Yorkshire put private ownership plans on hold as focus turns to Hundred auction
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Yorkshire have put controversial plans to take the 162-year-old members’ club into private ownership on hold. In announcing his intention to demutualise the county last year the chair, Colin Graves, claimed that without “swift and decisive action” Yorkshire “will be fighting for its survival”, but the Guardian has learned that the process has been paused without the club securing the additional external investment it had been seeking.
![[Colin Graves.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/00004ab3d812e21a8c8d2185e821eb996c407a9e/0_171_6444_3869/master/6444.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Yorkshire’s priority is focusing on the Hundred auction on behalf of the Northern Superchargers, which could provide an alternative route to the finance needed to pay off debts to the Graves family which now stand at more than £20m. The club is engaging with the England and Wales Cricket Board and American bank the Raine Group over the imminent sale of 49% of the franchise in the Hundred auction, while planning to sell a significant share of the remaining 51% it will be gifted by the ECB.
Yorkshire’s strong preference is to secure a partner from India for the Superchargers in the belief it will give them access to the cricketing talent in the country as well as appeal to the large Indian community on the club’s own doorstep. The club is understood to have attracted bids from several IPL franchises in the first two rounds of the auction and is planning to nominate Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Chennai Super Kings as preferred bidders.
In a complicated process all eight Hundred franchises have been asked to name at least two bidders in order of preference by the end of the month, with the ECB and Raine Group then taking over the process of pairing the teams with the new part-owners. In addition to all 10 IPL franchises there have also been bids for Hundred teams from several private equity firms including CVC Capital Partners, Birmingham City owners Knighthead Capital and a group of Silicon Valley investors led by Nikesh Arora, chief executive of the cybersecurity company Palo Alto Networks.
