It’s becoming pretty clear that there are two contenders in the race to buy AC Milan from Elliott Management, namely Investcorp and RedBird Capital. However, the process is taking time and there are good reasons for that.
Since Elliott took over the club in 2018, when Yonghong Li defaulted on his loan, Milan have made an incredible journey back to the top. In addition to performing on the pitch, the club’s accounts are now also restored and in very good shape.
The fact that several investment firms are looking at Milan with interest, therefore, makes a lot of sense. As reported by Corriere Dello Sport this morning (via MilanNews), though, it’s a delicate process that Elliott are well on top of.
Per the newspaper, they are currently not waiting on a higher offer from Investcorp or RedBird, but instead they want more guarantees. The key to the takeover is how the sum, which exceeds €1bn, will be paid.
It’s obvious that such an amount won’t be paid in cash or with a check, but Elliott also want to avoid the leverage buyout structure. That is when the buyer takes on debt and puts it on the company, in this case Milan.
Elliott have spent four years restoring the club accounts and thus don’t want to leave the club with debt immediately. Guarantees over more money is the key phrase.
Lol. Ya ya. The highest bidder will win IMO. All this posturing by Elliot is just to increase the price – fine. But I don’t think for a moment that Elliot care how the money is financed just as long as they get it
Exactly. This is all about money and nothing else, and the whole waiting game is played to squeeze out of this as much money as possible.
Articles like this are as ridiculous as those about oil companies concerns about global warming, or tobacco companies about lung cancer.
Yeah. A fund that has 51.5 billion US dollars in assets is really looking for guarantees for Milan. If they cared that much keeping Milan wouldn’t be an issue for them, but the problem is because they are involved in financing Lille purchase? It sounds like a bad excuse. They are looking to make more money, that is why they published the news about the deal, who do you think put the story into the newspapers to get more offers and more money?
Bull shit.