Sanjiv Goenka's RPSG Group secure Manchester Originals stake

Lancashire have established an association with the Indian Premier League (IPL) partner they wanted to run Manchester Originals as a joint venture. Sanjiv Goenka's RPSG Group submitted the highest bid for a stake in the Hundred franchise on Monday, February 3.

RPSG Group, which owns the IPL franchise Lucknow Super Giants, was involved in a fierce bidding process on Friday in a three-hour auction for a stake in London Spirit. Still, they eventually lost to a Silicon Valley tech consortium valuing the Lord's-based franchise at £295 million. However, RPSG Group has now secured a stake that values the Manchester-based Hundred at above £100m, understood to be around £116m.

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The two parties will now head into eight weeks of exclusivity in which they will discuss the exact terms of the contract. Lancashire have previously suggested to members that they are open to a discussion about selling some of their 51% stake in the Originals if the price is high enough to allow them to pay down a considerable proportion of their bank debt.

As of Monday night, the club refrained from confirming whether RPSG Group is buying anything more than the ECB's 49% stake in the Originals. However, according to ESPNcricinfo, Lancashire told prospective investors that they were willing to part with up to 70% of the overall shares during talks earlier in the sales process.

"We have been very focused on securing a great partner - ideally from the IPL - and RPSG has been our preferred bidder for some time," the club said.

"We are delighted by the outcome and look forward to working together to create an exciting future. Together, we have a shared ambition to create a very special cricket team for the people of Manchester and the wider North West region," it added.

Sanjiv Goenka, who is the chairman and founder of RPSG Group, has been associated with sports for a long time. In the 2016 and 2017 seasons of the IPL, he owned a team called Rising Pune Supergiants. They finished runners-up in the 2017 edition before getting dissolved.

Ahead of the 2022 edition of the IPL, Goenka paid a whopping INR 7090 crore (£680m approx. at the time) to buy the Lucknow IPL franchise and named it Lucknow Super Giants. In 2022, he bought the Durban franchise in the SA20. They play under the name of Durban Super Giants. Goenka hasn't only invested in cricket as the RPSG Group acquired majority stakes in Mohun Bagan, the oldest active football team in India. They initially changed the team name to ATK Mohun Bagan but later decided to drop the prefix and make it Mohun Bagan Super Giant.