French media, sports and entertainment firm Télégramme Group has acquired a majority shareholding in OC Sport, the global sports marketing company specialising in professional sailing and outdoor events.
Operating globally from bases in the UK, Switzerland, France and Singapore, OC Sport manages competitive teams and athletes and provides consultancy to global brands, host venues and other event organisers.
OC Sport was originally created by Mark Turner in 1993, who then joined forces with Dame Ellen MacArthur in 1997, to form the backbone of the operation that launched and then developed MacArthur’s sailing career. In 2010, after finishing her sailing career and focusing on her own foundation in the area of sustainability, Turner bought out MacArthur and brought in Rémi Duchemin as both a major shareholder and chief executive.
Today’s announcement sees Télégramme Group acquire a majority of the share capital of OC Sport, with Duchemin and Turner remaining as shareholders. Télégramme Group has been a media specialist for 70 years, and more recently acquired an events portfolio in sport and entertainment, including in sailing the famous Route du Rhum Destination Guadeloupe and the Solitaire du Figaro Eric Bompard, the entire focus of OC Sport’s Artemis Offshore Academy.
Duchemin said: “This next chapter will give us a new foundation for continuing to take on new projects and developing new game-changing ideas – that is what gets OC Sport people excited, and it’s what we do best. Our mission to use sport to inspire the public, sponsors and cities alike to take on new challenges will remain unchanged. The focus of OC Sport will continue on international development utilising its sailing and outdoor sports know-how.”
Turner added: “In the past few years we’ve helped take the sport of sailing to new audiences all around the world, creating the Barcelona World Race, the award-winning and game-changing Extreme Sailing Series, helped establish the ground-breaking Oman Sail project in a country where the sport didn’t exist, developed an Academy in the UK which is now starting to produce future solo sailing stars, launched four years ago the ultimate amateur cycling races in the world, developed significantly some of the largest running events in Europe, and most recently taken on the huge challenge of a Chinese backed, and partly Chinese crewed, Volvo Ocean Race campaign. Keeping our company dynamic and being ready to take on what others consider impossible, will be key for us going forward, but now with a strong single shareholder to back us up.”
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