Everton Sale: Friedkin’s £800m Asking Price Explained
Friedkin wants up to £800m for Everton. What it paid, the £401m it injected, the debt, and how the price stacks up against recent Premier League deals.
Ownership & M&A Everton Back on the Market: What an £800m Price Tag Really Buys
Less than two years after ending the Moshiri era, The Friedkin Group is testing the market for Everton. The reported asking price of up to £800m has been read by some as a quick profit. A closer look at what Friedkin actually paid, what it has injected since and how much debt sits inside the club suggests the numbers are far tighter than the headline implies.
On 9 October, TFG said it was exploring new investment options for the club , including the potential sale of a controlling interest, and added that it would only deal with parties it considered the right long-term stewards. Investment bank Moelis & Co. has been hired to run the process . No buyer has been named and there is no guarantee a deal follows.
What Friedkin paid in 2024
The Premier League confirmed in December 2024 that TFG had bought 98.8% of Everton through its UK vehicle, Roundhouse Capital Holdings. Roundhouse's filed accounts, analysed in detail by The Esk's Paul Quinn , show that the shares themselves cost just £67.4m: £25m up front and £42.4m deferred. Once repayment of club lenders and deal costs are added, total consideration came to about £331.3m.
The cheap entry price reflected a distressed balance sheet. Farhad Moshiri's £450.8m of shareholder loans were converted into equity just before completion, which removed debt without any new cash. The club was then refinanced with £350m of 30-year senior secured notes and a £130m JPMorgan revolving credit facility. The accounts even recognise negative goodwill of £473m, a sign TFG bought the club for well below the fair value of its net assets.
What it has put in since
TFG has kept funding the club. Share issues to Roundhouse at £175 a share add up to roughly £401.3m of new cash at club level, including £233.4m at completion that went straight to lenders, three tranches worth £101m in August and September 2025, and a further £66.8m across July and August 2026 . Roundhouse now holds about 99.7% of Everton. Houston Texans co-owner Christopher Sarofim and Dallas Mavericks coach Jason Kidd sit above Roundhouse as indirect minority investors.
The price, and the debt question
The asking price depends on who is reporting it and how debt is treated. The BBC has reported a target of £750m to £800m for a complete sale with debts of around £468m, without making clear whether that debt sits inside the figure. The Times, as relayed by Read Everton , put the figure at about £800m including around £380m of debt.
If £800m is an enterprise value that already includes about £380m of debt, the equity is worth roughly £420m. That is close to the £401.3m of fresh cash TFG has injected since completion, before counting the £67.4m share price. On that reading, a sale at the reported number returns Friedkin's capital rather than delivering a windfall. Only if a buyer pays £750m to £800m for the shares and takes on the debt on top does the trade look clearly profitable.
Quinn goes further, arguing that once factored player receivables, an estimated loss of around £1m a week and future capital needs at the stadium and training ground are counted, the equity may be worth no more than £250m. That is one analyst's view, but it frames the gap any bidder and Moelis will need to close.
How it compares with recent Premier League deals
Recent transactions point to a two-tier market. Liverpool's minority sale to 1892 Holdings and Clearlake's buyout of Todd Boehly and Mark Walter at Chelsea were struck at roughly 8 to 10 times revenue. Further down the table, Woody Johnson's 43% purchase at Crystal Palace and the Lubner and Vaughn investment at Brentford priced those clubs at about 2.3 to 2.4 times revenue. Friedkin's own entry in 2024 came in at about 2.1 times.
At £750m to £800m, Everton would be priced at around 3.8 to 4.1 times FY25 revenue, firmly between the two tiers. Palace is attempting a similar jump, having hired the Raine Group and floated a valuation of around £900m .
The stadium is the pitch
Any multiple above the mid-table norm rests on the Hill Dickinson Stadium. Forbes valued Everton at $930m in May 2026, largely on the strength of the new ground . For a buyer, the question is whether to pay today for matchday, hospitality and non-football revenue the club has yet to fully deliver.
Who might buy
The first name to surface publicly is the Dell family. According to journalist Alan Nixon, as reported by GiveMeSport on Monday, the family is considering a bid. It has prior Premier League exposure through lending firm MSD and backed a previous Everton bid led by supporters Andy Bell and George Downing before Friedkin won the club in 2024. Neither the family nor the club has commented, and the report should be treated as early.
A full exit is not a given either. A source told Front Office Sports that TFG could sell control and still keep a significant holding. The group faces a choice between committing more capital to the next phase or bringing in a partner at a higher valuation. Sportcal also notes that Friedkin is in exploratory talks over an NHL expansion team in Houston, with total costs estimated at around $3.5bn, which may shape how much capital TFG wants tied up in Merseyside.
What could hold a deal back
Bidders will price in uncertainty beyond Everton's own books. The Premier League's case against Manchester City remains live, with potential knock-on effects for valuations and litigation across the league. The Burnley appeal, due early in 2027, adds further conditionality, although a buyer could sign a contingent agreement with TFG before it concludes.
For now, Everton is a stabilised club with a new stadium, refinanced debt and an owner that does not need to sell. That gives Friedkin time, and it means the process could run longer than the headlines suggest.