Three co-founders of CVC Capital Partners, the private equity firm that bought up and then sold Formula One, have built up a combined €2.6bn (£2.2bn) fortune, according to the company’s prospectus published in the run-up to its stock market float.
Donald Mackenzie, 66, holds 7% of CVC’s shares that would be worth just over €1bn if the company achieves its €15-per-share price target when it lists its shares on the Amsterdam stock market on Friday. He is planning to sell shares worth up to €150m in the initial public offering (IPO), the company said in the prospectus.
Co-founder Rolly van Rappard, 64, who will serve as CVC’s chair, holds shares worth about €950m, while his fellow co-founder Steve Koltes, 68, has shares worth about €600m. The three men’s combined shares could be worth more than €2.6bn.
The trio co-founded CVC when they spun it out of Citigroup in 1993, and have built it into one of the largest private equity groups in Europe. It manages more than €180bn of assets, including a stake in the Six Nations rugby tournament and Lipton Teas. It is based in low-tax Luxembourg.
Mackenzie, who is Scottish but lives in the tax haven of Jersey, became the chair of the company that ran Formula One after masterminding CVC’s buyout of the motorsport in 2006. It went on to sell the business to Liberty Media for $8bn in 2016.
He is said to own a 52-metre superyacht called Grace, while van Rappard owns a 56-metre superyacht called Blue II that is estimated to be worth $50m, according to Superyachtfan.com.
CVC hopes the listing will value the business at up to €15bn. It has recently taken stakes in big brands such as Lipton and the Swiss watchmaker Breitling, but also in media rights for LaLiga, Spain’s top football league.
It came close to a stock market listing in May 2022 and November 2023 but decided to postpone due to market uncertainty.
CVC will become the latest large private equity fund to list, with its rivals Blackstone, EQT, Bridgepoint and KKR all going public in recent years.
Rob Lucas, the CVC chief executive, said: “We have spent more than 40 years building the CVC network and developing a unique entrepreneurial culture centred on delivering consistent investment outperformance for our clients.
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“We believe an IPO of CVC provides an enduring long-term institutional structure to support further growth, we remain completely focused on the continued success of CVC, and neither I nor any of my active partners are selling shares as part of this transaction.”
