SailGP British Team Valued at $40 Million as Larry Ellison Cashes Out
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The Great Britain SailGP team is valued at $40 million in a new investment round that saw billionaire Larry Ellison cash out.
In the deal, English sailing legend Ben Ainslie takes majority ownership of the team. An undisclosed minority portion is split evenly between commodities trading executive Chris Bake and Misland Capital, an investment arm of Bermuda property tycoon Peter Green.
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SailGP is a three-year-old catamaran sailing league formed by software billionaire Larry Ellison and New Zealand sailor Russell Coutts. The British team is one of nine in the global competition, and the first to become owned independently of the league. Last year, Ainslie and Bake took over majority ownership of the team by converting an option offered by Ellison that required operating costs and liabilities be covered in full.
The Misland investment cashes Ellison out of the last 10% stake he held through Oracle Racing group, the yacht sailing arm of the Silicon Valley multibillionaire’s holdings. Ellison, the Oracle Corp. chairman and a sailing enthusiast, hopes to have more of the SailGP teams be privately owned.
“As SailGP continues to grow, hopefully we’ll see more teams become privately owned with inward investment,” Ainslie said in a press release. “With Season 3 seeing unprecedented growth in the form of an expanded global calendar, increased teams, new owners, commercial partners and history breaking viewing figures, Season 4’s calendar looks [to be] on a strong growth trajectory.”
Ainslie, who became the driver of the SailGP Great Britain team ahead of its second season, is best known for winning sailing gold medals in four consecutive Olympics. Co-owner Bake is on the executive committee of Vitol, an energy and commodities company that had $279 billion in revenue in 2021. He also helms a yacht-racing team in the RC44 Championship Tour. Misland founder Peter Green and his family are known for investing in leisure properties, including the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club in Bermuda and Saint Lucia’s Sugar Beach.
The investment marks another phase of growth for SailGP, which has grown from five events in its debut 2019 season to 11 events this year, including races in Chicago and San Francisco. The league’s next event this season is a grand prix in Singapore in January. League broadcast viewership is up 56% this season to nearly 65 million—an average of 9.3 million a race—including more-than-triple growth in its digital viewing audience, which now accounts for about 41% of viewers.
