Olympique Lyon enters the stock market

By launching the first initial public offering of shares in a French football club, French Olympique Lyon (OL), which has won five consecutive national titles, said it wants to raise at least EUR 84 million.

The club said it wants to sell 3.7 million new shares between EUR 21.0 and EUR 24.4 with the option to sell an additional 550,000 shares in case of strong demand.

"With this IPO project OL Groupe enters a new stage of its history," Chairman and Chief Executive Jean-Michel Aulas said in a statement.

"This will allow the group to access new financial resources in order to accelerate our growth strategy and continue our focused development, based on the diversification of group revenues and profits."

At the end of its financial year on June 30, 2006, Olympique reported sales of EUR 166.1 million or EUR 127.7 million minus transfer fees for a net profit of EUR 15.9.

The offer, which will be managed by BNP Paribas and Calyon, closes on Feb. 7.

Lyon will be the first club to sell its shares since France amended a law earlier this year that had prevented professional sports clubs from listing on the stock market.

Under the new law, football clubs are allowed to list on the stock market if the clubs can show a good net profit, along with a solid business plan, and are in a position to have funds available for a modern stadium.

Aulas, the club's main shareholder and head of French information technology company Cegid, has previously said some of the funds that are raised would help build a stadium with a 60,000 seat capacity.

Many football clubs from other European leagues have listed in recent years but English clubs Manchester United and Chelsea, two of the wealthiest, have gone back to being private clubs.

Source: euFootball.BIZ © Copyright 2006 - All rights reserved.