Explained: Potential Reading Buyers Chiron Sports Group

Alex wraps up everything we know so far about the group reportedly granted exclusivity ahead of a potential purchase of Reading Football Club.

Another day and another news story for Reading fans to feast on, though more positive than usual. Reports emerged in the media on Wednesday which named the bidder that has gone through the letter of intent (LOI) process for the purchase of the club with Dai Yongge. They were named as Chiron Sports Group.

Naturally, this is big news not just for us as fans, but also for all players and staff associated with the team, after a turbulent time of it lately. However, inevitably, this raises questions about who Chiron are, what their history is and what their possible intentions could be. Let’s dig into this then, shall we?

Before we do, let’s just quickly agree/keep in mind these three points:

1. First and foremost, the obvious here: these reports are unconfirmed by Reading, Dai’s people and any representatives of Chiron. Both Reading and Chiron have declined to comment, and while that demonstrates there is no smoke without fire, it also doesn’t lead to confirmation. This means that, for all we know, it might be your nextdoor neighbour buying the club and this article could mean as much as a dossier about how Doris spends her day.
2. Whether it is Chiron Sports Group or another investor, the deal is not yet agreed and will take some time yet due to all the requirements that needs to be fulfilled to adhere to the process, and that is currently estimated to be two months as per the club’s statement regarding the LOI. This means the proposed bidders could yet step away from the purchase of the club, Dai Yongge could yet change his terms for the sale or the EFL don’t approve the new owners. A lot could change in the next two or so months, and we are not in the clear yet.
3. Ultimately, we won’t really know the intentions of whoever buys Reading until after a few years (if it is that long) under their stewardship, or how suitable they will be for the growth and sustainable development of the club. It really is all guesswork, and all we can do is hope for the best. Cautious optimism is the byword here, folks.

Who are Chiron Sports Group?

There’s no point beating around the bush here, so let’s get straight into it. According to their website:

“Chiron is a fully integrated sports investment group dedicated to identifying and creating value within the sports sector.

“With our deep established investing and operational experience, we can identify opportunities that follow these principles and target de-risked and unparalleled returns.

“We like macro trends; value arbitrage opportunities and infrastructure plays that meet our investment goals and can shape the future of sports.”

What does that corporate spiel mean? To put it simply, they appear to be a venture capital group. This means they identify companies on the stock exchange - in their case with a focus on sports - purchase them, fix them, package them up and sell them on for a profit.

This may sound short-termist, but bear in mind they will want to see a significant return on investment and, to achieve that, they both need to make smart decisions and to spend frugally and wisely to develop the club and elevate the club into a much stronger standing within the league. In order to achieve both of these things, it could take five or 10 years to get to a point where we are a completely different financial and business proposition than the current proposition we are now.

This is backed up by their profile description on LinkedIn, which reads: “Our mission is to identify one-off opportunities in sport that can be unlocked by brand + community building and engagement + commercial pathways.”

Can we put some actual names to Chiron?

Yes, we can. There appears to be three main figures involved in this process on behalf of Chiron: Christian Angermayer, Robin Lauber and Leo Rifkind.

Christian Angermayer is a German entrepreneur, who made his fortune in ventures such as life sciences, fintech, AI, psychedelics and cryptocurrencies through his family office Apeiron Investment Group. The Apeiron Investment Group pertain to work in projects that support human agenda. Of the three names, Angermayer seems to be the most senior, at the age of 45, and certainly has a far more established business profile.

Photo by Bruce Glikas/Getty Images

Robin Lauber is a Swiss entrepreneur, who is the chairman and CEO of Infinitas Capital, which is part of his family office. His company also owns Korify Capital, which is a global co-investment fund series. He made his money in Swiss real estate and venture capital and is currently working in the technologies sector.

Leo Rifkind has held the position of partner at Chiron Sports Group since August 2023; they have an office based in London. He is also an investor at Factmata, a company that specialises in AI.

Prior to this, he worked as an investment manager and in global transactions for Freshfields, more of which we will discuss later. Rifkind at this stage appears to be the person leading the sale, with the support from the investment of Angermayer and Lauber. He studied as a lawyer and is based in London.

But do they have the funds?

In short, most likely yes. According to Forbes in 2024, Christian Angermayer is worth $1bn, but it is not clear how much Lauber or his family are worth. Rifkind is unlikely to be investing on any kind of level here but working on behalf of Chiron to manage the acquisition.

It is also not clear what the value of Chiron Sports Group is, and it seems they are likely reliant on the investment of Angermayer and Lauber in order to complete the transaction, though they have previous acquisitions that can help demonstrate their financial solvency to some degree.

Do they know how to run a football club?

