Csi Takes Sportpost Majority Stake

Convers Sports Initiatives (CSI), the international sports, media and enteratainment company owned by Vladimir Antonov, Roman Dubov and Chris Akers, has purchased a majority stake in Sports International Ltd the holding company of popular online platform Sportpost.com.

The acquisition is the latest in a spate of purchases by the company – in March 2011 CSI bought a 65 per cent share of Executive Sport Limited, the parent company of the ‘Leaders in Football’ and ‘Leaders in Performance’ conferences.

Earlier this year CSI also took control of DBG Convers, a specialist in developing social new media solutions for sports and entertainment brands and personalities including David Haye.

SportPost offers a platform for sports fans to find and share the very best sporting content with each other.

The site has already proved to be hugely popular in a very short period of time since its launch in April 2010 and the site currently attracts over 3 million unique visitors a month.

The injection of funding from CSI will go towards enhancing the SportPost platform to include a new live sports video portal, and SporPost will also become the flagship product in a network of youth oriented social media properties.

‘The Post Network’ will replicate the first offering in sport and produce additional sites that focus on other entertainment genres such as Films, Music and Gaming.

Commenting on the acquisition Vladimir Antonov, chairman of the company explained: ‘We have been seeking to acquire a number of sports and media businesses which will complement our existing and developing portfolio of sports rights interests. SportPost gives us excellent platform for this’.

Co-founder and managing director of SportPost, Peter Janes added: ‘In the last 12 months since going live Sportpost has established itself as a leading destination in Online sport entertainment’.

‘The contacts and support from the CSI management team will be a huge benefit in developing the Sportpost offering. The team here are incredibly excited about the future’.