GDA Luma Capital Management, L.P. is a US-registered, Miami-headquartered distressed-for-control private investment firm founded by Mexican investor Gabriel de Alba and legally established in 2021 as a Delaware limited partnership. 

Supported from inception by Todd Boehly (Eldridge Industries; co-owner of Chelsea FC) and Marcelo Claure (Claure Group; ex-SoftBank COO), it manages US$592 million in regulatory assets under management as of its most recent SEC Form ADV filing (31 March 2026). 

The firm’s strategy is to acquire senior secured debt of over-leveraged middle-market businesses at a discount, take control through restructuring and then execute operational turnarounds.

On 5 June 2026 GDA Luma signed a binding contract to acquire 90% of the Sociedade Anônima do Futebol (SAF) of Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas for US$105 million, incorporating forgiveness of a February 2026 bridge loan of approximately US$25 million and the assumption of SAF liabilities within the ongoing recuperação judicial process. 

This is GDA Luma’s first sports control acquisition, and Gabriel de Alba is expected to become controller and CEO of the SAF. A first injection of US$25 million was due the week of 8 June 2026.

Three headline conclusions govern this analytical assessment: 

(1) GDA Luma is a legitimate, well-credentialed turnaround firm, not a speculative or unverified bidder. Its principals carry exceptional restructuring credentials and its anchor investors are among the most prominent sports and private-equity figures globally. 

(2) The Botafogo deal is signed but not closed. Completion is contingent on a Lyon/Eagle debt settlement, a Cork Gully share transfer and judicial approval within the recuperação judicial. John Textor’s threatened litigation is the primary residual risk to title. 

(3) The firm’s AUM of approximately US$592m is materially smaller than Botafogo’s reported total liabilities of R$2.753 billion, and GDA Luma has no prior football operating track record.

GDA Luma Capital Management, L.P. is a Delaware limited partnership first registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission as an Investment Adviser under CRD/Firm #314502 (SEC file 801-127929). 

Its principal office is at 1450 Brickell Bay Drive, Suite 705, Miami, Florida, with additional offices in New York and London. The general partner entity is GDA Luma Capital, LLC.

The name derives directly from its founder: ‘GDA’ are the initials of Gabriel de Alba, confirmed in Brazilian press reporting. ‘Luma’ is a brand suffix without a stated etymology in public filings. The firm describes itself as a ‘distressed-for-control and special situations investment manager.’

The principal operating vehicle is the GDA Luma Special Opportunities Fund, L.P., a Delaware-registered private fund (CIK 0001957707, per SEC EDGAR) classified as a distressed-debt / special-situations closed-end fund. 

The fund’s first SEC Form D (Notice of Exempt Offering of Securities) was filed in December 2022, with the first reported sale date of 15 December 2022. A January 2024 amendment to Form D reported cumulative capital raised of approximately US$236.25 million from 8 investors.

(Note: Founding year conflict: GDA Luma Capital Management LP’s legal formation and most database records give 2021. PitchBook’s investor page states ‘Founded in 2023’, which most likely reflects the date of active fund launch. Tracxn also records 2021. The authoritative date for legal formation is 2021; the active-investment period commenced with the first fund close in December 2022.)

Principals, leadership and key personnel

Gabriel de Alba, Founder and managing partner

Gabriel de Alba is the founder, Managing Partner and controlling intelligence of GDA Luma. He is a Mexican national, fluent in five languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and French), and brings more than 25 years of distressed and control-oriented investment experience to the firm.

De Alba’s principal board and chairman roles across prior investments demonstrate a pattern of deep operational involvement in companies undergoing restructuring: he served as 

• Co-Chairman of Cirque du Soleil (rescued from pandemic-era insolvency), 
• Chairman of Frontera Energy (formerly Pacific Rubiales, Colombia’s largest oil producer), 
• Executive Chairman of Gateway Casinos & Entertainment, 
• Chairman of Therapure Biopharma and Evolve Biologics, 
• Chairman of Sonar Entertainment, and director/Co-Chairman of CGX Energy. 

These roles span media and entertainment, energy, healthcare and hospitality, the sectors GDA Luma now targets. Brazilian press nicknamed him the ‘pit bull dos negócios’ (‘business pit bull’) based on his restructuring track record.