Honestly, who knows? But they certainly have a small amount of form. It’s not clear how Chiron Sports Group are involved with Venezia FC, but they claim to be in some way. I originally thought they had collaborated with Duncan L. Niederauerm, who bought Italian team Venezia FC in 2020 after being a smaller shareholder. However, Chiron Sports Group were only founded in 2023. Let’s just do a quick history of Venezia then, and see what parallels we can draw.

When Niederauerm came in, they were a club on the rise on the pitch, who had two promotions in previous seasons but had spent a couple of seasons languishing around in the mid-to-lower half of Serie B, the Italian equivalent of the Championship. However, under his stewardship, they reached Serie A after 20 years out of the top league, but were immediately relegated, and at the second season of asking they are now competing back at the top of the league and pushing for promotion.

From a financial standpoint, this is where it looks encouraging for Reading. Under Niederauer’s leadership, Venezia FC have cultivated a unique branding profile by merging Venice’s history and culture with football which has significantly boosted revenue through merchandise, like their football kit designs.

This is great because not only does it tie in with the club’s efforts this season to be more focussed on Reading as a cultural area, with the links to The Purple Turtle bar on the third kit, and pictures and landscapes from around Reading featured on the home and away kits, but it will be nice to see the club finding new income revenues to help stabilise our finances.

Photo by Simone Arveda/Getty Images

In the case of Venezia it is rumoured that, after nearly five years, Niederauerm is now open to offers for the club in the region of $40mn-$50mn after some fan unrest. However, it should be noted that, under his stewardship, the sell-on value of the club - having been bought from bankruptcy in 2015 - is massive.

During this time, Niederauerm claims to have invested significantly into both the infrastructure and the team. It’s entirely possible that Chiron Sports Group are a small stakeholder in Venezia, or the group looking to take it off Niederauerm’s hands.

As touched on earlier, Rifkind also has some previous. He became a non-executive director for Charlton Athletic in November 2021, being integral to support his then-employer Freshfields, provided to the now previous owner Thomas Sandgaard, who purchased the club in 2020.

It didn’t go well there for Sandgaard, who made a lot of promises that he couldn’t keep, while also doing bonkers things like creating an “Addicks to Victory” song. I am having traumatic flashbacks to the Reading FC song. The club has now been sold to different ownership in July 2023, at which time Rifkind also left his position with Charlton.

However, it’s worth noting that neither Freshfields nor Sandgaard will have anything to do with the acquisition of Reading FC. But it must also be said that Rifkind criticising Charlton fans during his time there isn’t a great start.

In summary, it’s not clear how involved Chiron Sports Group are with Venezia FC and how involved Rifkind will be with the day-to-day for Reading, and indeed how prepared he is for it even with his, possibly limited, experience.

Why do they want to buy Reading?

I think there are three factors at play here that would appeal to Chiron Sports Group:

1. First and foremost, we’re a great venture capital opportunity as, if run correctly in a similar model to teams like Brighton & Hove Albion, Brentford or the Reading of Sir John Madejski’s days, we could be profitable once again and eventually be sold on at a gain. And, ultimately, however we want to look at it or however we might feel about it, football is a business. Though it must be said, if they sell us for a profit, it means they’ve done something right in the first place to make that possible.
2. The bones of the club are there for success to be achieved. Indeed, it was rumoured that Chiron Sports Group originally walked away from talks with the club when it was announced that Bearwood Park training ground would not come as part of the package. It’s encouraging that they recognise the importance of this and the ability of these facilities to help the team continue to develop and attract top talent to the side.
3. Simply put, location. We’re a stone’s throw away from London and that’s convenient for any owner given the transportation links, let alone the fact that Rifkind and the Chiron UK head office is based there.

Summary of key points

What do we know now? Well…

• The money ought to be there for sure with the involvement of Christian Angermayer, and possibly Robin Lauber
• Chiron have some level of experience in football, but not much, with both Venezia and Charlton Athletic in different ways and through different people
• They are based reasonably locally
• They are a venture capital group, which means they will look to develop us sustainably before eventually selling us on when we are in a better position in the footballing word. This would indicate sensible investments and stability for growth

The rest, and admittedly a lot of it, remains something of a mystery. It is undeniably a risk to us if at any point Angermayer or Lauber lose interest and walk away from the club as that is where our initial funding and money will be becoming from, and most likely for the duration of their ownership too. However, there doesn’t seem to be any risk from the EFL of not approving them as part of the Owner’s and Director’s Test either.

There’s no sense in speculating what they will do if and when they arrive at the club, what changes they will make, how much they will spend and what they will seek to prioritise as we simply don’t know and won’t know until the deal is confirmed and they brief us on their mission plan. Until then, let’s remain cautiously optimistic as the signs are somewhat encouraging for us, though only time will tell.