Part of the club for 90 euro cents… The Pau-Lacq-Orthez basketball club, which plays in Pro A, opens, on Tuesday April 26, 2022, part of its capital (40%), to supporters and investors. For this, Elan Béarnais does not offer classic actions: the new American owners are betting on digital tokens, “security tokens”, real digital and decentralized finance assets that symbolize a share of the club. And this is a first for a professional team in the world of sport.
Greg Heuss, the American owner of the Elan Béarnais assures him: “When you buy a token, you also get a right to vote, like other owners. But unlike shares, there are also associated privileges: discounts on tickets, meetings with coaches, trips with the team… All this can be had by buying tokens“. Moreover, the French will benefit from a period of two weeks to acquire tokens, before they are offered to the rest of the world.
The club, which has just won the Coupe de France this weekend, the first for 15 years, hopes to raise at least three million euros, in order to finance its various projects. It is also a spotlight for CounterPointe Sport Group, the investment fund that bought L’Élan Béarnais Paul-Lacq-Orthez, nine times French basketball champion, in June 2021: this new economic model could inspire other clubs, like those of the NBA in the United States. “Many people still don’t know what it is. It’s not Bitcoin, Ethereum or other cryptocurrency: it’s a real participation in the club. What has never been done before! We therefore hope that this will generate interest, not only among supporters but also among investors who have been waiting for the opportunity to buy shares in the form of tokens. We give them this opportunity“, insists Greg Heuss.
This virtual token system is not completely unknown in the world of sport, and especially among football fans: supporters of Paris-Saint Germain, FC Barcelona or Manchester City can already buy what are called fan tokens.
However, these utility tokens are different from the “security token” offered by Elan Béarnais. “A utility token is really something that will give certain advantages to the people who hold it, such as the possibility of voting on a team trip to a charity event for example. A ‘security token’, or financial instrument tokens, makes it possible to open up capital. Potentially, for subscribers, it may be more interesting”, analyzes Matthieu Quiniou, a lawyer specializing in these new financial instruments.
ℹ️ | The dirty token is coming in two days!
The first two weeks of sales will be reserved for French buyers. In addition, for the first buyers, 500 lots of 500 tokens will be available for 450 euros. So don’t delay! pic.twitter.com/PZoxXbGdmU— EBPLO (@EBPLO) April 24, 2022
To organize this fundraiser, Elan Bérnais collaborated for several months with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers, which oversees the system: “There is no more risk in subscribing to a ‘security token’ than an action. There is a part of communication blow for an operation like this, and to mark in a certain perspective to mark a form of digitization. It’s interesting”finally reassures Matthew Quiniou. For the first buyers, the Pau club offers 500 batches of tokens at 450 euros each, or 0.9 euros per token. The purchase price of the token may then increase.