Red Sox owner to take Fenway Sports public through merger with RedBall: WSJ

(Reuters) – Boston Red Sox owner John Henry is in talks with RedBall Acquisition Corp to take his famed sports holding company Fenway Sports Group LLC public, the Wall Street Journal reported https://on.wsj.com/3iHhBsN on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The deal being discussed would merge Fenway Sports Group with RedBall Acquisition Corp and will value the owner of the Liverpool Football Club at around $8 billion including debt, the Journal reported.

The deal talks are in the early stage and could still fall apart, the newspaper said.

RedBall, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), is co-chaired by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerald Cardinale and baseball executive Billy Beane, who shot to fame with Michael Lewis’s book “Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game.”

RedBall and Fenway Sports Group did not respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.

(Reporting by Sabahatjahan Contractor in Bengaluru; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)