Fenway Sports Group remains engaged in discussions with an array of suitors interested in buying all or part of Liverpool Football Club, sources familiar with the discussions said Wednesday.
The latter scenario — a new investor or investors joining FSG to inject more capital for player acquisitions and capital improvements — is currently the more likely outcome.
One of the potential partners is from North America, said the source.
One possible outcome of a partial investment would be a minority partner eventually turning into a majority partner, but there is no indication that this is FSG’s preference.
New partners would need to be philosophically aligned with FSG’s fiscal tenets and team-building philosophies, said a source.
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Two weeks ago, FSG chairman Tom Werner said at the baseball owners meetings in New York, “There’s no urgency, no time frame for us, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s business as usual.”
Sam Kennedy, Red Sox and Fenway Sports Management president and CEO, said at the same meetings, “It is early days in terms of exploring possibilities for possible investment into Liverpool.”
FSG president Mike Gordon is overseeing talks as he dials down his decade-long direct oversight of the Liverpool club.
Word that FSG retained bankers from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to hold talks with interested investors was first reported by The Athletic Nov. 7. Estimates on what a full-sale price tag would be have ranged from $3 billion to more than $4 billion.
Adding both complexity and intrigue to Liverpool’s potential sale is that Manchester United put itself up for a full or partial sale last week.
Manchester United is one of only a few European teams with a broader global fan base than Liverpool and one of three soccer teams (along with Real Madrid and Barcelona) estimated by Forbes to have a greater value ($4.6 billion) than Liverpool ($4.45 billion).
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Whether or not, or how much, the timing of Manchester United’s sale announcement is related to news of Liverpool’s sale announcement may take some time to be revealed.
Michael Silverman can be reached at michael.silverman@globe.com.