|
Saracens, four times Premiership champions and three times
European Cup winners in the last five years, were relegated last
season as punishment for multiple salary cap breaches. But they
returned to the top flight after winning the second-tier
Championship.
The club said the consortium comprises club chairman Neil
Golding and Dominic Silvester and Paul O'Shea from Enstar Group,
a global insurance group.
South African former World Cup-winning captain and Saracens
player Francois Pienaar, Nick Leslau, the chairman and chief
executive of Prestbury Investment Holdings, and Marco Masotti,
an owner of South Africa's Sharks rugby team, are also in the
consortium.
Nigel Wray, who was the club's owner for more than 25 years,
said he would be retaining a "significant minority
shareholding".
"I'm not getting any younger and I have always wanted to make
sure that Saracens is in very safe hands for many future
generations," he said in a statement.
The club said the takeover is subject to regulatory approval.
The new funds would be used to complete the redevelopment of the
West Stand, invest in women's sport and establish a high
performance training centre, it said.
"We move on from the recent challenges with hard lessons learned
and with robust new governance procedures in place," Golding
said in a statement.
($1 = 0.7383 pounds)
(Reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrew
Heavens and Hugh Lawson)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |
|
