Sunderland owner Stewart Donald has agreed a deal to sell the club to a consortium led by Juan Sartori and Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, son of ex-Marseille owner Robert, according to the Guardian.
The deal would reportedly see Donald retain a 15 percent shareholding in Sunderland, with Charlie Methven keeping his five percent share.
But the remaining 80 percent would be owned by Sartori - who already owns 20 percent - and 22-year-old Louis-Dreyfus, with the report saying the takeover is expected to be completed within a fortnight.
Zurich-based businessman Robert Louis-Dreyfus died in 2009, with Kyril and his twin brother Maurice among the heirs to his multi-billion pound fortune.
Kyril is understood to have a £2bn trust fund which is held by his mother Margarita, who is a minority shareholder in Marseille after selling the majority of her stake in 2016.
Robert Louis-Dreyfus' business roles included a spell as chief executive of advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi in the early 1990s, and as chief executive officer of sportswear giants Adidas from the mid-to-late 1990s. He later joined the family business, the Louis-Dreyfus Group, which is a huge multi-national conglomerate with interests in industries including agriculture, food processing, and transportation.
The Guardian story backs up information that sources have disclosed to ChronicleLive in recent weeks that Sartori and an external investor would be the driving force behind any takeover.
Pressure from supporters last season led Donald to agree in late December that he would actively look to sell the club, but his efforts to find a buyer were hampered by the Covid-19 shutdown which saw the campaign suspended in March and then curtailed in June.
But in July it was revealed that Donald had entered a period of exclusivity with a potential buyer, and this week chief executive Jim Rodwell postponed a scheduled meeting with fan groups, saying it would be inappropriate to talk about the takeover 'due to the advancement and sensitivity of this process'.
