Sports law firm behind Chelsea sale sells stake to private equity group

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A boutique UK law firm behind some of the biggest football deals has taken an investment from a US private equity group, in a sign of the growing interest from private capital in both the legal and sports industries.

San Francisco’s Cordillera Investment Partners has taken a minority stake in Northridge Law, whose clients include English Premier League football clubs such as Chelsea.

The deal, which will give Cordillera a board seat at Northridge, comes as private capital has shown an increasing appetite to invest in professional services firms. Several legal and accounting firms have taken investments over the past two years, with many private equity investors seeking opportunities in the highly profitable sector.

The transaction also highlights the growing investment from private capital groups in sports. CVC has invested in football, rugby and tennis in recent years, while KKR agreed a $1.4bn deal last month to buy sports investment group Arctos Partners.

Northridge, which was founded in 2017, advised Chelsea on its 2022 sale — then the biggest sports transaction in history — after its previous owner, the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich, was placed under international sanctions following Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

It also represented Al-Nassr on the Saudi Arabian club’s 2023 signing of Cristiano Ronaldo, a deal that handed the Portuguese footballer one of the biggest-ever player contracts in sport. It advised on Red Bull’s minority investment in Leeds United and on the sale of Everton Football Club to the Friedkin Group, while other clients have included the Football Association and Spotify. 

“The emergence of sport as an investible asset class, and in particular the influx of private capital into the industry, has driven the growth of our transactional practice,” Ian Lynam, one of Northridge’s founding partners, told the FT. “This investment from Cordillera will help us to continue to add the very best lawyers in new areas to broaden our offering.”

Some of the world’s biggest law firms have been expanding their practices to take advantage of such demand. Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins, which are the world’s largest law firms by revenue and advise many of the largest private equity houses, have both hired several partners for their US sports practices over the past year.

Lynam said that Northridge, which projects that its revenues of £13.4mn in 2025 will more than double by 2030, is looking to expand into media rights and stadium development. The 44-lawyer boutique has been fielding approaches from private equity firms for the last two years, he added.

The size of Cordillera’s investment is undisclosed.

Cordillera, which was set up in 2014 and invests in niche assets whose returns are not correlated with equity stocks, such as whisky barrels and boating marinas, already has investments in women’s soccer and London’s Professional Triathletes Organisation.

The firm said it was looking to invest in the “toll takers” in sport — the businesses that advise on deals — rather than in specific sports teams.

“Sports is a really interesting hunting ground for us to look for non-correlated assets,” said Chris Heller, co-founder of Cordillera, adding that the firm may open a London office in future.

He added: “This investment has opened our eyes to law firms, what the businesses look like, what the pros, what the cons are . . . I think it may be a place that we’re interested in as we move forward.”