By Giulio Piovaccari and Elvira Pollina MILAN, Dec 12 (Reuters) – The Agnelli family has no intention of selling Juventus to crypto group Tether or anyone else, the family's holding company Exor said on Saturday, rejecting Tether's shock offer for Italy's most successful soccer club. Tether, headquartered in El Salvador, said on Friday it had submitted an all-cash proposal to Exor to buy its entire stake in the Turin-based Serie A club. Tether said it would make a public tender offer for the remaining Juventus shares at the same price offered to Exor, and that it planned to invest one billion euros to support the club if the acquisition is completed. The crypto company's CEO Paolo Ardoino is an Italian national and a Juventus supporter. Tether is offering Exor 2.66 euros per share, a source familiar with the matter said, valuing Juventus at just over one billion euros ($1.17 billion). The price offered provides a 21% premium over Juventus' closing share price on Friday of 2.19 euros. Exor said its board had unanimously rejected the offer and had "no intention of selling any of its shares in Juventus to a third party, including but not restricted to El Salvador-based Tether." Juventus has not made an annual net profit for almost a decade, and its shares are down 27% so far this year. TETHER IS ISSUER OF STABLECOIN PEGGED TO DOLLAR Tether, the issuer of a U.S. dollar-referenced stablecoin dubbed USDT, has already built a stake of more than 10% in Juventus this year, becoming its second-largest shareholder after Exor. By acquiring a storied European soccer club, Tether – whose business faces mounting regulatory scrutiny in the European Union – could gain a powerful tool to build ties with the continent's policymakers while boosting its popularity among the wider public. It is proposing to buy Exor's entire shareholding in the club, representing 65.4% of the total share capital, Tether said in its press release on Friday, without officially disclosing the price at which it would buy the shares. Amsterdam-listed Exor has been streamlining its portfolio in Italy. This year it agreed the sale of truck maker Iveco to India's Tata Motors, and it announced on Monday that it was in talks with Greek media company Antenna to sell its news operations, including two major newspapers and three popular radio stations. A sale of Juventus – owned by the Agnelli family for nearly a century – would likely be seen as the clearest sign yet of the family's gradual disengagement from their home country. Exor CEO John Elkann said in November that the Agnelli family had no intention of selling shares in Juventus. The family's ties with the club date back to 1923 when Edoardo Agnelli became chair. Investors, led by Exor, have poured around one billion euros of fresh cash into Juventus in the past seven years through a series of capital increases. Tether's USDT accounts for more than half the market of stablecoins pegged to the US dollar, according to the Bank of Italy. JUVENTUS HAS STRUGGLED IN LAST FIVE YEARS Juventus has won the Italian championship 36 times, more than any other team, but has struggled since winning a ninth consecutive title in 2020. It currently sits in seventh place in Serie A. The club, once home to soccer legends such as Michel Platini, Roberto Baggio, Alessandro Del Piero and Cristiano Ronaldo, has for decades helped the Agnelli family build consensus and popularity among Italians. Its support has weathered match-fixing and financial scandals, the most recent in 2023, when a false accounting case linked to player trading led to a 10-point deduction in Serie A. Juventus was also a driving force behind the failed attempt to launch a breakaway European Super League with a dozen other top clubs in 2021, challenging the authority of European soccer's governing body UEFA. Like other leading Serie A teams, it has had a hard time remaining competitive financially amid the growing dominance of England’s Premier League and European powerhouses such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain. Tether's USDT stablecoin had a market capitalization of around $186 billion as of Friday. The company's token is backed by U.S. dollars and U.S. Treasuries, and Tether is one of the 20 largest holders of U.S. government debt. Stablecoins are digital tokens that aim to maintain a stable value through a one-to-one peg to a traditional currency and are back by reserves, mostly in the form of government bonds or deposits. ($1 = 0.8519 euros) (Reporting by Devika Nair in Bengaluru, Giulio Piovaccari and Elvira Pollina in Milan; writing by Gavin Jones, editing by Elisa Martinuzzi)
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