New Zealand Rugby has decided to delay the vote on the approval of the lucrative but controversial Silver Lake deal.
Photo: RNZ
New Zealand Rugby had originally planned for the deal with the US equity firm to be ratified at their Annual General Meeting at the end of the month.
However, NZR Chief Executive Mark Robinson said it had been decided not to include the motion at the AGM after a request for more information from its Provincial Unions.
Robinson said the unions had asked for more time to discuss some key areas of the overall deal structure.
"Discussions have been progressing positively with our members since they were presented with the PWC report last month... and we understand that request.
"We want to ensure members have all the details before ultimately seeking their approval."
Robinson did not expect the delay to be long and hoped a Special General Meeting to finalise the deal could be held in the coming weeks.
The proposed deal would result in Silver Lake investing $200 million in a new commercial entity that will control all revenue-generating assests of NZR.
The entity would be called CommercialCo and remain under the control of NZR.
An additional co-investment of up $100m will be offered to New Zealand-based institutional investors later in 2022.
At the conclusion of the additional co-investment, Silver Lake will own between 5.71 percent and 8.58 percent of NZR CommercialCo, representing $200m-$300m investment, depending on capital needs and the uptake of New Zealand-based institutional investors.
"As we have said before, we want to get this right and to do that we are willing to afford our members as much time as possible to be comfortable with our proposal, given its significance and importance to rugby," Robinson said.