The auction on Deltatre, a Turin-based company that deals with statistics and graphics for sport, is finally ready to start again, after the sale process was blocked in April 2020, following the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Il Sole 24 Ore writes the news, specifying that the advisor is said to be Evercore. Already last October MF Milano Finanza had reported that the Deltatre shareholder, the US fund Bruin Sports Capital, was preparing to put the group back on the market.
We recall that the auction for Deltatre had started in January 2020, when Bruin Sports Capital had given the mandate for selling the company to the same advisor Evercore, with a valuation of about one billion dollars, when, however, the accounts were not yet weighed down by the Covid-19 impact. The dossier had attracted interest of private equity funds such as EQT, Ardian, Permira, Bc Partners, Apax and Bain Capital (see here a previous article by BeBeez).
Deltatre, based in Turin, offers Italian and international leagues, sports federations and broadcasters a wide range of services related to live coverage of the biggest sporting events in the world, from the Olympics to football to the ski world championships. The company has 19 offices around the world, over 1,000 employees and more than 1 million videos made every year. Its partners include Dazn, Fifa and Discovery.
The operating company Deltatre spa closed 2020 with deteriorating numbers, precisely due to the impact of the lockdown on sports activities, with revenues of 41.7 million euros (from 49.2 million in 2019), a negative ebitda of 1.5 million (from a positive one of 5 millions), a loss of 8.6 millions (from a loss of 4.1 millions) and a net financial debt of 3.9 millions (from net liquidity for 633k euros) (see here the analysis by Leanus, once registered for free). The consolidated financial statements of Deltatre also include Massive Interactive, a company that also supplies communication technologies in entertainment, not just sports, to various television broadcasters and producers, acquired by Deltatre in November 2018 for 112 million euros, versus a 2018 turnover of 42 million euros (see here the press release at the time). The entire group had thus achieved a pro-forma turnover of around 130 million euros at the end of 2018.
The Bruin Sports Capital fund had acquired 51% of Deltatre for 122 million euros in July 2016, with the two co-founders, Giampiero Rinaudo and Luca Marini, who had kept the rest of the capital (see here a previous article by BeBeez), The seller was Mediacontech, a company born from the ashes of Euphon and then 78.371% controlled by Synergo sgr, through its IPEF IV Italy fund (previously managed by BS Private Equity sgr, in turn acquired by Synergo sgr some time ago). The sale of the stake in Deltatre was provided for in the debt restructuring plan signed by Mediacontech with the banks (see here a previous article by BeBeez). Bruin Sports Capital had beaten the offers of other competitors, including the US giant Wme Img, the European companies European Broadcasting Union and Sportradar, the Chinese groups Oceans Marketing and Lander Sports and the consortium Chime Communications (Wpp group)-Providence fund.
