EQT sells Sportradar stake to itself

Alice Murray
21 May 2014

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EQT VI has acquired live sports information business Sportradar from EQT Expansion Capital II.

This latest deal saw EQT VI buying shares from the company's founder, management and EQT Expansion Capital II. Sportradar founder and CEO Carsten Koerl, as well as the management team, have retained a significant interest in the company.

The new investment is designed to support Sportradar's continued growth into international markets, improve its customer offering, address new customer segments and support add-on acquisitions.

The transfer of assets from one fund to another has become a more prominent feature in the market over the past year as buyout houses find new solutions to wrapping up older funds. Click here to read our analysis of the "secondary selfie" phenomenon.

EQT Expansion Capital II was launched in 2007 and is now fully invested.

Previous investment
EQT Expansion Capital II invested in Sportradar alongside the company's founder and CEO in July 2012. The original deal saw EQT injecting €44m into the company for a minority stake in a deal that valued Sportradar at €127.5m.

Over the past two years Sportradar has made several bolt-on acquisitions.

Company
Sportradar provides live sports information and odds, as well as fraud detection and prevention services for bookmakers, media groups and federation markets. It serves the bookmaking market through its Betradar brand and the media industry through the Scoreradar brand.

Sportradar supplies its fraud detection systems for several federations including Uefa and Germany's DFB/DFL. The company also distributes the International Tennis Federation's official data. Overall, it counts 500 clients in 80 countries on its books.

The business employs 700 people globally. Sportradar is headquartered in Switzerland and operates offices in 30 cities.

People
Michael Föcking was the partner at EQT responsible for the sale and Dominik Stein is the EQT partner leading the new investment. Carsten Koerl is founder and CEO of Sportradar.