{"id":62981,"date":"2025-10-09T06:22:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T06:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/62981\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T06:22:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T06:22:10","slug":"ari-emanuels-new-company-finalizes-acquisition-of-frieze-with-2-b-in-equity-raised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/62981\/","title":{"rendered":"Ari Emanuel\u2019s New Company Finalizes Acquisition of Frieze, with $2 B. in Equity Raised"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAriel Emanuel, via his newly formed company now called Mari, has finalized the acquisition of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/t\/frieze\/\" id=\"auto-tag_frieze\" data-tag=\"frieze\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Frieze<\/a>, the company that includes its namesake publication, seven art fairs around the world, and two exhibition spaces.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe purchase also includes several tennis events such as the Miami Open and Madrid Open, as well as a majority stake in Barrett-Jackson, a collector car auction house.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe news comes a week before Frieze London and Frieze Masters open in the British capital and during an uncertain art market.<\/p>\n<p>\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-lazy-image__img lrv-u-background-color-grey-lightest lrv-u-width-100p lrv-u-display-block lrv-u-height-auto\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/vip\/pmc-artnews-2019\/assets\/public\/lazyload-fallback.gif\" data-lazy-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/DSF4978-copy.jpg\" alt=\"A giant warehouse in which an art fair is going on.\" data-lazy- data-lazy- height=\"\" width=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cLive events and experiences have never been more powerful,\u201d Emanuel said in a statement. \u201cAs people increasingly value experiences over things\u2014and as hybrid work and AI give us more time to enjoy them\u2014sports, art, lifestyle, and entertainment are becoming even more essential. At MARI, we\u2019re building on the global impact of Frieze and the success of the Madrid and Miami Opens to create new ways for audiences to come together and share their passions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe sale of Frieze by its previous owner, Endeavor Group Holdings, where Emanuel was chief executive until it was taken private by Silver Lake Management earlier this year, was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/frieze-sale-ari-emanuel-1234740348\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first announced<\/a> this past May. Terms of the sale have not been officially disclosed, but the company was reportedly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/bfb211f9-84db-4255-80ce-ea9143ebd8cf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">valued<\/a> at $200 million; Goldman Sachs &amp; Co. and LionTree Advisors LLC served as financial advisers for Mari. (Finalization of the acquisition has been slightly delayed, as it was originally supposed to close at the end of the third quarter.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAccording to Bloomberg, Emanuel, who is now executive chairman of WME (Endeavor\u2019s successor company), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-10-08\/ari-emanuel-raises-2-billion-to-buy-events-like-frieze-art-fair\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">raised $2 billion<\/a> in equity to back Mari. In its release, Mari listed the 20-some investors who are backing the newly formed company. Among them are Apollo, RedBird Capital Partners, and the Qatar Investment Authority, as well as doctor and Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon Shiong and Eric Schmidt, a former CEO of Google who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/moca-la-environment-and-art-prize-1234712111\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">endowed<\/a> a $100,000 environment and art prize at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAs part of the news, Mari also announced several aspects of the new company\u2019s organizational structure. Emanuel will lead the company alongside Mark Shapiro, who is president of WME and its parent company, TKO Holdings; Shapiro is a principal investor in Mari and will serve on the company\u2019s board. (The name of the company comes from combining the first letters of Mark and Ariel.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tTwo former Endeavor vice presidents will also join: Matt Cohn as managing partner and Ben Enowitz as CFO. In its release, the company said that all the events will continue with their current leadership; on the Frieze side, that means Simon Fox will remain as CEO. (The Expo Chicago fair, which Frieze <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/frieze-acquires-armory-show-expo-chicago-art-fairs-1234674074\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">acquired<\/a> in 2023, is currently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/market\/tony-karman-expo-chicago-director-steps-down-1234743696\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">without a director<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/ a-font-body-m     \">\n\tIn a statement, Apollo partner Rob Givone said, \u201cWe are excited to be a key partner to Ariel Emanuel, Mark Shapiro, and their team as they build out a portfolio of experiential assets in the sports and live events industries\u2014two key areas where our firm sees strong, continued growth. Apollo Sports Capital will work closely with the MARI team to help unlock value across the existing asset base, as well as explore additional opportunities in live events and experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ariel Emanuel, via his newly formed company now called Mari, has finalized the acquisition of Frieze, the company&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[46289,437,434,435,436,438,146,7796,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-62981","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-ari-emanuel","9":"tag-arts","10":"tag-arts-and-design","11":"tag-artsanddesign","12":"tag-artsdesign","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment","15":"tag-frieze","16":"tag-il","17":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}