During the second investor day within a year, Fanatics delivered presentations explaining its future growth strategy to over 100 prospective institutional investors from big firms such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs.
Fanatics, the world’s leading provider of licensed sports merchandise, recently conducted its second investor day within a year as the company takes quiet steps while moving closer to an initial public offering (IPO).
Sources familiar with the matter said that more than 100 prospective institutional investors from big firms such as Barclays and Goldman Sachs met on Tuesday, June 13, at the NBA Players Association headquarters in New York. The purpose was to hear from Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin about the future plans of the company.
In addition to this, nearly 300 people attended the virtual meeting on Zoom. Also, Fanatics leaders from all parts of the business verticals took part in delivering presentations and the Q&A session with the audience. Also, a spokesperson from the company confirmed to CNBC that the company’s timeline for the IPO hasn’t changed.
Football great Tom Brady also made a surprise visit at the Fanatics investor day. Mr. Brady is also an investor in the company. It was just last December 2022 that Fantics secured an additional $700 million in funding. The company has some of the biggest investors such as Fidelity, Silverlake, and Softbank.
More Details about Fanatics
Fanatics, a company based in Florida, was established in 2011 by Rubin, who was previously a co-owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and the New Jersey Devils. They have secured exclusive licensing agreements with major sports leagues like the NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, as well as colleges and universities, allowing them to manufacture and sell official team merchandise.
Rubin has been working on new growth plans for the company for quite a while. Last month, Rubin gathered all sell-side analysts for a meet-and-greet and to further talk about his growth plans for the company.
Last year in 2022, capitalizing on the trend for non-fungible tokens, Fanatics also introduced the NFT cards in partnership with WWE. This collaboration will be ongoing and will involve the introduction of e-commerce platforms for selling licensed merchandise. It will also include the creation and distribution of physical and digital trading cards, as well as NFT trading cards.
In April this year, Fanatics hired Deborah Crawford from Meta to be in charge of investor relations, a new role in the company. Fanatics is a large platform company valued at $31 billion.
It has been growing quickly and acquiring various businesses like Topps trading cards and Mitchell & Ness clothing brand. Recently, Fanatics has also entered the sports betting industry by acquiring PointsBet’s US assets for around $150 million in May last month.
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