The sports marketing agency where Lord Coe, one of Britain’s most famous Olympians, has spent more than a decade is close to changing hands in a transatlantic takeover.
Sky News has learnt that CSM Sport & Entertainment is in advanced talks to be acquired by Wasserman, which represents John Stones, the Manchester City and England defender, and Steven Gerrard, the former Aston Villa manager.
City sources said a deal could be struck as soon as this week, although one cautioned that the talks could yet fall apart.
Key details of the deal including its price and structure were unclear on Monday.
A tie-up between Wasserman and CSM would build scale in a rapidly growing global sports marketing industry in which new sources of financial power are fast-emerging.
It would also be logical because both Chime Communications, CSM’s parent company, and Wasserman, have a common shareholder in the form of Providence Equity Partners, the global buyout firm.
Providence invested in Wasserman, which describes itself as a global sports, music and culture agency, last November.
CSM’s clients include AIA, the Asian insurer that sponsors Tottenham Hotspur FC and the Alpine Formula One team.
Lord Coe, who has become one of the most powerful figures in global sports politics since being made a peer in 2000, is CSM’s non-executive chairman.
A double Olympic gold-medallist, he played a pivotal role in securing London’s right to host the 2012 Olympic Games, and then oversaw the event itself.
He is now president of World Athletics.
The former Conservative MP sold his consulting business, Complete Leisure Group, to Chime in 2012 in a deal that reportedly netted him up to £12m.
If the sale of CSM to Wasserman completes, it will leave Chime as the owner of VCCP, a successful London-based advertising agency founded about 20 years ago.
Providence would be expected to sell the remainder of Chime in due course, having taken it private from the London stock market in a £375m deal in 2015.
The prospective combination of Wasserman and CSM would form part of an accelerating global trend of consolidation among groups spanning media rights, athlete representation and sponsorship activation.
Saudi Arabia’s growing global influence on the sporting world underlines the way the industry is being reshaped globally by petrodollars.
A Saudi-based sports agency called Sela was recently named as the new shirt sponsor of Newcastle United FC – the Premier League club majority-owned by the Gulf state’s sovereign wealth fund.
Providence, CSM and Wasserman declined to comment.
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