Prospect Capital has provided a first lien senior secured floating rate loan facility to support the acquisition of PrimeSport by The Carlyle Group, Moorad Sports Partners and RSE Ventures. PrimeSport had been majority owned by Clearlake Capital.
“Carlyle selected Prospect based on its ability to provide committed capital to finance our acquisition of PrimeSport on an accelerated basis due to Prospect’s thorough knowledge of PrimeSport and its industry,” said David Stonehill, a Managing Director of Carlyle.
PrimeSport is a provider of consolidated sporting event packages including tickets, travel, hospitality, and VIP experiences for corporations, professional sports teams and fans. PrimeSport maintains partnerships with some of the largest sporting events and organizations in the country including NCAA Championships®, the NCAA® Men’s Basketball Tournament and Men’s Final Four®, Men’s College World Series®, Division I Wrestling Championships, Women’s College World Series®, Women’s Final Four®, Women’s Volleyball Championship and Men’s Frozen Four®, NHL, 20 NFL teams, 2015 College Football Playoff National Championship, Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, Alamo Bowl, Orange Bowl, Holiday Bowl, Poinsettia Bowl, Chick-fil-A Bowl, and many others. PrimeSport is headquartered in Atlanta (www.primesport.com).
“Prospect is pleased to complete this important transaction with Carlyle,” said Jason Wilson, a Managing Director of Prospect Capital. “We look forward to continued strong performance at PrimeSport, a company with a compelling value proposition for professional and collegiate sports leagues, teams, and fans involved in many of the biggest sporting events in the world.”
Prospect invests in private and micro-cap public businesses located in the US and Canada that have from $3 million to $30 million of EBITDA. Investment structures include senior debt; unitranche debt; 2nd lien and mezzanine debt; and “one stop” debt and equity. The firm invests in an array of industries and is effectively industry agnostic. Prospect closed nearly $3.2 billion of new originations during calendar year 2014, with further origination activity expected in the current quarter. The firm is headquartered in New York (www.prospectstreet.com).
“Prospect demonstrated creativity by parallel processing a dividend recapitalization, which closed in September 2014, with a possible change of control process, and we were pleased to strongly recommend Prospect as a leading provider of staple financing in this transaction,” said Behdad Eghbali, a founding partner of Clearlake.
As part of the acquisition by Carlyle, Clearlake Capital and existing management have rolled over a significant equity stake in the company. Sam Soni, PrimeSport’s founder, remains the CEO of PrimeSport.
© 2015 PEPD • Private Equity’s Leading News Magazine • 2-23-15
