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MP & Silva is looking to grow its Beijing office and develop synergies with its new Chinese investors after selling a majority stake in the company, CEO Marco Auletta said. The media rights agency sees a tremendous potential in the Chinese market and will substantially add to its three employees currently based in the country’s capital. MP & Silva on Tuesday announced that investment fund Shanghai Jin Xin, which was set up by Chinese companies Baofeng and Everbright, acquired a 65% stake in the Italian-owned operation. Auletta, who returned from Beijing on Thursday, did not provide a specific number for the staff increase, but insisted that China will be a priority for the company together with other selected markets such as the U.S. “Having a strong Chinese partner opens many doors,” he said. “There’s a huge interest in sports and sports media. The investors want to understand how to manage this kind of potential within their market.” The deal is the latest in a series of Chinese investments in int'l sports properties, and reports value MP & Silva at around $1B. Last year, Chinese real estate group Dalian Wanda bought MP & Silva rival Infront Sports & Media for $1.2B. Chinese investors also made significant investments in int'l football clubs such as Atlético Madrid, Man City and Aston Villa. MP & Silva, which was founded in ‘04, initially had no interest in selling any equity, Auletta said, but started looking into the option after receiving a number of inquiries about a year ago. “Before that, the idea was to continue 100 percent the way it has been since the beginning,” he said. “The company was still run by the same four guys who founded it. At the end of the day we understood that this option [to sell] was something very interesting.”
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Marco Auletta
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NEW TECHNOLOGIES: Over the last decade, MP & Silva has grown into one of the world's leading sports rights agencies, with 20 offices worldwide and revenues of more than $600M in ’15. Auletta was keen to point out that MP & Silva is not interested in further investments. “We want to keep our percentage,” he said. “We don’t need more investors.” In addition to the financial component of the investment, which will allow the agency to continue its growth without having any debt, technology was important to the deal. Baofeng is the world's No. 1 virtual reality hardware manufacturer, Auletta said. MP & Silva expects interest in VR content to grow in the near future. The agency is also looking at other digital innovations, including launching an OTT service. “We are an extremely fast and entrepreneurial company,” Auletta said. “We are looking at synergies with our new partners.” China’s goal of becoming a football “superpower” by ’50 also plays into MP & Silva’s hands as its rights portfolio includes some of Europe’s top leagues, including the EPL and La Liga. “There’s a clear global interest in soccer,” Auletta said. “[China] understood that the sport can provide a tremendous added value. From a business point of view but also from a cultural point of view.”
