Sixth Street, a private equity firm, acquires a stake in the San Francisco Giants.
Private equity likes the long ball
The San Francisco Giants, one of Major League Baseball’s most successful franchises, have sold about 10 percent of the team to the private equity group Sixth Street, Ken Belson and Lauren Hirsch are first to report.
The team will use the cash to help pay for upgrades to the franchise’s 25-year-old stadium and other facilities, as well as the Mission Rock real estate development adjacent to the ballpark.
Details of the purchase, which was approved by Major League Baseball Monday, were not disclosed. Forbes valued the team at $3.8 billion last year. The Giants are owned by a syndicate of 35 owners, led by Greg Johnson.
Private equity has been making bolder investments in sports teams and properties. Live sport is one of the few products that still attracts large audiences, which drives up the valuations for teams beyond the reach of many individuals. This has led all of the top pro leagues to invite big funds to invest in teams.
Baseball was the first major league in North America to welcome major funds. Now, more than half of Major League Baseball’s 30 teams, including the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago Cubs, have relationships with private equity groups.
Arctos, another private equity firm, owns about 2 percent of the Giants, as well as stakes in the Houston Astros, the San Diego Padres and other teams.
Streaming has made sports a global bet. Streaming has made sports a global bet
. Sixth Street CEO Alan Waxman told DealBook that technology has changed the game and broken down barriers. of Sixth Street, told DealBook, referring to streaming services and other products that have allowed fans to follow teams across the world.Major League Baseball has embraced digital distribution.
It sells streaming passes for the entire season, both domestically and internationally, and a growing number of teams are starting their own streaming platforms.
Sixth Street also has investments in the N.B.A.’s San Antonio Spurs and the European soccer clubs F.C. Sixth Street has invested in Barcelona and Real Madrid and also owns a controlling stake in Bay F.C. a women’s team in the rapidly growing N.W.S.L.
The Giants are one of the most recognized baseball teams in the world. They began playing in New York in 1883. While baseball is facing its own challenges, including the changing media landscape, ESPN recently opted out from its rights deal with league, the Giants have an agreement with Comcast that extends until 2032. Oracle Park is considered to be one of the best stadiums in the league. The Giants regularly attract more than 3 million fans each season. Oracle Park, which is only 12 acres in size, has been around for 25 years and needs a facelift. The team’s C.E.O. and long-time president Larry Baer said that new capital was needed in today’s market. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Alphabet is poised to announce its biggest takeover. Google’s parent company could announce a more than $30 billion deal for Wiz, a provider of cloud security services, as soon as Tuesday, according to news reports. Alphabet would be making a second attempt to buy Wiz after failing to do so last year. The previous deal failed because of concerns about antitrust scrutiny. One question: The previous deal effort failed because of concerns about antitrust scrutiny — has the calculus changed under the Trump administration?
Harvard will make tuition free for more students.
The university said that the plan would apply to students whose families make $200,000 or less, matching other schools including the University of Pennsylvania, M.I.T. Caltech and M.I.T. are also included in the plan. Separately, many universities, including Harvard, are rushing to raise money on the bond markets before President Trump could cut funding. Separately, many universities, including Harvard, are rushing to raise money in the bond markets before potential funding cuts by President Trump.
SpaceX’s Starlink is now available across the White House.
Administration officials said Elon Musk’s satellite internet service was donated to the Trump administration, The Times reports. The system was designed to improve internet connectivity across the complex. However, some experts have questioned its security. Separately, a SpaceX capsule is ferrying home two astronauts who have stayed at the International Space Station months longer than expected.
Hong Kong and Chinese leaders question BlackRock’s big ports deal. The leader of Hong Kong, John Lee, said that the transaction, in which the Hong Kong conglomerate CK Hutchison would sell most of its ports, including two around the Panama Canal, to a group led by BlackRock deserved “serious attention.” His remarks come after criticism of the agreement by Beijing over its potentially depriving China of influence over key shipping routes. The comments indicate yet another geopolitical backlash to a deal, which was partly designed to ease the Trump administration’s fears about control of Panama Canal. Shares in European companies have vastly outperformed the S&P 500 despite the potential damage of President Trump’s trade war.
Officials in Brussels say that the rally could be even bigger. The European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, is set to introduce a proposal Wednesday to tap trillions of euros parked in Europeans’ savings accounts to invest in Europe Inc., according to a draft proposal viewed by DealBook.A second objective of the draft proposal: Encourage consolidation among European asset managers, a sector Wall Street has long overshadowed.
