OL Groupe (Olympique Lyonnais Groupe) is a French

holding company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

created in 1999 primarily known for its ownership and management of the

Olympique Lyonnais Olympique Lyonnais (), commonly referred to as simply Lyon () or OL, is a men and women's French professional football club based in Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes. The men play in France's highest football division, Ligue 1. Founded in 1950, th ...

professional men's and women's

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

clubs and their stadium,

Parc Olympique Lyonnais Parc Olympique Lyonnais, known for sponsorship reasons as Groupama Stadium, is a 59,186-seat stadium in Décines-Charpieu, in the Lyon Metropolis. The home of French football club Olympique Lyonnais, it replaced their previous stadium, Stade de ...

. Since June 2022, OL Groupe is primarily owned by Eagle Football Holdings, which is controlled by American businessman

John Textor John Textor (born September 30, 1965) is an American businessman. He is the retired Executive Chairman of fuboTV, Inc. (following its merger with Textor's Facebank Group, Inc.), a sports-centric OTT streaming company. Featured by Forbes in 2016 as ...

. The company is currently listed on

Euronext Paris Euronext Paris is France's securities market, formerly known as the Paris Bourse, which merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges in September 2000 to form Euronext NV. As of 2022, the 795 companies listed had a combined marke ...

, initialled OLG.

History

The Olympique Lyonnais holding company was officially created on 1 February 1999, announced in the same month as

Pathé Pathé or Pathé Frères (, styled as PATHÉ!) is the name of various French people, French businesses that were founded and originally run by the Pathé Brothers of France starting in 1896. In the early 1900s, Pathé became the world's largest ...

group obtaining a minority stake of 34% on an investment of €15.2 million. Olympique Lyonnais owner

Jean-Michel Aulas Jean-Michel Antoine Aulas (born 22 March 1949) is a French businessman. He is the founder and CEO of :fr:Cegid, Cegid (Compagnie Européenne de Gestion par l'Informatique Décentralisée) and serves as the owner and president of French Associatio ...

owned the remaining 66% of the holding company and controlled its operations as

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

OL Land project

On 9 February 2007, OL Groupe went public on the Paris Stock Exchange in an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

, the first time a French football club had done so, by selling 28% of its stock at €24 per share. This raised €89 million toward the financing of the OL Land project, a property development that included a stadium to be named ''Stade des Lumières'', French for Stadium of Lights. After numerous appeals and delays, OL Groupe signed the stadium's building permit on 3 February 2012, at a total cost of €405 million, but the project's financing was not finalized until July 2013. The stadium opened on 9 January 2016, five and a half years after its initially scheduled completion date, and was named

IDG Capital investment

In August 2016, OL Groupe announced that Chinese investment fund

IDG Capital Founded in Boston in 1992, IDG Capital is an investment and asset management firm that specializes in venture capital, private equity, and mergers & acquisitions. The firm currently has offices in fifteen cities around the world, including New York ...

had obtained a 20% stake in OL Groupe for €100 million. The deal was finalized in February 2017. OL Groupe formed a joint company, Beijing OL FC, with OL Groupe holding a 45% share to establish partnerships with local companies, create football schools, and expand the Olympique Lyon football brand in China.

ASVEL Basket investment

On 22 June 2019, OL Groupe acquired a 25% stake in French men's basketball club

ASVEL Basket ASVEL Basket, commonly known as ASVEL or sometimes as ASVEL Lyon-Villeurbanne, and also known as LDLC ASVEL for sponsorship reasons, is a French professional basketball team that is located in the city of Villeurbanne, which is a suburb of Lyon ...

Villeurbanne Villeurbanne (; frp, Velorbana) is a commune in the Metropolis of Lyon in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region in eastern France. It is situated northeast of Lyon, with which it forms the heart of the second-largest metropolitan area in France after tha ...

for €3.4 million, and a 10% stake in its women's team for €300,000. OL Groupe also unveiled plans for a €100 million performance hall near the stadium, now named Groupama Stadium, that could host concerts at a capacity of 16,000 people and sporting events for up to 12,000 people, suitable for ASVEL Basket to play its matches there. Former

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

player Tony Parker was president of the club and majority shareholder of ASVEL Basket, and became an ambassador of the OL brand in the United States. At the end of December 2020, OL Groupe acquired an additional 6.3% stake in ASVEL Basket's men's team, for a total stake of 31.67%. , OL Groupe's stake was 33%, and Parker was reportedly considering selling his stake.

Reign FC acquisition

In October 2019, OL Groupe announced record turnover of €309 million and confirmed its objective of reaching €400 million in revenue by 2024. OL Groupe president Jean-Michel Aulas also announced negotiations for the acquisition of an unnamed women's football franchise playing in United States' top-division league, the

National Women's Soccer League The National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is a professional women's soccer league at the top of the United States league system. It is owned by the teams and, until 2020, was under a management contract with the United States Soccer Federatio ...

(NWSL). On 25 November 2019, OL Groupe announced exclusive discussions to acquire NWSL club Reign FC, then based in

Tacoma, Washington Tacoma ( ) is the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. A port city, it is situated along Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, Washington, Olympia, and northwest of Mount ...

