Chinese conglomerate Wanda Group’s sports unit has confirmed that it received a request for information last month from European regulators about the company’s contacts with a competitor as part of an ongoing investigation into sports-rights distribution.
Wanda Sports Group, which owns the Infront agency, said that it believes the request for information is in relation to “an ongoing investigation that included so-called ‘dawn raid’ inspections in April 2018 at the premises of some of our competitors, but which did not include Infront”.
In April last year, European Commission officials carried out unannounced inspections at the offices of several companies linked to the sports-media market, including 21st Century Fox and Ziggo Sport.
Wanda Sports stated: “In late June, we received a request for information from the European Commission, DG Competition in connection with an antitrust investigation into sports media rights. The request seeks general information as well as information about certain specific contacts with a competitor.”
Wanda Sports added that it is undertaking an internal review with the assistance of external legal advisers as part of the process to formulate a response to the request for information and added that the company intends to cooperate fully with the investigation.
“Based on what is publicly available about the investigation and the timing of the request for information, we do not believe Infront is a primary target of the investigation at this time,” the company added.
The request was revealed in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday (July 12) in which Wanda Sports Group said that its anticipated price range for its upcoming initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange would be between $12 and $15 per American depositary share.
Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup have been engaged to lead the IPO, after which the Wanda Group will retain voting control of the sports unit.