Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group will be closely monitoring the latest takeover talks within the Premier League.
FSG bought into Liverpool in 2010 and their return on investment has already increased ten-fold in value since then.
The Boston-based group, who sold a minority stake to fellow US group Dynasty Equity for around £100m last year, are themselves part-owned by another sports investor, Red Bird Capital.
Red Bird have a huge portfolio of sports and media assets. And although it has not been smooth sailing of late, they are hugely successful in their field.
One technique they routinely employ is to get big, non-business names on board with their projects.
This has been seen with their recruitment of legendary retired striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic, who Red Bird hired to take a specially-created role at his old club AC Milan.
Significantly, Red Bird also have closed with NBA superstar LeBron James,who owns a minority stake in Liverpool believed to be around two per cent.
And with another club in the Premier League now appearing to be headed down a similar path, Liverpool fans could be about to get a major clue about the LA Lakers power forward’s future at the club.
West Ham takeover talks offer insight into FSG’s Liverpool plan
As reported by The Sun, fellow basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal is in talks to acquire a stake in West Ham.
The retired player’s net worth is not nearly high enough to command a full takeover, so it would likely be a minority deal to raise the profile of the club.
Recent times have seen similar deals engineered at Leeds United and Birmingham City, where celebrity investors Will Ferrell and Tom Brady have taken a small shareholding.
Liverpool were ahead of the game in this department, with LeBron coming on board as an investor way back in 2011.
Since then, the two parties have collaborated on a lucrative commercial partnership, with the club producing a range of LeBron-branded merchandise.
West Ham getting into bed with O’Neal is analogous to LeBron’s role at Anfield, which is to create commercial value and raise the overall potential takeover price further down the line.
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Liverpool could break world record with £3.6bn deal
Analysis by industry experts Football Benchmark found Liverpool’s enterprise value to be £3.6bn.
And although calculating a club’s worth is by no means an exact science, whatever fee John Henry and FSG would receive in the event of a sale would eclipse Chelsea’s existing £1.75bn world record.
Based on those figures, LeBron’s stake in the club would now be worth somewhere in the region of £80m.
That is an impressive return given that he paid just £4.5m for the shareholding over a decade ago.
It is also emblematic of FSG’s capital appreciation plan, which involves not taking money out of the club but rather investing with the hope of one day securing a gargantuan takeover fee.