A consortium of Silicon Valley financiers and executives is assembling a late bid to gatecrash the auction of English cricket’s Hundred tournament by tabling offers for the two London-based franchises.
Sky News has learnt that Nikesh Arora, the chief executive of Palo Alto Networks, is spearheading a syndicate of wealthy executives with a view to buying a big stake in either the Oval Invincibles or its more expensive rival, Lords-based London Spirit.
Sources said that Mr Arora, a former executive at SoftBank, the giant Japanese technology group, was sounding out potential co-investors including Egon Durban, co-chief executive of Silver Lake, the west coast-based backer of New Zealand Rugby and the RAC breakdown recovery service.
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Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft and an investor in Major League Cricket in the US, is also among those expected to be approached about joining the consortium if it is successful in acquiring a stake in one of the London-based Hundred franchises, according to cricket insiders.
The bids led by Mr Arora face stiff competition because of the level of interest from heavyweight financial players such as CVC Capital Partners and wealthy individuals, including Todd Boehly, the Chelsea Football Club joint-owner.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the eight host counties are in the process of narrowing the field of bidders for stakes in the eight franchises, which include Birmingham Phoenix, Northern Superchargers and Southern Brave.
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Under the ECB’s plans, it intends to sell its 49% holding in each of the eight teams with the counties left to decide whether they wish to offload any of their 51% stakes.
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Neither of the London franchises is expected to relinquish overall control to external investors.
The process is expected to raise hundreds of millions of pounds, which will be distributed to all English cricket counties as well as to the grassroots game.
The final sums remain subject to widely varying speculation, and will not be clear until the spring.
Among the other bidders to date have reportedly been a large number of Indian Premier League team owners and investors, the Glazer family, which continues to own a big stake in Manchester United FC, and Liberty Media
In total, roughly 35 bids are said to have been shortlisted for the eight teams, with those proposals, in turn, said to have come from about 15 separate investor groups.
A bigger-than-expected windfall from the process could offer a financial lifeline to a number of cash-strapped counties, with part of the proceeds likely to be used to pay down debt.
Concerns have been raised, however, that windfalls from the Hundred auction will not deliver a meaningful improvement in counties’ long-term financial sustainability.
The outcome of the Hundred auction is also likely to intensify other searching questions about the future of cricket, as the Test format of the game struggles for international commercial relevance against shorter-length competition.
The Hundred auction is being handled by bankers at Raine Group, the same firm which oversaw the sale of large stakes in both Manchester United and Chelsea in recent years.
