The Michelin group becomes a 100% shareholder in the ASM Clermont Auvergne rugby club, which it is bailing out with 11 million euros, the club and the manufacturer announced on Friday.
Until now, the club was almost majority owned by ASM Omnisports, partly funded by the Michelin Corporate Foundation.
“The Michelin group becomes a 100% shareholder of ASM Clermont Auvergne, with the aim of perpetuating the club and supporting its transformation project”, specify in a joint press release Michelin and ASM Clermont Auvergne.
The operation will allow the group to inject 11 million euros into the club in deficit of 6.5 million euros at the end of a delicate season, a spokeswoman for the group told AFP. confirming information from the regional daily La Montagne.
“The shared ambition of the Michelin group and ASM Clermont Auvergne is for the professional team to regain its sporting ambitions as quickly as possible while promoting the brand and image of the Yellow and Blue. In this perspective, the support of the Michelin group will allow ASM Clermont Auvergne to build a solid and sustainable project to perpetuate and develop the club.
“Ultimately, the Michelin group and ASM Clermont Auvergne plan to open up the capital of the club to other shareholders, in priority to economic players in the territory”, they underline.
To lead the “in-depth transformation of the club’s economic model”, the board of directors of ASM Clermont Auvergne has approved the creation of a post of general manager, entrusted to Benoît Vaz, project manager with the presidency since January 2023. .
His mission will be to assist Jean-Claude Pats, president of the club since June 1, 2023, by taking charge of the management and operational development of all the activities of ASM Clermont Auvergne.
For the Michelin group, the decision to become a shareholder of ASM Clermont Auvergne “is part of a double commitment: the group’s support for the territory and the support for the large-scale sports and extra-sports project carried out by the club since the creation of the Sports Association in 1911 by Marcel Michelin”.
For ASM Clermont Auvergne, “the unfailing support of the Michelin group is fundamental in this pivotal period” and its responsibility “is now to do everything possible to live up to the challenge and regain the balance necessary for its proper functioning”.