There has been no shortage of talk about Gerry Cardinale’s position at AC Milan in recent months, and questions have swirled about how he intends to move forward with the club after seeking investment from the Middle East. Today, some shares have been put on the market, and the reasoning has been revealed.
With every passing day, we are getting closer to the expiry date of the vendor loan provided by the Elliott Fund, and that is not the only big financial offset that Gerry Cardinale and RedBird must be aware of, according to La Repubblica (via Calciomercato.com).
It is believed that the amount owed to the previous owners will reach €700 million when it is due to be paid at the end of August 2025, an eyewatering figure in itself, but we also must look at the future of the stadium, with it seeming increasingly likely that Milan move to San Donato.
At present, RedBird owns around 96% of the club, but since May, Cardinale has offered around 22% of the shares for sale, which has come to light due to ‘a commercial document that Washington Harbour, an investment and financial consultancy company, began circulating’.
The document reads ‘[the shares are] selling at cost base price [no gain] up to 150 million of the initial investment capital of 681 million, given the company’s need to lower the investment amount to rebalance the portfolio’.
It is also stated that the document references investing in a new stadium – with the investment costing €1 billion, but with €900m of the cost financed, and the works would begin in October 2025 – and also the sporting aims of the club – guaranteed third place for the next three years, a play-off place in the Champions League this season, with the Round of 16 being expected in the two following years.
Furthermore, it is believed that Cardinale would not be against selling ‘several minority stakes’ to Arab funds with a sale in 2027 to a ‘sovereign wealth fund or billionaire family’ possible and this would be done to ‘provide liquidity for investors wishing to sell before the completion of the new stadium in 2029’.
Finally, there is the topic of bonuses to the management, and as expected, they are lucrative. In the document, there is a Management Incentive Plan – guaranteed bonuses for different scenarios happening. It is believed that the bonuses for Cardinale, Giorgio Furlani and Paolo Scaroni range between €569m (yes, half a billion) and €0 if the project fails.
I don’t understand how someone can buy a club and don’t have money to buy a club.. its beyond me.
I don’t understand how they can own a club and haven’t even paid for the club.. it’s beyond me.
I don’t understand how you can sell parts of shares of the club you haven’t even paid of yet. It’s totally beyond me.
I do understand how people can give themselves big fat bonuses tho. There are always big fat bonuses for management people. If they earn them or not..
All money is debt.
Absolutely and it doesn’t even really exist
Yeah, it’s some kind of magic. Making money out of nowhere. Wall Street style.
There is no money. Yet we are all slaves to money. I better stop thinking about this or I’ll have to get hammered today
Dude it’s 14.30 for me and I’m edging towards a brew
because you don’t know anything about business, then keep quiet and just follow the process
I know plenty. I also know it’s ret*rded and regular people end up paying the price for ret*rdness of businessman
Welcome to vulture capitalism. Making money out of thin air.
It’s called leverage
I don’t understand how our great club got here.
These people are a cancer
“and also the sporting aims of the club – guaranteed third place for the next three years, a play-off place in the Champions League this season, with the Round of 16 being expected in the two following years” – when your goal is winning 😂😂blah blah finally the true intentions are out.
The cherry on the top, we are far from reaching the round of 16
What a clown. No arabs in Milan please though.
If we become a front for a brutal regime I’m out.
All because we p#^sed billions away on pointless transfers.
It’s sad the some people bought this BS
And there are the bonuses. This is for the economical experts who attacked me when i told them that just cause the financial report wasn’t showing Cardinale and his gang taking money of the club it doesn’t meant that they are not actually taking money. Cause there are 100 ways to actually take money out, like giving them self huge bonuses lol. Of course all of that will go under salary expenses and the idiots here will keep screaming how it was all spend on the club… Talking with the Red Bird supporters sometimes is like talking to five year olds who have no idea how the real world works.
Straight up! There are ways to get money out the club for sure. Not sure how deep you’ve diced but ever wondered why our revenues are increasing, players salaries are relatively the same but we’re not turning a higher profit? Check out the “consultancy” line in the balance sheet and how that has grown over time. I have to dig deeper but was just really curious as to how it’s grown as a cost of production.
The song remains the same.. unbelievable
Elliott are the Kings in this whole scenario. They lent Yonghong Li €300 million took control of the club when he failed to pay , sold it to Redbird and pocketed €600 million, gave them a loan of 500 plus million which expires next summer and even if they get paid they would have made more then 100 million in interest in two years.
Just incredible. This is what hedge funds are all about.
Elliot are major league, I don’t like them but I am impressed by them.
Redbird are a bl00dy joke.
No doubt it. Elliot are major league.
I wonder if they chose to sell to Gerry because they knew he wouldn’t be able to pay them back. So they could repossess and then resell to the Arabs again. LOL!!! That would be pretty next level.
What Cardinale is doing makes sense though. No one sits on 1.2B in liquidity – you have to finance purchases like that. 700 mil won’t pay itself back, so you have to start selling stakes in the club to repay it. He’s been doing this for a minute now – hence all the trips to Dubai and such.
Question is, is there enough demand for minority ownership in Milan? Pretty sure Sovereign Funds will want majority ownership.
Well if that turns out to be the case it will be more then next level! Thing is , it might actually happen as Gerry is running out of time. I do think that , similar to Zhang he would at least get back what he invested so far, or a percentage of ownership.
I also wonder if there is concrete interest in minority ownership in Milan? Where there is smoke there is fire and there is definitely smoke in the middle East for the club.
if I’m running a Sovereign Fund, I’m waiting right until the repayment due date then barging in on my own terms which would be far more favorable to me and my interests.
If we are lucky he will sell all shares
“there is the topic of bonuses to the management, and as expected, they are lucrative. In the document, there is a Management Incentive Plan – guaranteed bonuses for different scenarios happening. It is believed that the bonuses for Cardinale, Giorgio Furlani and Paolo Scaroni range between €569m (yes, half a billion) and €0 if the project fails.”
Wuuuut?? I’ve seen bonuses in upper management before but this one takes the cake. Hooooollllyyyy. A half a bil? And this project ain’t “failing”. Performance targets in upper management are such bs and so easy to hit. It can be as broad as “increase revenue” or even better make steps towards increasing revenue smh.
They have goal to sell club for big amount. And before that to pay Elliott what they are obligate to.
One of the part of road is also to have result on pitch. Without that Milan can’t be sold for big amount.