Evergrande, Alibaba eying 1st listing for football club in Asia
Print Edition
CHINA’S Evergrande Real Estate Group Ltd and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd are planning a stock market listing for soccer club Evergrande Taobao, former Asian Champions League winners, in what would be a first for a team in the region.
The club, which last month hired Brazil’s World Cup-winning coach Luiz Felipe Scolari, has applied to list on China’s so-called New Third Board for small enterprises, Evergrande said in a filing to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday.
Soccer is popular in China with President Xi Jinping, a soccer enthusiast, pushing for the country to host the World Cup tournament. Even so, the men’s national team currently languish at 79th in the world rankings of soccer’s governing body FIFA.
In March, the government announced a plan to raise the level of play and reform a sport often tainted with corruption. Listing a club would be one way of improving transparency as entities are obliged to disclose financial details to investors.
“The listing of Evergrande Taobao will further strengthen its corporate governance structure and enhance the liquidity of its equity interest, thus facilitating the introduction of strategic investors, promotion of corporate image and realization of sustainable development,” Evergrande said.
The club will list on an over-the-counter exchange, which has less stringent listing criteria than major stock exchanges. Evergrande, which owns 60 percent of the club, said it did not plan to sell any of its shares, nor issue any new shares.
Alibaba, which paid US$192 million for a stake in the club last year following drinks between Executive Chairman Jack Ma and Evergrande’s Chairman Xu Jiayin, declined to comment.
The pair hired Guotai Junan Securities as book runner for the listing. Separately, Evergrande said it also planned to list subsidiary Evergrande Culture on the New Third Board.
Formally known as Guangzhou Evergrande Taobao Football Club Co, the team won the AFC Champions League in 2013 and the Chinese Super League in 2014. It has a 50,000-seat stadium in Guangzhou, China’s third-largest city.
The club is worth about 10 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion), Chinese media reported. That would be below the nearly US$3 billion market capitalization of Britain’s Manchester United, but larger than Italy’s Juventus FC and Germany’s Borussia Dortmund.
The listing is the latest soccer deal involving China. Six months ago, property developer Dalian Wanda Group, controlled by China’s richest man Wang Jianlin, bought 20 percent of Spain’s Club Atletico de Madrid.
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