The Agnelli family holding company EXOR said on Saturday the family has no intention of selling Juventus to cryptocurrency group Tether or any other party, while rejecting Tether's sudden takeover bid for Italy's most successful football club. El Salvador-based Tether said on Friday it had submitted an all-cash proposal to EXOR to acquire its entire stake in the Turin Serie A club.
Tether stated that it will launch a public tender offer for the remaining shares of Juventus at the same price provided to EXOR, and if the acquisition is completed, it plans to invest 1 billion euros to support the development of the club.
The cryptocurrency company’s CEO, Paolo Ardoino, is an Italian citizen and a Juventus fan.
Tether’s offer to EXOR was 2.66 euros per share, valuing Juventus at just over 1 billion euros ($1.17 billion), a person familiar with the matter said.
The offer represents a 21% premium to Juventus' closing price of €2.19 on Friday.
EXOR said its board of directors had unanimously rejected the offer and had "no intention to sell any of its Juventus shares to third parties, including but not limited to El Salvador-based Tether."
Juventus has not made an annual net profit in almost a decade and its shares are down 27% so far this year.
Tether is the issuer of stablecoin pegged to the US dollar
Tether issues USDT, a stablecoin pegged to the US dollar, and has increased its stake in Juventus to more than 10% this year, becoming the second largest shareholder after EXOR.
By acquiring the historic European soccer club, Tether, which faces increasing regulatory scrutiny in the European Union, could gain a powerful tool to connect with European policymakers while raising its profile among the public.
Tether said in a press release on Friday that it planned to acquire all of the club’s shares held by EXOR (accounting for 65.4% of the total share capital), but the acquisition price was not officially disclosed.
Amsterdam-listed EXOR has been streamlining its portfolio of assets in Italy.
This year, the company agreed to sell truck maker Iveco to India's Tata Motors and announced on Monday it was in talks with Greek media company Antenna to sell its news business, which includes two major newspapers and three popular radio stations.
A sale of Juventus, which has been owned by the Agnelli family for nearly a century, could be seen as the clearest signal of the family's growing disengagement from the country.
EXOR CEO John Elkann said in November that the Agnelli family had no intention of selling their Juventus stake. The family's connection with the club dates back to 1923, when Eduardo Agnelli became president.
Investors led by EXOR have poured around €1bn of new money into Juventus in a series of capital increases over the past seven years.
According to data from the Bank of Italy, Tether’s USDT accounts for more than half of the U.S. dollar-pegged stablecoin market.
Juventus have been in trouble for the past five years
Juventus have won the Italian league 36 times, more than any other team, but have hit a slump since winning nine consecutive titles in 2020. The team is currently ranked seventh in Serie A.
The club that has given birth to football legends such as Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero and Cristiano Ronaldo has helped the Agnelli family build consensus and popularity among the Italian people for decades.
The club's support has withstood match-fixing cases and financial scandals, most recently in 2023 when a false accounting case related to player transactions saw it docked 10 Serie A points.
Juventus also joined a dozen other top clubs in a failed attempt to break away from the European Super League in 2021, a move that challenged the authority of European football's governing body UEFA.
Like other top teams in Serie A, Juventus has struggled to maintain financial competitiveness in the face of the increasing dominance of the English Premier League and European giants such as Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Paris Saint-Germain.
As of Friday, Tether’s USDT stablecoin had a market capitalization of approximately $186 billion. The company’s tokens are backed by U.S. dollars and U.S. Treasury bonds, and Tether is also one of the top 20 holders of U.S. government bonds.
A stablecoin is a digital token that aims to maintain a stable value by being pegged one-to-one to a traditional currency and is backed by reserve assets, primarily in the form of government bonds or deposits.