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Legends lays out expansion plans after Sixth Street investment

Food, beverage, merchandise retail and stadium operations giant Legends is eyeing international expansion after closing investment from global investment firm Sixth Street.

Legends confirmed the closing of the investment earlier this week after announcing the outline agreement on January 12. Financial terms of the investment from Sixth Street were not disclosed but multiple reports last month claimed that it valued Legends at $1.35bn (£989m/€1.12bn).

Sixth Street now leads the Legends partnership group alongside co-founders YGE Holdings, an affiliate of the New York Yankees Major League Baseball team, and Jones Concessions LP, an affiliate of the Dallas Cowboys NFL American football franchise.

Legends’ client base already includes partnerships with non-US sports clubs such as Spanish LaLiga football team Real Madrid and the company is now hoping to step up its global expansion.

In an interview with SportBusiness.com, Shervin Mirhashemi, Legends president and chief executive, said: “When we do come back (after the pandemic), we want to be really well positioned to continue growing our international business and have that be a bigger and bigger part of our overall pie.

“The fact that Sixth Street has that experience, has that presence internationally, certainly in the pan-European market as well as other locations around the world, it fits exactly our vision of where the business is and is going toward in the future. There’s going to be immense focus on our behalf to make sure that international business becomes a bigger piece of what we do.

“Given that we are a global platform and are focused on these unique experiences for global brands, Sixth Street really fits our DNA, and their experience on that global stage is really going to serve us well.”

After Legends last month confirmed its agreement with Sixth Street, it was reported by US credit rating agency Fitch Ratings that the company was seeking to raise up to $500m to help it ride out the impact to its business caused by COVID-19.

Fitch said the refinancing transaction was being executed concurrently with the equity investment by Sixth Street.