By Frank Pingue
May 21 (Reuters) - LIV Golf is seeking up to $350 million in new investment and plans to shrink to a 10-event schedule while giving players equity stakes in a bid to survive the loss of its Saudi sovereign wealth fund backing after 2026, sources told Reuters on Thursday.
Investment bank Ducera Partners, which is advising LIV Golf, began presenting the plan to potential backers on Thursday, the sources said. The league's players have been briefed on the plan and have responded positively,
they added.
"LIV Golf is firmly focused on securing a transaction that positions the organisation for the long term," a LIV spokesperson said in a statement. "In the coming days, we will be sharing the framework of our commercially rigorous, go-forward business plan with prospective capital partners."
Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, which has spent more than $5 billion on LIV Golf since it launched in 2022, said in April that investing in the league no longer fit its investment strategy.
The fund is set to stop financing the 14-event circuit that features $30 million tournament purses, at the close of the 2026 season in late August.
The decision by the PIF to cut LIV Golf's funding has left the breakaway circuit scrambling for new backers and raises questions about the future of its big-name players on lucrative contracts.
The sources said LIV Golf and Ducera are seeking financing in the range of $250 to $350 million.
Through big-money contracts and lucrative purses, LIV managed to lure a number of golf's biggest names from the PGA Tour, including Bryson DeChambeau, Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka and Patrick Reed.
Rahm, speaking ahead of last week's PGA Championship where he finished in a share of second place, said he was confident in LIV's direction.
"I have faith in the work that they're doing. I have faith that they're going to come up with a good plan," Rahm told reporters.
LIV Golf launched in 2022 with the backing of the PIF and critics have decried it as a vehicle for the country to attempt to improve its reputation in the face of criticism of its human rights record.
The Saudi government denies accusations of human rights abuses.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in TorontoEditing by Christian Radnedge)
