AEG, considered one of the world’s leading live sports and entertainment presenters, has entered into an agreement with boxing’s leading promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, to acquire ownership shares of the Los Angeles-based organization, it was announced today by Oscar De La Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions, and Tim Leiweke, President & CEO, AEG. The acquisition will make AEG the company’s second largest shareholder behind De La Hoya.

“Having fought and promoted many successful championship fight cards in AEG-owned venues such as STAPLES Center and The Home Depot Center, I have developed a tremendous amount of respect both personally and professionally for how AEG does business, how they operate their facilities and the integrity they have consistently shown to me and my partners at Golden Boy Promotions,” said De La Hoya. “Our new partnership will create so many new synergies from jointly promoting events in their arenas worldwide to exploring new ways to develop successful promotions built around our boxing shows taking place in their facilities. To Tim and Dan, on behalf of Richard and our partners, we look forward to many successful promotions together.”

Also participating in the announcement was Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, representing other shareholders of Golden Boy Promotions including Bernard Hopkins, Shane Mosley and The Brener Group and Dan Beckerman, Chief Operating Officer, AEG.

Schaefer added, “Golden Boy Promotions has always prided itself as a company that does things in a first class manner and with first class people. We couldn’t ask for better partners than Tim, Dan and everyone at AEG. They have proven themselves over the years to be the best of the best and we look forward to a long and productive relationship with them.”

In addition to hosting several of De La Hoya’s and Golden Boy Promotions’ most successful and memorable fights including De La Hoya-Mosley (STAPLES Center, June 2000), Hopkins-Eastman (STAPLES Center, February 2005), Barrera-Juarez (STAPLES Center, May 2006), Vazquez-Marquez (The Home Depot Center, March 2007) and Vazquez-Marquez III (The Home Depot Center, March 2008) and the most recent: De La Hoya-Forbes held outdoors at The Home Depot Center before a crowd of 27,000, AEG and De La Hoya have established other business partnerships including De La Hoya’s recent acquisition of ownership shares of Major League Soccer’s Houston Dynamo franchise owned by AEG.

“When we look at Golden Boy Promotions, we see the best management team, the best vision for boxing industry and the best ownership group in the industry. They are the future of boxing and a company we are proud to be associated with,” said Leiweke. “We have committed to adding all of our resources and assets to provide additional opportunity to grow Golden Boy into the most dominant promoters and providers of content in boxing. Perhaps the most unique aspect of this partnership is the fact that the markets that we are most rapidly expanding into are the same markets that they are hoping to grow into as well,” Leiweke added.

“From the outset, we have had tremendous respect for Oscar and Richard’s philosophy of honesty and integrity in the relationships they have with their fighters as well as business associates and partners,” said Beckerman. “Over the years, we have come to realize that we share their vision of creating a global company capable of promoting impressive and successful fight cards in venues worldwide.”