Endeavor Group Holdings, a holding company that owns the namesake talent agency and several other sports and entertainment enterprises, is exploring selling off some of its event assets, including Frieze, the company announced Thursday. The potential sale of assets also covers, but is not limited to, two tennis tournaments, the Miami Open and the Madrid Open, according to a release.
The news comes after Silver Lake, a private equity firm based in Menlo Park, California, announced it would take Endeavor private after being listed on the New York Stock Exchange for three years. The equity value of the deal was set at $13 billion, with Silver Lake agreeing to pay $27.50 per share, representing a 55 precent premium on its October 2023 share value. At the time of the deal, Silver Lake already controlled around 71 percent of Endeavor’s voting rights, according to the Financial Times.
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Endeavor purchased a stake in Frieze, which includes the namesake London-based art magazine as well as several art fairs, in 2016. At the time, Frieze operated two fairs in London—Frieze London, for contemporary art, and Frieze Masters, for art from antiquity to the 20th century—as well as one in New York.
Since Endeavor’s acquisition of Frieze, the company has launched annual fairs in Los Angeles and Seoul in 2019 and 2022, respectively. Last summer, in a surprise move, Frieze also acquired two US fairs, Expo Chicago and the Armory Show, Frieze’s main competitor in New York. And in 2021, Frieze launched No.9 Cork Street, a permanent exhibition space in London’s tony Mayfair district.
All of these assets under the Frieze umbrella are to evaluated as part of the sale. The company’s art fairs for 2025 are still scheduled to proceed as planned.
The announcement likely represents an overall strategic shift for Endeavor that would see the company recalibrate toward focusing more on the talent rep side of its business. TKO Group Holdings, a sports and entertainment company that is majority owned by Endeavor, also announced today that it had acquired Professional Bull Riders (“PBR”), IMG, and On Location (the organizer of 1,200 sporting events from the Super Bowl to the 2026 FIFA World Cup to the Olympic and Paralympic Games) from Endeavor for all-equity transaction valued at $3.25 billion. In 2023, Endeavor’s Ultimate Fighting Championship merged with World Wrestling Entertainment; both of those companies are now owned by TKO.
In a statement, Endeavor’s president and COO Mark Shapiro said, “Endeavor’s portfolio includes iconic, global, and must-attend events spanning sports, entertainment, and the arts. As part of Endeavor, Frieze and the Miami and Madrid Open tournaments have each grown significantly, from Frieze launching successful fairs in Los Angeles and Seoul to the Miami and Madrid Opens setting year-over-year attendance and sponsorship records. We are proud of this progress and confident that these unique assets are well-positioned for success in the future.”
The release stated that there is no set timeline for how long the review would take and that the review does not necessarily mean there will be any sales, adding, “Endeavor does not intend to comment further regarding the potential sale of its event assets as described herein unless and until it determines that further disclosure is necessary or advisable.”
