Elliott Management have once again been forced to respond after another article emerged regarding the sale of the club to RedBird Capital.
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Corriere della Sera are reporting that there have been ‘searches and seizures’ Elliott’s Luxembourg holdings after they sold Milan to Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird on 31 August 2022 for a price of €1.12bn.
The judicial police of the Grand Duchy were at the offices of Project RedBlack this morning with a search and seizure order from judge Claude Pascal at the request for judicial assistance from the prosecutors of the Milan prosecutors, Giovanni Polizzi and Giovanna Cavalleri.
The crimes of abuse of company assets and fraudulent bankruptcy are alleged against three directors of the company: they are Elliott’s manager, Jean-Marc McLean, and local professionals Daniela Italia and Victor Schuh.
The subject of the seizure are all paper and digital documents (accounting, banking, board of directors minutes, etc.) attributable to the management of the Milan sale and to the use of the sum collected from the sale.
A similar search and seizure order has also been carried out at Rossoneri Sport – also resident in Luxembourg – which is the company that owned 99.9% of Milan and materially collected the €1.12bn from RedBird. Project RedBlack is the holding company which, in turn, controls the Rossoneri.
The complaint at the basis of the investigation The Milanese criminal investigation was born (and then developed independently) from a complaint by Blue Skye by Salvatore Cerchione and Gianluca D’Avanzo.
Blue Skye was a minority shareholder (4.3%) of Project RedBlack and considers itself damaged by the sale to RedBird ‘which took place in such a way as to jeopardise its right to credit’.
We received the following response from Elliott Management regarding the news that has come to light today.
“Following the announcement of the sale of AC Milan to RedBird, BlueSkye has initiated a number of frivolous and vexatious litigations in Luxembourg and now New York, which Elliott and co-investor Arena Investors regard as being no more than an attempt to extract value, to which BlueSkye is not entitled,” it began.
“BlueSkye possesses nothing more than a small indirect interest in AC Milan, the vast majority of which is capital controlled and contributed by Arena Investors, who also firmly and publicly condemns BlueSkye’s actions.
“The transaction with RedBird fully respects that interest, all necessary corporate approvals were obtained at every step of the transaction and BlueSkye will receive all monies to which it is entitled.
“Elliott and Arena Investors will of course vigorously defend each of their interests against BlueSkye’s frivolous and vexatious actions, and fully expect to prevail.”
