Jamal Mashburn, Rick Pitino and Stu Jackson would be at the heart of this project.
Pau-Lacq-Orthez under the American flag? François Bayrou, mayor of Pau and president of the Pau-Pyrénées agglomeration, majority shareholder of the Béarn club, presented this Thursday the plan to take over the Béarn club by the American investment fund CounterPoint Sports Group, led by three basketball figures American. Mr. Bayrou revealed “to have entered into exclusive negotiations” with this US interlocutor. He added: “The Elan had to be saved in the short term and offered the club an ambitious sporting perspective”.
The objective of this buyout is to disengage the communities from the club and to move it from the current status of SEM (mixed economy company) to that of SASP (professional sporting limited company). “(The Americans) have said they are ready to make the necessary investments to buy the club, to guarantee a budget level, to commit for four years”, said Mr. Bayrou, who hopes to record the sale “from here end of March”.
The Counterpoint Sports Group investment fund was founded in 2019. The chairman of its board of directors is Jamal Mashburn, 48, former All Star player in the NBA, passed through Dallas, Miami, Charlotte and New Orleans between 1993 and 2004, who made his fortune in business after his career.
He is supported in his Pau buyout project by Rick Pitino, 68, a coaching benchmark, university champion with Kentucky and spent on the benches of New York and Boston NBA. He was still officiating at Panathinaikos last season. Stu Jackson, 65, who also coached in the NBA for a long time before becoming an executive, with the Vancouver Grizzlies and then with the NBA where he was executive vice-president, is also part of this five-star team called to take the reins of Elan Béarnais.
