Walter, Boehly agree to sell 25% Chelsea stake to Clearlake for $1.27 billion

Clearlake gains greater control, clearing path for stadium decision

Mark Walter and Todd Boehly have agreed to sell their combined 25% stake in Chelsea to majority owner Clearlake Capital for about $1.27 billion, the English soccer club said Wednesday. The transaction values Chelsea at approximately £5 billion including debt and will deliver roughly $650 million to each seller, according to a person familiar with the matter. Existing minority shareholder Hansjorg Wyss will retain his holding as part of the deal.

The deal resolves a couple of years of on-and-off-again sale talks between the parties amid rising tensions inside the ownership group. Walter and Boehly each own about 12.5% of Chelsea and are set to split the proceeds equally, generating a small profit on their original investment.

Clearlake is paying about £950 million — equivalent to roughly $1.27 billion — to buy out the two men. The Boehly-Clearlake consortium acquired Chelsea in 2022 from Roman Abramovich for almost £4.3 billion, after the Russian oligarch was sanctioned by the United Kingdom over his ties to the Kremlin.

During their time as part-owners, Boehly served as chairman and was the main public face of the club’s ownership, while Walter took a more passive role and rarely attended matches. Chelsea’s supporters reviled Boehly, but he took the criticism in good humor, saying it was par for the course of being the team’s chairman. Shortly after buying the club, he told a business conference he had no idea what made a good soccer player, but that “Chelsea is probably the biggest brand that one can own in sports worldwide.”

The sale consolidates Clearlake’s greater control of the London-based team, paving the way for a decision on whether to make the heavy investment required to build a new stadium or to redevelop Stamford Bridge.

For Walter, the timing coincides with federal scrutiny of his insurance empire. Authorities are examining loans that insurance companies controlled by Walter made that ultimately helped fund his other business interests, seeking to determine whether there was any fraud around the transactions. Those insurance companies have said they are working to eliminate most of that lending. Walter’s conglomerate, TWG Global, has said there was no fraud at either Guggenheim Partners or his insurers.

Walter has also been refinancing assets. Last month, he agreed to sell his majority stake in the Los Angeles Lakers in a deal that valued the basketball franchise at $12.5 billion — only a year after he had acquired the stake. Ahead of the Chelsea deal, a spokesperson for Walter said the billionaire did not initiate the transaction, which had been in the works for some time.

Boehly and Walter have invested alongside one another for more than a decade, having worked together at Guggenheim until 2015. In 2012, they were part of a bidding group that bought the Los Angeles Dodgers for $2.15 billion, then the highest price paid for a sports team. Insurance companies they owned with Guggenheim provided much of the funding for that deal, a financing structure that drew controversy but also opened the door for private-equity firms to tap into sports cash flows.

Evercore served as lead financial adviser on the transaction. The Raine Group, BDT&MSD Partners, and BofA Securities acted as financial advisers to Clearlake. Goldman Sachs advised the sellers.