Spanish soccer giant FC Barcelona plans to spin off its media arm into a publicly traded business worth as much as $1 billion.
The club and special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) Mountain & Co. I Acquisition announced Friday that they have reached a definitive agreement to bring a newly created business, Barca Media, public on the Nasdaq Stock Market.
Barca Media houses nearly all the media content generated by Barcelona in the past 20 years, as well its esports arms and a business line focused on NFTs, web3 and other tech monetization projects.
“The differentiated content that we have already produced has proven extremely valuable, resonating well and driving meaningful engagement with our growing global fanbase while generating new revenue streams,” FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta said in a press release. “This step is a strategic decision that will give us additional resources to continue to grow the platform at a time when the demand for sports-themed digital content is expanding exponentially.”
The Barca Media deal values the business between $900 million to $1 billion, based on projections of how many the Mountain SPAC shareholders elect to continue holding shares in Barca Media. Common shareholders are expected to own about 12% of Barca Media and the SPAC sponsors another 5%, with the rest in the hands of FC Barcelona through a holding company. That means Barcelona will be firmly in command of the business even after it hits the stock market.
In a presentation to shareholders filed with regulators Friday, Barca Media said it expects to leverage its large global social media base of 421 million followers across the major platforms to promote streaming content and digital assets, and to become a leader in esports. The presentation didn’t indicate any current revenue for Barca Media, and instead offered projections of how much money it could generate based on conversion rates of social media followers into paying customers.
The announcement doesn’t necessarily mean Barca Media will end up on the stock market. One of the hottest investments a couple of years ago, SPACs have in the past year found difficulty closing announced deals, given the unique ability of SPAC shareholders to decide to redeem their shares for cash instead of electing to take shares in the announced business.
The Mountain SPAC held its IPO in November 2021, raising $200 million. It received an extension from shareholders to consummate a merger by November of this year.
With assistance from Asli Pelit