Tether makes all-cash bid for Juventus, but Agnelli family resists sale

The Agnelli family has no plans to sell Juventus after crypto firm Tether submitted an all-cash offer for Italy’s most successful football club, according to sources close to Exor, the family’s holding company.

Tether said on Friday it had proposed to buy Exor’s entire stake in the Turin-based Serie A club. A source familiar with the matter said the offer values Juventus at just over €1 billion, with Tether offering €2.66 per share—a 21 percent premium to the club’s closing share price on Friday.

Exor controls 65.4 percent of Juventus’ share capital. Tether said it would also launch a public tender offer for the remaining shares at the same price and plans to invest €1 billion into the club if the acquisition goes ahead. Juventus declined to comment, while Exor and Tether were not immediately available for further comment.

Exor CEO John Elkann reiterated in November that the Agnelli family has no intention of selling its stake. The family has been linked to Juventus since 1923, and Exor-led investors have injected around €1 billion into the club over the past seven years through multiple capital increases.

Tether, the issuer of the dollar-pegged stablecoin USDT, has already built a stake of more than 10 percent in Juventus, making it the club’s second-largest shareholder. USDT accounts for more than half of the global dollar-backed stablecoin market, according to the Bank of Italy, and had a market capitalisation of about $186 billion as of Friday.

Juventus has struggled financially and on the pitch in recent years, posting losses for nearly a decade and seeing its share price fall 27 percent this year. Despite winning a record 36 Italian league titles, the club has not claimed the Serie A championship since 2020 and currently sits seventh in the standings.