Alternative investment fund focused on providing capital solutions to sports teams, owners and leagues is now available on iCapital Marketplace for wealth managers and advisors
MONUMENT, Colo. and NEW YORK, Sept. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Advisors Asset Management (AAM), a leading investment solutions provider, and iCapital1, the global fintech platform driving the world’s alternative investment marketplace for the wealth management industry, announced today that the Avenue Sports Opportunities Fund (Avenue Sports Fund), managed by Avenue Capital Group (Avenue), is available on iCapital Marketplace.
“AAM is happy to collaborate with Avenue Capital Group and iCapital to expand distribution for the Avenue Sports Fund,” said Cliff Corso, President and CIO at AAM. “This initiative embodies our commitment to innovation within the alternatives space and strategic growth, designed to recognize the evolving needs of investors and capitalize on the emergence of sports as an investment opportunity.”
The Avenue Sports Fund seeks to produce attractive, risk-adjusted returns by providing capital solutions to a wide variety of sports teams, owners and leagues predominantly in North America and Europe. It also will provide growth capital to emerging sports with significant growth potential, as well as invest in equity and debt opportunities within women’s sports.
“By partnering with AAM and iCapital, we are providing advisors access to the Avenue Sports Fund, which offers a compelling and unique opportunity to invest in sports,” said Marc Lasry, Chairman, CEO and Co-Founder of Avenue Capital Group. “There are strong fundamentals across the sports landscape, and scarcity value and other qualities are expected to create favorable entry points for investments in this asset class moving forward.”
The core areas of investment focus within the Avenue Sports Fund include debt and preferred equity, minority stakes in established leagues and sports businesses, and control ownership opportunities in emerging leagues, in women’s sports and in other sports properties. Some of the investments the Avenue Sports Fund has made to date include an investment in SailGP’s Team USA; the acquisition of San Francisco-based The Bay Golf Club in TGL, a new golf league formed by Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy with backing from the PGA Tour; the acquisition of the New York Mavericks of the Professional Bull Riders Team Series league; a significant minority stake in Trackhouse Entertainment Group, a motor sports business that owns a NASCAR Cup Series team and a MotoGP team; debt and equity investments in Cosm, an immersive technology, media and entertainment company, which includes key partners in Sports; debt and equity investments in Ipswich Town Football Club, which competes in the English Premier League; and an investment in PGA Tour Enterprises, the for-profit commercial arm of the PGA Tour.
“We are excited to partner with AAM and Avenue Capital Group and provide the technology platform to enable greater access to their sports fund for a larger set of wealth managers and private investors,” said Dan Vene, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of iCapital. “Appetite is growing for alternative investments in the rapidly evolving sports asset class. With this partnership, advisors and their high-net-worth clients will have proper educational tools to better understand this asset class and a simplified client experience when investing in these products.”
About Advisors Asset Management
For 45 years, AAM has been a trusted resource for financial professionals. The firm offers access to alternatives, exchange-traded funds, the fixed income markets, managed accounts, mutual funds, structured products, and unit investment trusts. AAM is a part of SLC Management, the institutional alternatives and traditional asset management business of Sun Life. For more information, visit www.aamlive.com.
In 2023, AAM facilitated over $36 billion in combined sales and investments through 16,700 financial professionals industry-wide who accessed AAM’s investment solutions platform.*
*Of the $36 billion, approximately $9 billion were Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF), Managed Account (SMA), Mutual Fund, and Unit Investment Trust (UIT) assets, while $27 billion was in Fixed Income securities, including bonds and Structured Products.
Advisors Asset Management, Inc. (AAM) is a SEC-registered investment advisor and member FINRA/SIPC. | Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. | 18925 Base Camp Road | Monument, CO 80132
For more information, visit www.aamlive.com | X (Twitter): @aamlive | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/advisors-asset-management-inc-/
About Avenue Capital Group
Avenue Capital Group is a global investment firm primarily focused on making specialty lending, opportunistic credit and other special situation investments across the United States, Europe, and Asia. The firm, founded in 1995 by Marc Lasry and Sonia Gardner, draws on the skills and experience of over 70 investment professionals and more than 185 employees operating from its headquarters in New York and offices in Europe, Asia and Abu Dhabi. Avenue has assets under management of approximately $12.2 billion.
About iCapital
iCapital powers the world’s alternative investment marketplace offering a complete suite of tools, end-to-end enterprise solutions, data management and distribution capabilities and an innovative operating system. iCapital is the trusted technology partner to independent financial advisors, wealth managers, and asset managers, offering unrivaled access, technology, and education to incorporate alternative assets into the core portfolio strategies for their clients.
At the forefront of the digital transformation in alternative investing, iCapital’s secure platform delivers a complete portfolio of management capabilities for education, transactions, data flows, analytics, and client support throughout the investment lifecycle. With $194.3 billion2 in global platform assets, the iCapital operating system automates and streamlines the complex process of private market investing and seamlessly integrates with clients’ existing infrastructure platform and tools.
iCapital employs more than 1,500 people globally, and has 17 offices worldwide including New York, Greenwich, Zurich, Lisbon, London, Hong Kong, Singapore, Tokyo, and Toronto. iCapital has consistently been recognized for its outstanding innovation, fintech industry leadership, and performance including Forbes Fintech 50 for 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 and MMI/Barron’s Industry Awards as Solutions Provider of the Year for 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
For more information, visit icapital.com | X (Twitter): @icapitalnetwork | LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/icapital-network-inc
Disclosures
This material has been provided to you for informational purposes only by iCapital, Inc. and/or one of its affiliates including Institutional Capital Network, Inc. (collectively, “iCapital”). This material is the property of iCapital and may not be shared without its written permission. No part of this material may be reproduced in any form, or referred to in any other publication, without express written permission of iCapital. This is not intended as, and may not be relied on in any manner as, legal, tax or investment advice, a recommendation to employ a specific investment strategy, or as an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to purchase, or a recommendation of any interest in any fund or security. Security products and services are offered through iCapital Markets LLC, a registered broker/dealer, member FINRA and SIPC. Financial products made available by iCapital Markets LLC may be complex and/or speculative and are not suitable for all investors. iCapital Advisors, LLC is an investment adviser registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission and acts as an adviser to certain privately offered investment funds. “iCapital” and “iCapital Network” are registered trademarks of Institutional Capital Network, Inc.
© 2024 Institutional Capital Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
CRN: 2024-0905-11962 R
MEDIA CONTACTS
For Advisors Asset Management
Matthew Bono
JConnelly
(973) 590-9110
[email protected]
For iCapital
Media Relations
+1 919 602 2806
[email protected]
For Avenue Capital Group
Todd Fogarty, Kekst CNC
+1 917 992 1170
[email protected]
1 iCapital, Inc. and its affiliates (together, “iCapital”)
2 As of July 31, 2024
SOURCE Advisors Asset Management; iCapital