It is part of a larger vision to shake up the region’s byzantine capital markets, an effort that has taken on new urgency since Mr. Trump’s re-election.
“It’s because of Trump, but also the need for more integration in so many sectors,” Fabrizio Pagani, a partner at the investment bank Vitale and a former top economic adviser to the Italian government, told DealBook. “There is a lot of positive catch-up work to be done.” “This is capital flow, and it’s mostly to the U.S.,” Pagani stated.This drain robs European companies of the capital they need to invest, innovate, and grow. At the same time, Europe is scrambling to raise vast sums to improve its economy — and, in a sudden new priority, rearm as Trump threatens to cut off military support to Ukraine.
Consider the global flight to Nvidia.
Late last year, the chip-making giant at the center of the artificial intelligence boom saw its market capitalization soar above $3.6 trillion — surpassing the entirety of Germany’s blue-chip Dax 40.
Nvidia’s run made it a top holding for some European pension funds. And the desire to cash in on the U.S. tech stock surge became a recurring discussion point at investor road shows across Europe late last year, analysts told DealBook.
The bloc’s draft plan to reverse that money flow involves a savings and investment union
:Advisers to the commission want to see member states cut “unnecessary” red tape in any consolidation among the continent’s army of asset managers, which are vastly outgunned by U.S. giants like BlackRock, Vanguard and Fidelity.
They are also calling for introducing tax breaks for investors and pension funds, especially those who put their money into European financial assets — not just stocks, but in bonds and venture funding for private companies.
Creating a true investment union faces major hurdles. The European Union has 295 national trading venues and a hodgepodge of national regulators and investment rules and taxes. This measure falls short of producing a single market watchdog, equivalent to the S.E.C., that could create and enforce a common rule book.
Europe’s fragmented investment market is one reason that’s cited for top European start-ups to go public in the United States. What’s expected to be one of the year’s hottest I.P.O.s, the Stockholm-based lender Klarna, will list on the New York Stock Exchange in the coming weeks.
“I want to give away a million dollars to somebody while I’m still around as chairman.” — Warren Buffett, who is tweaking the rules of Berkshire Hathaway’s internal March Madness bracket to make it more likely that someone will win the big prize.
What to watch at the Super Bowl of A.I.
Investors will be watching closely for signs of reassurance Tuesday from Nvidia’s C.E.O., Jensen Huang. The chip magnate will deliver the keynote speech at Nvidia GTC in San Jose, Calif. This annual conference is widely regarded as the Super Bowl of A.I. Huang’s job is to reinvigorate investor confidence in A.I.’s overarching thesis — you need to spend to grow.Investors don’t seem terribly optimistic.
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Nvidia’s share price dipped almost 2 percent Monday before the event. Samsung and Dell saw an increase in share prices.
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Nvidia is the world’s leading chip manufacturer for A.I. with a market cap of almost $3 trillion. The market trembles when Nvidia sneezes. The company still faces risks. Customers like Meta, Google and Amazon are starting to make their own chips.
Analysts expect two themes. First, Huang’s keynotes may last two hours or longer.New chip.
Huang promised more details on the company’s Blackwell Ultra chip and a new A.I. Vera Rubin is the name of a super-chip named after an astronomer who discovered Dark Matter. The Rubin line could deliver performance as much as 30 times as fast as that of its predecessor.
A.I. will deliver
. Some wonder if the technology will generate enough revenue to justify the high costs and if Nvidia has peaked. Huang will likely highlight the growing consumer market. A.I. agents can power services people will want to pay for. Will Huang address DeepSeek? The Chinese company’s breakthrough — using far fewer chips than its competitors to create a similarly powerful generative A.I. There’s a counterargument that lower development cost will mean more buyers of Nvidia chips, not fewer, but concerns of a drop off in spending have continued to weigh on the stock.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
“Short sellers make $16 billion profit from Tesla’s share price plunge” (FT)
Scoop: Apptronik, a maker of humanoid robots, has expanded its Series A fund-raising round to $403 million; investors include Mercedes-Benz, Japan Post Capital and ARK Invest. (DealBook)Politics, policy and regulation
The acting chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sent letters to 20 law firms — including Perkins Coie, Kirkland & Ellis and Sidley Austin — demanding information about their diversity, equity and inclusion-related employment programs. (NYT)Crypto executives have targeted the S.E.C. As a form of retaliation for a crackdown under the Biden administration that included preventing law firms from hiring former agency employees. (Politico)
World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto venture, said it has raised $550 million to date in digital token sales. Thank you for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.We’d like your feedback. Please email thoughts and suggestions to dealbook@nytimes.com.
