By Alan Baldwin
ENSTONE, England (Reuters) – Renault-owned Alpine believe Hollywood actor Ryan Reynolds has the Midas Touch to help get the team back to the top in Formula One.
“Deadpool” star Reynolds was announced on Monday, along with Wrexham soccer club co-owner Rob McElhenney, in a group of investors taking a 24% equity stake in the former world champions.
Even if the investment is led by Otro Capital and RedBird Capital Partners, Reynolds’ involvement through his Maximum Effort Investments created an immediate buzz.
“Most of you were probably expecting Ryan Reynolds,” Otro Capital founder and partner Alec Scheiner jokingly told analysts at Alpine’s Enstone factory for a strategy presentation.
Alpine chief executive Laurent Rossi pointed to Reynolds’ track record in business.
“He did Mint, Aviation Gin, Wrexham. Bringing sponsors, visibility and success. Everything he touches turns into some sort of success,” he told reporters later.
T-Mobile US announced in March it would buy Ka’ena Corp, owners of Reynolds-backed budget service provider Mint Mobile, for up to $1.35 billion.
Diageo paid up to $610 million in 2020 for Aviation American Gin, co-owned by Reynolds, and other spirits brands.
Wrexham last April secured a fairytale return to the English Football League after a 15-year absence, with the club gaining a multitude of long-distance fans through a docu-series “Welcome to Wrexham”.
Asked how involved Reynolds had been in the negotiations, Rossi replied: “Almost never. The deal was led by RedBird/Otro, Otro being a couple of people from RedBird starting their own fund so it’s more or less one group of people talking to us.”
Rossi said the investors, who have paid 200 million euros ($218.88 million), would develop revenues through merchandising, licensing and hospitality.
“Along the way we were thinking about how do you add visibility, incremental visibility, and these guys — Maximum Effort and Reynolds — they also do that,” he said.
“They were interested, we met, we found there were a lot of things we could do… so they decided to join the bandwagon.”
U.S. investment firm RedBird, run by former Goldman Sachs banker Gerry Cardinale, is an investor in Fenway Sports Group, the owner of Premier League side Liverpool and the Boston Red Sox baseball team.
RedBird also has a controlling stake in French soccer club Toulouse, which caught Renault’s attention, and owns Italy’s AC Milan.
Scheiner said Rossi and Renault CEO Luca de Meo made the initial approach and the partnership “checks every single box”.
“We think it’s the perfect time to invest. And we think Alpine is the perfect vehicle — a works team, an iconic team, high performance built into it and the brand is just getting started,” he said.
Liberty Media-owned Formula One is booming in the Americas, expanding to three U.S. races this season with a new round in Las Vegas. Sportscar maker Alpine, separate from the team, is also planning to move into the U.S. market.
The deal values Alpine Racing at around $900 million and Rossi said the numbers were only going up.
“A year or two later they (RedBird) might not extract as much value in terms of upside than they would now,” he said. “A year or two earlier they might not have had the same prospects on Formula One.”
Rossi said some of the new money would pay off debt to Renault with the rest going to the team and brand.
($1 = 0.9137 euros)
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge)
