The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is acquiring a stake in Swiss sports data firm Sportradar.
The CPPIB is making the acquisition, from Swiss private equity firm EQT Partners and other minor stakeholders, alongside growth equity firm TCV. The stake is valued at about $3.1 billion.
“The sports data market, particularly real-time data, is a compelling long-term investment opportunity, with strong growth driven by rising fan engagement, opening of new markets and increasing spend on digital sports content globally,” said Ryan Selwood, managing director and head of direct private equity at CPPIB.
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Sportradar is an official partner of the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the National Football League, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association and the Union of European Football Associations. It provides monitoring and insights for more than 400,000 sports matches each year.
In other investment news, the British Columbia Investment Management Corp. is joining a venture led by real estate investment trust CatchMark Timber Trust Inc. in the acquisition of 1.1 million acres of timberlands in eastern Texas.
The $1.39 billion purchase also involves BTG Pactual Timberland Investment Group, Highland Capital Management and Medley Management Inc. The venture will operate as Triple T Timberlands, an affiliate of CatchMark, which is headquartered in Atlanta.
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“Building off our existing east Texas presence, we intend to move quickly and efficiently to integrate operations under CatchMark with our former chief operating officer John Rasor, who became president of Triple T upon closing,” said Jerry Barag, CatchMark’s president and chief executive officer, in a press release. “Our intention is to maximize value for our stockholders and partners by executing on a carefully designed operations plan and implementing best management practices.”
The land in Texas has significant growth potential, according to CatchMark. The current annual harvest volume is 2.8 million tons of timbre and the company anticipates this will increase to five million tons by 2028.