World Table Tennis strives to make additional private equity investments

World Table Tennis, the new commercial arm of the International Table Tennis Federation, is continuing talks with a view to selling further shares to private equity investors.

Thanks to private equity investments already insured from China, WTT, which was launched as part of the Singapore-based ITTF restructuring its commercial operations from 2021, has been able to establish itself and roll out its plans.

WTT is now looking to continue negotiations on additional private equity investments such as senior commercial strategic advisor Philippe Le Floc’h, former commercial director at Fifa and marketing director at Uefa, SportBusiness.

He said, “Many private equity firms are now turning to sports [the] COVID-19 [impact]. You see them in football and rugby. We have also been approached and we have discussions with various interested parties. ”

CVC Capital Partners is looking for an agreement with the Six Nations, his latest investment in rugby union, while at least seven private equity companies – including CVC – have been given the green light to continue with potential investment offers for Lega Serie A, the governing body of the top division of Italian club football.

Le Floc’h continued: “There is certainly interest from the private investment world to start exercising now. They see it as a good opportunity because many people need the money. For us, that is not yet the case because we already have someone on board, but of course we have a very ambitious business plan for the next five to ten years and if we invest more, we can do more. ”

WTT director Matt Pound added, “If WTT thinks it needs more power to drive something in our company, we can do that and find new partners. In all contracts and deals we have signed with all our partners, WTT is at the heart of all decision making, so we still have that power to really dictate the direction of the company. ”

The pursuit of additional private equity financing is due to the fact that WTT recently concluded an agreement Long-term sale of media rights, production and non-exclusive sponsorship rights passes with Endeavor company IMG. WTT uses other parts of the Endeavor group, including 160over90, whose marketing services arm helps shape the global promotion strategy.

Le Floc’h insisted that WTT fully implement its plans, even without additional investment, but that an additional capital injection “would allow us to boost what we can do and get people to help us do things faster to do”.

As Le Floc’h acknowledges, WTT and IMG will launch with broadcasts, sponsors, and future event hosts who have tightened their budgets as a direct result of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“We know the market will be traumatized if we go into it and you have fierce competition, but we think we will have an offer that will be interesting.”

Media rights sales material has been prepared by WTT in recent months, and talks have already been held with what Pound describes as “a few major broadcasters”. Tom Broom, senior vice president at IMG Media & Events, said SportBusiness earlier this month that China and Japan were “the first taxis in the rankings”, with the service and WTT initiating dialogue in both markets.

WTT has forged closer ties with China through its recent commercial cooperation with Chinese company Quanguan Sports (QG Sports) from 2021. Liu Guoliang, the chairman of the Chinese Table Tennis Federation, was also present last month appointed chair from the new World Table Tennis Council.

Le Floc’h, the former chief commercial officer at Fifa and marketing director at Uefa, continued: “We don’t have all the baggage from the old-fashioned packages, so we can start fresh and agile and respond to the requests of the potential partners. The downside is that this is a new product and people love to see it. We are trying to hold a test event in Macau in October / November to show the world what it looks like. ”

Meanwhile, Pound noted that the initial forecasts have been revised and that WTT would be “naive to think we are going to 2021 and will have exactly the same results as what we predicted.”

He said: “In 2021 there will still be questions about international travel and when we can get our events right on track. Now it looks like we won’t have a full full calendar in 2021 and now we have a 2021 Olympics and the ITTF 2020 world championships being postponed to 2021 so we have fewer windows in the calendar meaning less potential is to have events. ‘

Hosting interest “from 40 cities and countries”

The new calendar is overseen by Stephen Duckitt, director of WTT’s event strategy, who came on board in March and has 15 years of experience organizing and handling the PR and marketing for ATP and WTA tennis tournaments.

Pound said there will be 40 ‘active conversations’ with potential hosts in 2021 and 2022, although he admitted that the corona virus crisis means that the number one priority for many cities and countries worldwide will not be bidding on sporting events by 2021.

WTT does not expect a full event calendar in 2021.

The WTT event structure has been renewed and now includes the Grand Smashes, WTT Cup Finals, WTT Champions Series and WTT Contenders Series.

Pound continued, “We are still confident that the majority of the goals in terms of prize money and our income will be met, and once the world heals, we will be back and fighting a full range of events for 2022.”

Interest in hosting stems primarily from the Asian table tennis market, but discussions are also underway with prospective hosts in Oceania, Latin America, North America and Europe and what Pound describes as ‘iconic cities around the world’.

He added, “It’s been great feedback from the market, but once we have a proof of concept, we expect the market to get hotter for what we release.”

Le Floc’h, a Malaysia-based Le Floc’h, shared his first impressions of the ITTF project during his initial conversations with Pound and Steve Dainton (the ITTF director and WTT director): ‘I thought – if I had a blank sheet had paper for each federation, then you are doing just the right thing – creating a custom entity that is completely autonomous from the governing body and houses all the commercial rights therein. And you open the equity interest to some equity [investment] eliminating the need to apply for maternity money and to finance your needs. ”

“Thanks to the ITTF for making this happen because there aren’t many sports boards out there who would have the courage to make it happen.”