Elliott Management may have taken control not by design but due to the failure of Yonghong Li to fully repay his loan, but they ended up becoming invested in the club emotionally and financially.
Thanks to a Calcio e Finanza report (via MilanLive), we are able to see all the payments made by Elliott Management into Milan’s accounts after the approval of the financial statements as of 30 June 2022 which occurred yesterday.
During the 2021-22 financial year the shareholder Project RedBlack (the holding company linked to Elliott which owned 99.93% of Milan) provided new payments to the Milan coffers worth €5m. These are new resources that must be added to the €533.25m injected between 2 August 2018 and 30 June 2021.
Looking at the overall calculation, and also considering the payments made after 30 June 2020, Elliott Management have put €538.25m into the club. Then, €300m must be added given what was ‘invested’ by the American fund to take over control of the club from former owner Yonghong Li.
We thus arrive at a gross amount of €838.25m, but then €128m must be subtracted which refers to the two bonds issued in June 2017 under Fassone’s management. That amount was in fact reimbursed to Elliott after Yonghong Li left the scene, so we arrive at a final total of €710.25m.
Elliott have kept two seats on the board in order to protect the investment of the €600m loan granted to RedBird Capital to help their takeover, so they will have the chance to invest more should they see fit.
And yet some say they didn’t invest in the club or didn’t take a risk. Happy they helped us through the hard times and good for them they sold with a profit. Something that wasn’t a guarantee when they took over.
It was certainly by design. Yonghong Li was ignorant enough to fall for the vulture’s scheme. Thanks to that, Milan is saved… 😂