Americans already control more than 5% of Benfica’s SAD

American investors Jean-Marc Chapus and Elliot Holton Hayes, from Lenore Sports Partners (LSP), already own more than 5% of the capital of Benfica’s SAD, the club announced to the market on Wednesday.

The statement sent to the CMVM, the Portuguese Securities Market Commission, comes after Jean-Marc Chapus bought the shares seized by Novobanco from former Benfica president Luís Filipe Vieira, corresponding to more than 3% of the club’s SAD capital, at an auction last week. He paid more than five million euros.

The two investors are part of Lenore Sports Partners, whose interest in Benfica was already revealed in August last year by Bloomberg.

“We don’t intend to get involved in Benfica SAD’s sporting decisions”, the buyers said in a statement sent to the media. “As this is a time when it is essential that we all focus on supporting the glorious team to win the two national triplets, LSP will remain silent in the coming weeks”, they said, before promising to “be a productive partner”, including in “expanding the sources of revenue for Sport Lisboa e Benfica”.

At the time, the news agency reported that Lenore was raising funds to try to buy a 16.38% stake in Benfica’s SAD that belongs to José António dos Santos, the largest individual shareholder of the ‘eagles’.

This week, in an interview with Jornal de Negócios, José António dos Santos said that he was only interested in selling his stake if it meant selling all of Benfica’s shares, and he set a selling price: at least 12 euros per share.

The Americans now reveal that they control 5.24% of the shares in Benfica’s SAD, through Jean-Marc Chapus and Elliot Hayes and the companies LSP Lisbon (Scotland) Limited and LSP Lisbon LLC. “We appreciate and respect the long and exceptional culture of Benfica fans and we want to see Benfica win for many years to come”, they said in their note to journalists.

Benfica has already announced that it will contest the outcome of the auction of its former leader’s shares, arguing that it was not allowed to exercise its right of first refusal. It made a point of this in a statement released on Wednesday: “The club has not yet received any notification as to its right of pre-emption in the transfer of part of the above-mentioned shares, and has therefore, as a precautionary measure, requested the nullity of the sale, and the club has not been notified of any order regarding this claim.”