehly is not alone in this deal, though.
Mark Walter, principal owner and Boehly’s trusted colleague at the LA Dodgers, is part of the
ownership group too and his personal wealth is thought to be worth $4.4 billion (£3.5 billion).
Hansjoerg Wyss is another wealthy benefactor with a personal fortune estimated by Forbes
to be £3.8 billion. The 86-year-old made his money in a medical device company, which he would go on
to sell, called Synthes. But it doesn’t sound like he will have much involvement with Boehly’s bid.
Jonathan Goldstein, the property developer, will have a greater input.
As one source describes it, Goldstein is “the second person in this consortium”.
Goldstein co-founded real estate investment firm Cain International, which looked into buying
Spurs in 2014. Cain’s biggest investor happens to be Boehly’s Eldridge firm,
so it’s understandable why he is on board, even as a Tottenham supporter. But the fact
he is a passionate football fan matters to Boehly. Goldstein also lives in north-west London so would
be in a better position to keep an eye on things than Boehly or Wyss, who both live in the US.
Goldstein was chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council between 2017 and 2021 and got to know
Lord Daniel Finkelstein, who has been approached to become a non-executive director. He is already
a committed Chelsea supporter so there is someone to speak up on fan issues. Finkelstein also has
political connections as a member of the Conservative Party, which he represents in
the House of Lords. He also sat on the panel for the government’s fan-led review into football.
Legendary music PR officer Barbara Charone is also included because of her love for Chelsea.
She is from Chicago but people that know her talk about an individual
who is one of the most passionate Chelsea fans you will ever meet.
She has been going to games since the 1970s when she was writing a book about the Rolling
Stones’ Keith Richards. He lived very close to Stamford Bridge, so she just ended up going.
Now she pays several thousand pounds to attend as a VIP in the Canalettos Suite in the East Stand,
where she is regularly spotted with others who have made their name in the music business.
The addition of Clearlake Capital, which is thought to manage assets worth around £45 billion,
to the team was seen as very significant. The size of the wealth behind them ensured
that the bid’s pockets ran at least as deep as any other. It also meant that they had the cash
to complete the transaction quickly and satisfy Chelsea’s demands to have £1 billion available to
invest in the club. It is understood Clearlake will be providing the majority of the funds,
with Boehly having a minority share but acting as the face of the board.