Endeavor, the sports activities and leisure firm led by the Hollywood superagent Ari Emanuel, mentioned on Tuesday that it deliberate to go non-public, almost three years after becoming a member of the general public inventory markets.
The transaction — led by Silver Lake, the funding agency that has been Endeavor’s longtime monetary backer — is supposed to usher in a brand new period for Endeavor, whose bold development story failed to achieve traction on Wall Avenue.
Below the phrases of the deal, Silver Lake will purchase the shares in Endeavor that it doesn’t already personal for $27.50 a share in money. That value is 55 % above the place Endeavor’s shares had been buying and selling on Oct. 25, the day earlier than the corporate mentioned it was weighing deal choices.
The transaction values Endeavor at about $8.2 billion. Together with its debt, the corporate is valued at $13 billion, making the acquisition among the many greatest by a non-public fairness agency this yr.
For greater than a decade, Mr. Emanuel and his enterprise associate, Patrick Whitesell, sought to show what had began as a expertise company — with shoppers like Dwayne Johnson and Ben Affleck — into a brand new form of media powerhouse: a company that comprised not solely the highest expertise in sports activities, leisure and trend however the content material companies to highlight that expertise. It was a imaginative and prescient that differed from rivals like Inventive Artists Company, which additionally took on outdoors buyers however caught largely with a standard company enterprise.
Guiding the agency was the unlikely pairing of Mr. Emanuel, satirized by Jeremy Piven on the HBO present “Entourage” as a hyper-aggressive shouter, and Egon Durban, the cerebral deal maker behind a few of Silver Lake’s greatest transactions.
Silver Lake invested in Endeavor in 2012, with Mr. Durban taking a high advisory position. A flurry of acquisitions adopted, together with IMG, a sports activities and fashion-focused company; Skilled Bull Riders; New York Style Week; and know-how for sports activities betting.
Most notably, Endeavor purchased Final Combating Championship for $4 billion in 2016, betting on the facility of blended martial arts to attract reside leisure {dollars}. Final yr, Endeavor acquired World Wrestling Leisure to mix with U.F.C. in a publicly traded firm known as TKO Group, hoping to attract much more revenue from promoting rights to reside fights.
However among the bets haven’t precisely panned out.
Whereas Endeavor had as soon as hoped to revenue from “packaging” — the creation and promoting of content material that teamed up writers with different shoppers — a dispute with writers’ unions pressured it to promote a majority stake in its in-house studio.
And whereas Endeavor had thought TKO Group could be a strong draw for Wall Avenue buyers, shares within the firm stay under their debut value. (That firm will stay publicly traded.)
Endeavor executives had additionally hoped that the sale of a majority stake in Inventive Artists Company to François-Henri Pinault, the French luxurious mogul, at a wealthy $7 billion valuation would assist carry their very own firm’s valuation. However Endeavor’s shares drifted down after that deal was introduced.
The hope now’s that by delisting, Endeavor can proceed to make bold investments with out being second-guessed by public-market shareholders. It would proceed to have the backing of Silver Lake, which is successfully doubling down on Mr. Emanuel, Mr. Whitesell and their staff.
“It is a very particular partnership,” Mr. Durban of Silver Lake, who can also be Endeavor’s chairman, mentioned in a press release. “We’re all-in on working with the Endeavor staff and our trusted anchor buyers to create worth by accelerating development at scale.”
Silver Lake is now deeply dedicated to Endeavor’s success: It already managed about 70 % of Endeavor’s voting rights, and mentioned it wasn’t desirous about promoting its stake within the firm. Nonetheless, the deal was negotiated with a particular committee of Endeavor’s impartial administrators on behalf of different shareholders.
Silver Lake is aware of learn how to take huge firms non-public, retool them and take them public once more. It helped Michael S. Dell, the know-how mogul, purchase out different shareholders within the firm that bears his identify and introduced it again to the inventory markets.
Mr. Dell’s household workplace, DFO Administration, helps to finance the transaction, together with Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund; the funding agency Lexington Companions; and the asset administration arm of Goldman Sachs.
