The chairman of the National Basketball Association alongside the Facebook co-founder have agreed to join Steve Pagliuca’s consortium in an attempt to buy Chelsea Football Club.
Canadian Larry Tanenbaum, who owns several North American sporting sides, and Eduardo Saverin, Facebook’s first investor and co-founder, will help bolster the private equity billionaire’s final offer on Thursday for the West-London club.
Saverin and Raj Ganguly, the two co-founders of investment firm B Capital Group, are also both backing Pagliuca, as well as John Burbank, founder of hedge fund company Passport Capital, Sky News said.
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As well as being chairman of private equity group Bain Capital, Pagliuca co-owns the Boston Celtics NBA team and has a significant stake in Italian side Atalanta, which he may be forced to sell on a Premier League ruling if his consortium were to become Roman Abramovich's successor at Chelsea.
Four publicly known bidders, including Pagliuca, made the shortlist chosen by The Raine Group, an American bank handling the sale.
The three other bids are from a consortium led by Todd Boehly-led, a previous owner of the LA Dodgers baseball team; a group fronted by IAG deputy chairman Sir Martin Broughton, and the Ricketts family, who own the Chicago Cubs baseball franchise.