Managing Directors

Louise Verrill, Managing Director, Head of Compliance

Verrill is a restructuring lawyer of 30 years’ standing. She was formerly Global Head of Corporate Restructuring at Brown Rudnick LLP, one of the world’s leading restructuring practices. She served as the first female President of the Insolvency Practitioners Association (UK) and President of the UK Insolvency Lawyers Association. Her case history spans Lehman Brothers, Northern Rock, MG Rover, Pescanova, Phones 4U and Co-op Bank. Her institutional credibility in cross-border insolvency processes is directly relevant to the complexity of the Botafogo situation.

Maite Stebelski, Managing Director, 

Stebelski brings a technology and digital-transformation background to GDA Luma’s turnaround playbook. Former roles include Head of Financial Services and Fintech at NTT Data, and senior positions at IBM, Microsoft and Dell. Her education includes INSEAD, Columbia University and ITAM (Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México). Her profile is consistent with GDA Luma’s stated focus on technology-led operational improvement.

Operating Partners

Senior Advisors

Funding sources and capital base

GDA Luma was launched and anchored by two billionaires, both identified in SEC Form ADV filings and reported by Buyouts Insider in April 2023:

Fund capital and assets under management

The GDA Luma Special Opportunities Fund, L.P. reported the following capital progression in SEC Form D filings:

One PitchBook profile entry claims ‘Security Benefit is the sole limited partner.’ This is directly contradicted by the SEC Form D, which discloses 8 investors by January 2024. The PitchBook statement is unverified and should not be relied upon. SEC filings disclose investor counts, not identities, so the full LP list beyond Boehly and Claure remains confidential.

The appointment of Atlantic-Pacific Capital and Focuspoint Private Capital Group as placement agents, UBS Securities as custodian, and Grant Thornton as auditor, all established institutional service providers, is consistent with a properly constituted private fund structure. The SEC registration and Form ADV filing history provide a transparent, independently audited capital framework.

Investment strategy and portfolio

GDA Luma’s approach is characterised by four sequential steps: (1) identify middle-market businesses with strong underlying cash flows but unsustainable capital structures; (2) acquire senior secured debt at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value, typically as the only non-original lender; (3) lead the creditor coordination and restructuring process to achieve control; (4) execute an operational turnaround through cost rationalisation, capital allocation discipline, digital transformation, enhanced governance and ESG improvement, before exiting to strategic, financial sponsor or sovereign buyers.

Sector focus: media and entertainment, telecommunications, technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer products and hospitality. Geographic focus: primarily North America and Latin America, with the Botafogo transaction extending the mandate to Brazil. Target ticket size: US$50 million to US$150 million per investment, with LP co-investment available above US$100 million.

Verified portfolio

The following investments have been independently verified from primary press releases, SEC filings or major financial press:

Earlier restructuring work by de Alba at Catalyst Capital Group, including Cirque du Soleil, Frontera Energy and Gateway Casinos, is attributed to his prior firm and is not part of the GDA Luma fund’s portfolio. These are cited for biographical context and track record only.

Sporting interests

Everton FC, loan offer (May 2024, did not proceed)

In May 2024, during Everton FC’s acute financial crisis, while the club faced stadium-construction cost overruns and the collapse of the 777 Partners takeover attempt, GDA Luma offered Everton a loan of up to £150 million (approximately US$188 million). The offer was first reported by Bloomberg on 14 May 2024.

BBC Sport’s Shamoon Hafez reported that the offer was a straightforward loan product with no equity trigger and no link to any ownership or takeover process, confirming that GDA Luma was acting as a lender-of-last-resort rather than a prospective owner. The loan did not proceed; Everton ultimately secured alternative financing. The Everton approach is significant as it establishes that GDA Luma’s interest in football financing pre-dates the Botafogo engagement by approximately two years.

Important distinction: the Everton approach was a debt instrument with no equity conversion. The Botafogo engagement is a full control acquisition. These are structurally different transactions, though both reflect GDA Luma’s consistent method of entering distressed situations as a senior secured creditor before converting to control.

Botafogo SAF, control acquisition (2026)

Botafogo is GDA Luma’s first sports control acquisition. 