. OL Groupe completed the acquisition on 19 December 2019, for $3.51 million and rebranded the team OL Reign. OL Groupe would hold an 89.5% stake in the company through American holding company OL Groupe LLC, and former Reign owner

Bill Predmore Bill(s) may refer to: Common meanings * Banknote, paper cash (especially in the United States) * Bill (law), a proposed law put before a legislature * Invoice, commercial document issued by a seller to a buyer * Bill, a bird or animal's beak Pla ...

would remain CEO and retain a 7.5% stake. Tony Parker also acquired a 3% stake in Reign FC as part of the deal. Due to the NWSL's American franchise structure, OL Groupe also indirectly became a shareholder in the league.

Team LDLC partnership

On 7 January 2020,

eSports Esports, short for electronic sports, is a form of competition using video games. Esports often takes the form of organized, multiplayer video game competitions, particularly between professional players, individually or as teams. Although orga ...

club Team LDLC renamed to

LDLC OL LDLC OL is a French esports organization with players competing in '' Counter-Strike: Global Offensive'', '' Fortnite Battle Royale'', '' League of Legends'', '' PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds'' and '' World Rally Championship''. On January 7, 20 ...

as part of a partnership with Olympique Lyonnais. The partnership ended on 16 May 2023, and the club would cease operations by the end of July 2023.

Other holdings

OL Groupe has held a 51% stake in the Medical Academy of Football (Académie Médicale de Football), a stake in

futsal Futsal is a football-based game played on a hardcourt, hard court smaller than a football pitch, and mainly indoors. It has similarities to five-a-side football and Indoor soccer, indoor football. Futsal is played between two teams of five players ...

and entertainment center chain Le Five, a stake in amusement park SCI Too Fun Parc, and a 10% stake in Brazilian football club

Resende FC Resende Futebol Clube, commonly known as Resende, is a Brazilian professional football club in Resende, Rio de Janeiro. The team compete in Campeonato Carioca, the top tier of the Rio de Janeiro state football league. History On June 6, 1909, ...

Acquisition by John Textor

On 21 June 2022, OL Groupe announced the pending or eventual sale of all shares held by Aulas's holding company Holnest, Pathé, and IDG Capital to Eagle Football Holdings, LLC, a holding company controlled by American businessman

and including Jamie Salter. Eagle Football Holdings owned 40% of English club Crystal Palace F.C., 80% of Belgian club

R.W.D. Molenbeek R.W.D. Molenbeek, short for Racing White Daring Molenbeek, was a Belgian football club founded in 1909 as White Star Club de Bruxelles. It then became a member of the Belgian Football Association later the same year as White Star Athletic Club a ...

, and 90% of Brazilian club

Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas Botafogo (local/standard alternative Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: ) is a beachfront neighborhood ('' bairro'') in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a mostly upper middle class and small commerce community, and is located between the hills of ...

. The agreement would retain Aulas as CEO for at least three years and retain OL Groupe's executive committee. However, Aulas resigned on 8 May 2023, less than a year after the sale's announcement. Eagle Football named Aulas honorary chairman of OL Groupe and gave him €10 million in exit compensation, and named Textor interim CEO of OL Groupe.

Sale of OL Féminine and OL Reign

On 13 April 2023, ''

L'Équipe ''L'Équipe'' (, French for "the team") is a French nationwide daily newspaper devoted to sport, owned by Éditions Philippe Amaury. The paper is noted for coverage of association football, rugby football, rugby, motorsport, and cycle sport, ...

'' reported that Textor would sell 52% of OL Groupe's women's association football team OL Féminin to American businesswoman Y. Michele Kang, who owns the NWSL's Washington Spirit. OL Groupe denied the report, and instead confirmed that it had instead hired an investment bank to facilitate the sale of its NWSL club OL Reign. On 16 May, OL Groupe and Kang announced the formation of a separate holding company that would consist of the Washington Spirit and OL Féminin, in which Kang would have a controlling 52% stake, the OL Groupe-affiliated OL Association a 36% stake, and OL Groupe a 12% stake in exchange for a 50-year license of the OL brand. Kang would also join OL Groupe's board of directors. , the deal was pending approval of the NWSL and French regulators. Textor said he expects to sell OL Reign for €50 million, and Kang's deal for OL Féminin valued the European side at $54.4 million. On 17 June 2023, ''L'Equipe'' reported that French football financial overseers Direction Nationale du Contrôle de Gestion (DNCG) was prepared to sanction Olympique Lyon if it failed to account for €60 million before 30 June. The sanctions were announced on 4 July, with Lyon's wage bill and transfers subject to DNCG supervision. Following his appointment as chief executive officer in succession of Aulas, Santiago Cucci noted that while multiple offers for OL Reign had been made with a minimum sale price of $53 million, the club had not yet been sold as of 6 July. Cucci was formerly CEO of the American Dockers clothing brand and had no prior experience in football.

References

{{Olympique Lyonnais Olympique Lyonnais Entertainment companies established in 1999 1999 establishments in France Holding companies of France Sports holding companies Seattle Reign FC owners