Jeff Bezos enters the game: consortium of billionaires claims a third of "Liverpool"
Amazon shares are trading near all-time highs, and its founder, Jeff Bezos, appears to be preparing for a landmark deal outside the tech sector. The move involves acquiring approximately 30% of the shares of the English football club Liverpool. This is not just a rumor — negotiations are in their final stages, and an announcement could come as early as this week.
Deal structure and key players
Fenway Sports Group (FSG), the club's current owner, is in talks with an investment consortium led by Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Bhatia, who previously held a stake in Queens Park Rangers, is acting as managing partner. Alongside Bezos, Eduardo Saverin, co-founder of Facebook, is also involved in the deal; he attempted to acquire London's Chelsea in 2022 but was unsuccessful.
The club's valuation at $6 billion looks ambitious but justified. For comparison: FSG bought Liverpool in 2010 for a modest £300 million, and in 2023, when Dynasty Equity acquired a minority stake, the club was already valued above $4.5 billion. The current price caps 16 years of successful management and growth in the asset's value.
Why this matters for the market
For Bezos, this is his first public foray into football assets, and the signal is highly telling. The world's largest investors are increasingly viewing sports clubs not as toys for billionaires, but as a standalone investment class with high returns and low correlation to traditional markets. The arrival of figures like Bezos and Saverin confirms that football is becoming a full-fledged alternative asset, capable of competing for capital with tech giants.
Against this backdrop, Amazon shares continue to rally: on Friday, the stock closed at $274.48, up 0.82% on the day. The company's market capitalization is closing in on the $3 trillion mark, which it first crossed on August 3 but failed to hold above. The growth driver is the AWS cloud business, and analysts are raising price targets, with the most optimistic forecasts reaching $400 per share. Interestingly, Bezos completed a pre-planned sale of Amazon shares worth $4 billion earlier this month, clearly indicating preparation for major investments.
My take: The Liverpool deal is not just a purchase of a stake in a football club. It is a strategic move that diversifies Bezos's wealth and gives him access to a global media audience. The only question is whether the new partners will remain passive investors or begin a fight for full control. Given the ambitions of the consortium's participants, the second scenario seems more likely, and this could radically change the balance of power in English football.