GDA Luma holds no verified investments in Formula 1, tennis, basketball, rugby or any other sport as of June 2026, beyond the two football engagements described above. The sports interests of anchor investors and operating Partners, Boehly’s Chelsea FC and Los Angeles sports franchises; Claure’s Bolívar and Girona; Combes’s McLaren Racing advisory role, are personal, separate holdings and do not constitute GDA Luma fund-level investments.

Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas: GDA Luma acquisition

Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas is one of Brazil’s historic clubs, founded in 1894 and based in Rio de Janeiro. In 2022 the club converted its football operations into a SAF (Sociedade Anônima do Futebol) under Brazil’s Law 14,193/2021, selling 90% to American multi-club entrepreneur John Textor via his vehicle Eagle Football Holdings for a reported consideration structured around debt assumption and future investment commitments. The associative club retained 10% and class A veto rights.

Textor simultaneously controlled OL Groupe/Olympique Lyonnais, Crystal Palace FC and RWD Molenbeek, operating a shared ‘Eagle Football’ infrastructure under which player acquisition costs, loans and management fees flowed between the clubs. Botafogo won the 2024 Copa Libertadores (South America’s premier club competition) under this model, but the financial architecture was structurally fragile. By late 2025, Textor had been removed from the SAF’s management by an FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas) arbitration decision, was in dispute with Eagle Football’s principal creditor Ares Management (which was being administered through Cork Gully LLP), and the SAF had accumulated total liabilities of R$2.753 billion (approximately US$490m at current exchange rates), including a FIFA transfer ban linked to unpaid debts.

In April 2026, the SAF filed for recuperação judicial (broadly equivalent to US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection), which was agreed by the Rio court in mid-May 2026. This is the legal framework within which the GDA Luma acquisition is being structured.

Current SAF ownership structure

Timeline GDA Luma engagement

Transaction terms

Conditions precedent to completion

The binding contract is signed but the transaction is NOT yet legally closed. The following conditions must be satisfied before the share transfer completes:

Textor litigation risk

John Textor has threatened litigation against Botafogo for ‘up to 10 years’ if his involvement in the SAF is excluded, stating his intention to ‘recover what is rightfully mine.’ His September 2025 bid (backed by Evangelos Marinakis and Kia Joorabchian at approximately US$95m) was rejected by the conselho on 1 June 2026 alongside MasterCom’s. Textor maintains parallel US and Brazilian legal proceedings asserting he personally owns the 90% bloc. This is the primary residual title risk for GDA Luma and should be subject to independent legal due diligence before any financial commitment is treated as irreversible.

Competing bids final process

De Alba’s public statement

In his first statement as incoming SAF manager, de Alba said:

‘Com união, disciplina, transparência e ambição, construiremos um clube que orgulhe seus torcedores dentro e fora de campo.’ (‘With unity, discipline, transparency and ambition, we will build a club that makes its supporters proud on and off the pitch.’)

He referenced the Cirque du Soleil recovery as a model: a long-term hold, full operational rebuilding, no quick resale.

Brazil and South America: Regulatory and market context

The SAF law (Lei 14,193/2021)

Brazil’s Lei das Sociedades Anônimas do Futebol (Law 14,193/2021), enacted in August 2021, created the legal framework enabling Brazilian football clubs to spin off their professional football operations into a separate public limited company (SAF) and sell equity to third-party investors. Key features relevant to this transaction:

Comparable SAF transactions

The 777/Vasco failure and the Eagle/Botafogo crisis are the two most prominent cautionary tales from the SAF era. Both involved highly leveraged foreign investors with multi-club models and complex inter-company financial flows. GDA Luma’s model, a distressed-for-control restructuring specialist taking a clean single-club position, is structurally different, though the scale mismatch between its AUM and the club’s liabilities warrants monitoring.

GDA Luma’s Latin America orientation

GDA Luma’s Latin American footprint is deliberate. De Alba is Mexican, fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, and spent a career spanning AT&T Latin America and early LatAm merchant banking. The firm’s first verified control deal (Credivalores, Colombia) was Latin American. The Botafogo engagement is its second major LatAm investment. 

No local Brazilian advisers have been officially named by GDA Luma, but BTG Pactual and Galápagos Capital have been involved in the SAF’s financing, the club arranged a R$328m short-term credit line with Galápagos as part of its recuperação judicial liquidity management.

Credibility assessment

Positive indicators

Concerns