Ticketek owner TEG bought by Silver Lake

TEG chief Geoff Jones in Sydney on Friday Picture: Nikki Short

TEG chief executive Geoff Jones will remain focused on acquisitions despite the purchase of his business by California-based private equity fund Silver Lake.

Mr Jones, who will continue to lead the business and remain an equity partner, said there would be efficiencies as part of the acquisition, which was announced on Friday following reports in DataRoom about the deal.

The business, which owns Ticketek, was offloaded by Affinity Equity Partners through Goldman Sachs after being on the market for more than a year. Friday’s acquisition valued the Australian ticketing and live entertainment company at between $1.2bn and $1.4bn.

“Their focus, like ours, will be more acquisitions and growing (the) business,” Mr Jones told The Weekend Australian. “We are looking at acquisitions in the UK and Europe, (and in) Asia — they’ll be the focal areas in the first instance and we’ll always keep our eyes open in Australia and New Zealand, our home territory.

“It will absolutely enhance our acquisitions ambitions. We’ll continue to do sensible acquisitions, as we always have — things that can work within our model, companies that make sense.”

TEG operates as the ticketing provider for more than 135 venue and promoter clients and delivers 30 million tickets annually for over 30,000 events spanning live sports, concerts, theatre, festivals, and exhibitions across more than 13 countries.

Its divisions have promoted some of the world’s biggest names in live sports and entertainment including Hugh Jackman, Guns N’ Roses, Eminem, Katy Perry, Cirque du Soleil and Jerry Seinfeld.

Mr Jones said the acquisition was a “fantastic result” for TEG Group, describing former owners Affinity as “great partners” that delivered on their promise.

Silver Lake has a number of investments in the technology and content space, including Alibaba, AMC, Endeavor, The Madison Square Garden Company, UFC and Red Ventures.

“We are a content and technology company and they have assets in both of those areas, and that means that they understand our business, and they understand it really well,” Mr Jones said. “They know the segment and when you have an owner that knows what your segment is about, that really does make the business work well.

“We are confident Silver Lake is the right partner for the next stage of the company’s growth.”

The acquisition comes at the same time that US-based rival StubHub is on the market. However, Mr Jones said he didn’t believe Silver Lake’s attraction to its business was due to the strong synergies that could be expected from joining TEG and StubHub.

Mr Jones said Silver Lake brought with it deep technology expertise, as well as important global entertainment content and live events expertise and relationships, which would help TEG to accelerate the growth of its platform globally.

TEG was advised on the transaction by law firm King & Wood Mallesons, while Silver Lake was advised by Latham & Watkins and Corrs Chambers Westgarth.