FSG in talks to sell 30% Liverpool stake in £1.35bn deal

Fenway Sports Group has opened negotiations over selling a minority stake in Liverpool, with a consortium led by former Queens Park Rangers co-owner Amit Bhatia understood to have put around £1.35bn on the table for 30% of the club.

The consortium is backed by Bhatia's father-in-law, the Indian steel billionaire Lakshmi Mittal, whose family fortune is estimated at roughly £23bn — enough to remove any doubt over whether the money is actually there.

“An investment consortium led and managed by Amit Bhatia has expressed interest in making a strategic minority investment in Liverpool Football Club.”

What the numbers mean

A £1.35bn cheque for 30% implies a valuation of about £4.5bn for the whole club. FSG paid £300m for control in 2010, so even a partial sale at this level would represent an extraordinary return for the Boston-based group, which also owns the Red Sox and the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Some in the industry were surprised by the headline figure, but it does not sit far outside recent comparables. The Boehly-Clearlake purchase of Chelsea totalled £4.25bn including committed future investment, and Sir Jim Ratcliffe's 25% buy-in at Manchester United in 2024 valued that club at £4.3bn.

Bhatia steps back at QPR

The clearest signal that this is more than exploratory came at Loftus Road: Bhatia resigned as a QPR director after 19 years at the club he first invested in back in 2007. In his farewell statement he described QPR as a deeply important part of his life and his family's life, stepping back with pride and gratitude.

Talks between the two sides are believed to have been running for around three months. FSG has held minority-sale discussions before without a deal being struck, so supporters are entitled to a degree of caution.

What it means for the team

A minority sale does not change who runs Liverpool. John W Henry and FSG would retain control, with new capital available for infrastructure and squad investment. The football, for now, carries on as normal: the squad is in the United States under new head coach Andoni Iraola for a pre-season tour that opens against Sunderland in Nashville.