Back-to-back Belgian Champion Club Brugge announces the strengthening of its ownership structure as part of a long-term vision for continued national success and international growth.
Current and future majority shareholder and President Bart Verhaeghe and CEO Vincent
Mannaert join forces with Jan Boone and Peter Vanhecke in Grizzly Sports NV, hereby
continuing the successful Flemish entrepreneurship since 2012 and committing to a long-term plan to create value for Club Brugge’s fans, team and business partners.
In addition to the anchoring of the founding leadership team, Club Brugge announces an important international development with the entry of a new shareholder, Orkila Capital. As a growth equity investment fund with 15 years’ experience in sports, media, entertainment and consumer markets in Europe and the US, Orkila Capital will help Club Brugge to further flourish in the fields of marketing digitalization, intellectual property and content development and direct-to-consumer business strategies.
Orkila Capital is providing a capital increase of 20 million € in Club Brugge’s further growth as a team and brand as well as acquiring shares from the existing shareholders for an amount of 30 million €. As a result, Grizzly Sports NV will hold 71.89 % of the Club Brugge shares and Orkila Capital will hold 23,26 % of the Club Brugge shares.
Club Brugge now joins Orkila Capital’s portfolio of leading global sports and enthusiast brand investments, including IRONMAN (the world’s largest operator of mass participation sports), Superstruct Entertainment (owner of leading music festivals Sziget, Wacken, Zwarte Cross and many others), Recognition Media (owner of The Webby Awards), Oatly (the world leader in oat milk and other plant-based products) and many others.
President Bart Verhaeghe: “I’m extremely proud - today - to announce a very clear, steady and bright future for Club Brugge. I strongly believe that our decade of experience in international football combined with the extensive Orkila portfolio expertise, offers a solid base to continue our growth in a rapidly changing football and business landscape.“
Jesse Du Bey, Managing Partner of Orkila Capital: “We are honored to become a minority investor in Club Brugge, which we believe is among the great sports brands in Europe. We invest in brands that have tremendously strong emotional connections with their fans, employees and customers, based on a commitment to a real mission, high integrity and strong innovation and we believe Club Brugge fits this description perfectly. We look forward to working over the coming years with Bart, Vincent and their partners and management team to continuing building on Club Brugge’s great success to-date.“