Billionaires Kraft, Singer, Loeb Among Buyers at Endeavor IPO
Patriots owner Bob Kraft, hedge fund billionaire and AC Milan owner Paul Singer and activist investor billionaire Dan Loeb are among people who took a stake in UFC parent Endeavor Group Holdings last week, during a private placement Endeavor conducted at the same time as its IPO, a new regulatory filing shows.
Endeavor disclosed that the investment firms of the aforementioned billionaires—as well as previously reported investors including the money management businesses of Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and former UFC owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta—bought some of the 74.5 million shares sold at the IPO price of $24. Institutional heavyweights Fidelity Investments, Capital Research & Management, Silver Lake, Tencent, Coatue, Dragoneer, Mubadala, and Zeke Capital rounded out the buyers, according to the filing with the Securities & Exchange after the market closed today.
The filing doesn’t disclose how much of the company members of the elite group of investors bought individually. Nevertheless, the group has done well, gaining almost $450 million in paper profits thanks to the $5.99 gain Endeavor shares have made in the market since its April 29 IPO. Shares closed at $29.99 Tuesday.
Endeavor’s going-public transaction was complex. It sold a tranche of 21.3 million shares in a traditional IPO raising $511 million and then sold these 74.5 million shares in a separate private placement. The latter transaction was designed to both buy the remaining equity it didn’t own in the MMA league Ultimate Fighting Championship and allow investing firm KKR to cash out most of its position. KKR sold 18.2 million of the shares in the private placement, netting $437 million. Endeavor itself collected another $1.35 billion in proceeds. The IPO and the private placement transactions were conducted last week, but officially closed Monday.
Requests for comment to Endeavor and investors weren’t immediately returned.
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