The investment fund is in negotiations with Elliott Management, current owner of the Lombard Football Club. Amount mentioned: $ 1.1 billion.
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The confirmation has arrived indirectly and quite unexpectedly – by a tweet of the Bahrainian embassy in London, quickly erased – but the bottom line is not there. As announced by the daily newspaper, on April 15, the Investcorp Investment Fund is well entered, in early April, in exclusive negotiations with Elliott Management, owner of AC Milan since 2018, for the redemption of the Prestigious Lombard Club, detained for more than three decades by the former President of the Silvio Berlusconi Council. The amount mentioned? $ 1.1 billion (€ 1 billion), which would be, and by far, the highest transaction in the history of Calcio. If it goes to an end, the takeover will intervene by the end of the season.
New come in the world of football, Investcorp largely has the means of its ambitions. With 42 billion euros of assets, mainly in the luxury sector (participations in Gucci, Tiffany or Leica), this fund established in the Emirate of Bahrain but operating in thirteen countries seems to take up the challenge of the Recovery of the most titled Italian club on the international scene, despite the catastrophic financial situation in which it has been plunged for years.
Certainly, the 195 million euros of losses of the year 2020, caused largely by the pandemic of Covid-19, are no more than a memory. But the exercise 2021 had even concluded by a deficit of 98 million euros, which must be added 40 million for the first six months of 2022.
In spite of these abyssal losses, that it has been necessary to compensate, the club seems healthy only when it is taken over by Elliott, in 2018. Indeed, its sporting situation has improved considerably. At five days from the end of the championship, AC Milan is at the top of the ranking, with two points ahead of his pursuer, Inter Milan (which has a less match). In the event of success of the transaction, the Elliott Fund would make a magnificent financial operation: more than 400 million euros of capital gain. Was not it, from the beginning, his ambition displayed?
The most effective political springboard
The arrival of a fund from the Gulf in the Calcio would be a change of time for the Italian championship. England has experienced a similar phenomenon in 2008, with the acquisition of Manchester City by a fund of Abu Dhabi, which has resulted in the forefront a club until then subscribed to the second roles. In France, the takeover of Paris-Saint-Germain by QSI (a Qatari fund), in 2011, upset the face of the league 1, placing in a dominant position a club whose history had known a lot more down than highs. There is something else it’s about. Because AC Milan did not need petrodollars to build a considerable palmaresis: with 18 national titles and especially seven Champions Leagues, it is preceded on the European scene only by Real Madrid.
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