Cricket’s banker: How A&W came to price the IPL
A&W Capital is registered in London, runs out of Mumbai and is now expanding its reach to New York. Since 2021, it has been in the room for every major cricket deal. You have probably not heard of it. That, very much, is the point.
On 25 May 1985, a 22-year-old seamer named Matthew Wheeler walked out at Grace Road for Northamptonshire against Leicestershire, into a world he assumed would define his life. Wheeler went wicketless on debut. The next line never came. Two months later, against the touring Australians, came his lone entry in the book: Kepler Wessels, then the Australian batter edged, and Allan Lamb did the rest at slip. Wheeler never batted in either game. His numbers barely registered. Even then, the scorecard did not tell you everything.
Forty-one years on, Wheeler is at the centre of a different contest: the $1.78 billion acquisition of the Indian Premier League franchise Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) by a four-member consortium comprising David Blitzer, the Aditya Birla Group, the Times of India Group and Blackstone. It is the largest sports deal in Indian history and the largest sale in cricket’s franchise era. It is also the latest, most high-profile entry for the advisory firm Wheeler now runs.
Over the past five years, whenever an Indian conglomerate has bought a cricket franchise at scale, this boutique has been in the room. When global private equity has tried to enter Indian cricket, it has often advised one side. The firm has 11 people and has been at the centre of the sport’s most lucrative period in its commercial history. Almost nothing has been written about it, and the firm prefers it that way.
This is A&W Capital – who runs it, how it works and where the money goes next.
