Sunderland owner Stewart Donald has agreed to sell a majority stake in the football club to four US men who would collectively make the Black Cats one of the richest-owned clubs in the world.
While Donald and Charlie Methven are believed to be staying on and keeping minor shares, John Phelan, Glenn Fuhrman and Rob Platek - who are all senior partners at MSD Partners - and Michael Dell, the Founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, will be the consortium who takeover the club.
Dell was listed as the 25th richest man in the world in the latest Forbes Rich List, although it is believed he will be less hands on than the other trio from MSD Partners.
Phelan and Fuhrman established MSD Capital in 1998 ‘to exclusively manage the assets of Michael Dell and his family’, according to the firm’s website. But they aren’t just frontmen, with Phelan and Fuhrman billionaires in their own right. Palek is a partner at the firm and has been with them since January 2002, in which year they set up MSD Partners, the company that will be taking over SAFC.
Explaining MSD Partners, the website reveals: "MSD Partners utilizes a multi-disciplinary investment strategy focused on maximizing long-term capital appreciation by making investments across the globe in the debt and equity of public and private companies, real estate and other asset classes. Michael Dell and his family are substantial clients of MSD Partners. MSD Partners operates from offices in New York and Santa Monica."
The four will now go through the EFL’s ‘fit and proper’ testing before completing their takeover of the club. They hope to have everything sealed within a matter of weeks.
It is believed that the quartet have been looking to buy an English football club for some time now and settled on Sunderland AFC after initial meetings with Methven.
After buying the club from Ellis Short last summer, former Eastleigh owner Donald has been honest that his finances would struggle to see the club compete higher than League One level and has been seeking investment for some time - although he's always maintained his desire to stay on board at the club, which would appear to be the case here.
On the MSD Capital website, describing what the company does, it reads: "The purpose of MSD Capital is to make investments that consistently generate superior absolute risk-adjusted returns over the long-term. We evaluate investment opportunities by utilizing multi-disciplinary frameworks of analysis to generate thoughtful and robust investment theses. We are motivated by an intense curiosity to grasp the underlying truths that govern financial markets and economic behavior.
"Finally and most importantly, we conduct all business with the highest level of integrity, honesty and discipline."
