AC Milan have had a statement published in this morning’s newspapers aiming to clarify the relationship between RedBird Capital and Elliott Management.
As a reminder, when Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird bought Milan from Elliott in 2022, he only paid €650m for a deal that was valued at a total of €1.2bn. The remaining €550m was transformed into a ‘vendor loan’, granted by Elliott to RedBird, with an interest rate of around 7%.
The repayment deadline was set for August 2025 and there was a lot of speculation about whether Cardinale would be able to repay it and whether Elliott were pulling some strings as a result, given they still had exposure.
However, in December it was announced that the loan was refinanced, so now it must be repaid by 2028. Pushing the deadline back three years is certainly helpful for Cardinale, who could turn to investors to help.
Milan have released a note in today’s edition of the newspaper La Repubblica (via MilanPress) as a clarification regarding what was reported yesterday by the newspaper itself regarding the balance of power within the club between the old and new ownerships.
La Repubblica stated yesterday: “The atmosphere at Milan remains tense, with the Curva Sud empty for the first quarter of an hour, and then the chants for Cardinale to sell the club are renewed, even though the influence of the Elliott fund is increasingly evident, beyond the maxi-loan with which it has exercised a strong financial and market weight since 2022.
“Cardinale, the controlling shareholder, has not been seen at San Siro since September. Furthermore, there are no RedBird men on the board of directors of the company for the new stadium, yet Cardinale’s fund boasts specific skills. Instead, the Milan financial director Cocirio, a member of Elliott, appears there.”
This morning, a note in the same paper reads as follows: “Regarding the relationships between Elliott, RedBird and Milan, AC Milan specifies that:
– RedBird Capital, the owner, has reduced the principal amount of the loan from Elliott to €489m, confirming Elliott’s position as a pure lender, with its presence on the board of directors limited to 2 of its 12 representatives.
– MI-Stadio is limited to managing the operations of the Meazza in the current situation and is not involved in the new stadium project, jointly carried out by AC Milan and FC Internazionale Milano.
The Board of Directors of Mi-Stadio is currently composed of 3 members: Francesco Ferrini, independent, president; Massimiliano Catanese, Co-AD, representing Inter; Stefano Cocirio, Co-AD, representing AC Milan.
Before joining AC Milan, where he is Chief Financial Officer, Stefano Cocirio definitively cut off all his relationships with Elliott after having worked there for more than 7 years.”
Ok but furlani is CEO of milan? So it’s still pretty much Elliot that controls the club now or am I missing something?
He works for Milan, not Elliot or Redbird. Ibrahimovic works for Redbird. To be honest it looks like a big mess, nobody knows who is really in charge.
Red Bird owns Milan. It Is not important who is on which position. This is pure RedBird politics with before Elliott foundation.
Giorgio Furlani is the Chief Executive Officer of AC Milan since the end of 2022. He was also a board member of the club since 2018. Before his role as CEO, he was a Portfolio Manager at Elliott Management for 13 years. This is official, you can check his LinkedIn profile for more
Money laundering scheme.
It does seem like there is something more to it. The stadium is also a great way to launder money, any big building construction is.
I doubt they will launder, the club has too public of a profile to risk it. However, they will definitely cash out some portion of the expenses through related companies for construction works, while they keep the position that the Club’s profits are strictly reinvested in the club. These are accounting shenanigans, nothing to be worried about as everyone does it. The relationship with Elliott, however, raises eyebrows. Too many existing and ex-Elliott people in the leadership, significant loan.. Everything may be normal and Cardinale has no experience with football teams, so maybe he wanted to keep the Elliott people who did a great job at stabilizing the club, but there’s still too much control on Elliott’s end.
Sounds tricky to me. Well football not only making money, it’s about passion and glory.
Do your best for this shirt, not only money matters.
What would you do without your fans all over the world, fanatic and curva sud who always there every matchs.
If fans leave you…
Right… So the fact that all the decision making power now rests with Furlani, an Elliott man (if the reports are true) points to the fact the in fact RedBird is in charge?
Elliott owns the mortgage. RedBird pays the loan and lives in the house. But the house still belongs to Elliott until Gerry pays it off. But if Gerry keeps causing damage or devaluation to the property, Elliott may need to kick the tenant out to prevent further devaluation of its asset.
Simplest way to explain I think …
I don’t know if they can kick him out. This is different case like with Li … Cardinale has money and hi pay his debt to Elliot, this is the reason why they change the deadline from 2025 to 2028. Li doesn’t has a money, thats why they just took him Milan… I would be happier if we continue with Elliot , because they have more respect to our club , fans and Curva sud, but I don’t think something like this will happen… Cardinale is business man and he has a money
Elliot ain’t gonna save the Anti-Gerry fans now.
I think that’s been carved into stone now.
at the end the one that will be benefited the most is elliot.. they’re clever enough not to sell to investcorp and now still in control with redbird side by side.. whomever the milan owner is, as long as elliot still in the shadow, we won’t be seeing a stable milan.
With furlani around, be 100% sure of a cock up.