which game will go to the new Palau Blaugrana?

2023-04-27 13:50:38

BarcelonaThe board chaired by Joan Laporta will mostly allocate the 1,450 million in funding for Espai Barça to the remodeling of the Camp Nou, which will be carried out by the Turkish construction company Limak. But, despite the fact that the club explained to the ARA that it would detail which game would go to the new Palau Blaugrana once the financing had been closed, this was not clear in the press conference held in the Auditorium 1899 of the Camp Nou . Thus, the doubt remains as to whether the 420 million cost of its construction, according to what the board of Laporta explained to the members before the electronic referendum of December 19, can be met with this funding alone.

The club’s financial vice-president, Eduard Romeu, has answered with a simple “yes” the question about whether the new Palau Blaugrana is included in the financing. “They know that the issue of the Palace is further delayed because it had not been worked on beforehand. We are studying several proposals”, he added later to another question. But the numbers don’t add up. According to the club’s corporate director, Maribel Meléndez, also present at the press conference, 1,071 million, including interest, will be allocated to the Camp Nou, 200 will be for contingencies and 178 to pay financial interest.” In addition, there would be an extra 50 million which could be requested because the assembly and the referendum gave the go-ahead to borrow up to 1,500.

“This operation guarantees, as the members of the club decided in a referendum, that the start of the works on the Spotify Camp Nou will be a reality this summer”, said the president of Barça, Joan Laporta, during one of his usual speeches without looking at any paper at the beginning of the press conference. “It is the fulfillment of a collective dream of Barcelona fans, it will be the best stadium in the world. It is a project that has been postponed for too many years”, he added before becoming emotional when mentioning to all the people at the club that, according to him, it has made the closure of the operation possible.

In addition, Laporta has announced the three basic premises on which Barça has been based during the search for this funding: “The works will never involve expenses for the club’s members, the project will never have a risk for sports management and never “will mortgage the entity’s assets as a guarantee, which will ensure that we continue to maintain the current governance model”. The Barça president also wanted to vent about the latest attacks that he believes the club has received. “We are enjoying the highest reputation and confidence in the national and international markets. Despite the fact that some have tried to put obstacles in our way, Barça has come out stronger”, considered the Barça chief executive at the end of his speech.

Once the initial speech was finished, Laporta came down from the stage of the Auditorium 1899 of the Camp Nou and Eduard Romeu, Maribel Meléndez and the finance director, Manel del Río, went up. In the first ranks, they have been supported by a large part of the senior management and the executive part of Barça.

This second part of the presentation has served to recall the path taken to reach this agreement and to outline some details. The financing of the Espai Barça, mediated by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and which has twenty investors, is 1.45 billion euros and will be divided into three sections. The first is a 500 million bank loan and 100 million from investors that will be used to repay the bridge loan that Goldman Sachs previously granted to the Barcelona club to carry out the first works on the Espai Barça. The second is a bond issue of 500 million to investors, and the third, another 400 million to investors.

The maturities of the loans are 5, 7, 9, 20 and 24 years with a flexible structure and “conditions that are intended to be improved when the markets are at a better time”, according to Romeu. In the first 5 years (with a grace period until the Camp Nou is remodeled), 583 million euros will have to be returned out of the total 1,450 and, between the seventh and ninth year, 477. These first two sections have a refinancing option. The third tranche, of 390 million, will have to be returned between the ages of 20 and 24.

The Catalan entity’s forecast is to be able to deal with this enormous amount of money (to which interest must be added which can reach 600 million due to the average net interest of 5.53%) with the income that the Camp Nou will provide once it is remodeled. This fact should happen in the spring of 2026. Legends, the American company in charge of maximizing the venue’s income, calculates that, from then on, every year Barça will receive 247 million for this concept.