Liberty’s MotoGP Takeover Still Not Official but Funds are in Place

Liberty Media is still hopeful of completing its expected takeover of MotoGP and claims funds are in place for that to happen, but there’s a stumbling block that remains.

Also the owners of Formula 1, the mass media company is set to buy 86 per cent of MotoGP’s rights while Dorna Sports will retain the other 14 per cent. The deal will be worth 4.2 billion Euros, although approval by the European Commission is still yet to be confirmed.

Liberty Media announced in August that it was selling $825 million in F1 shares to help fund the purchase of MotoGP, and while the agreement between themselves and Dorna is finalised whether or not the purchase violates antitrust laws is the current hold up.

However, the deal is expected to be finalised soon, with Liberty president and CEO, Greg Maffei, saying: “Let me turn briefly and give you a MotoGP transaction update. We are making progress with the European Commission which is our only remaining regulatory jurisdictional hurdle and we continue to expect a year-end close.”

Liberty recently announced accounts for its third quarter of 2024, in which Maffei stated that the funds to buy MotoGP are all set.

“The third quarter was active both at the corporate level and at our operating businesses,” said Maffei. We closed the Liberty SiriusXM merger with SiriusXM, refinanced the F1 debt facilities and secured all necessary funding for our planned acquisition of MotoGP.

“We raised an incremental $850m in term loan B and $150m in term loan A commitments to fund that MotoGP transaction. All of that is a deal contingent. We also issued $949m of FWONK shares, replacing the equity consideration to the sellers in the transaction, so we will directly pay them cash.

“We issued that stock at only a 4% discount to the market price, and it was placed with long-term holders. Those transactions complete the necessary funding for our MotoGP acquisition.”

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