2023-04-24 20:43:47
FC Barcelona announced this Monday that it has closed the financing of Espai Barça – the remodeling of the Spotify Camp Nou and its surroundings – and this is encrypted in 1,450 million euros with the participation of a total of 20 investors.
The mentioned figure covers the total cost of the works and the financial structure has been closed with “some of the main financial institutions of international prestige”, as announced by the club in a statement.
This has different sections at 5, 7, 9, 20 and 24 years, and a flexible structurewhich has a grace period. In addition, the Catalan club will begin to repay the operation once the stadium works have been completedwith the revenue generated by Spotify Camp Nou, which is expected to be approximately 247 million.
In the press release, the organization highlights that it continues to advance in its strategic plan and in the development of the Espai Barça project, achieving “the maximum flexibility to find the best proposals in terms of cost and time” to last complete the project.
And he appreciates the “efforts” of the members of the board of directors and the club’s own teams that have been complemented by “partners” such as American investment banks Goldman Sachs i JP Morganthe consultant JLLlaw firms Perez-Lorca i FOR Piperthe financial firm Key Capital Partnersas well as Legends i IPG 360others.
“The purpose is to combine the experience and knowledge of the club’s teams and professionals with the best practices from the different areas associated with the Espai Barça project,” says the statement.
With the financing already closed, Barcelona will be able to start this summer the remodeling works of the Spotify Camp Nou, which will force the first men’s football team to to play their home games at the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium until November 2024, when he is scheduled to return to the Blaugrana fold.
The Blaugrana board of directors thus clears the last and most important choice to make remodeling works of the stadium that will lead the turkish construction company Limak, who in January of this year was appointed by the club to execute the project.
The goal of the Barcelona club was to close the financing agreement before March 31, 2023but investors and the club gave themselves more time to finish closing the last fringes of credit.
The investigation of justice for the millionaire payments of the entity to the former vice-president of the Technical Committee of Arbitrators (CTA), Jose Maria Enriquez Negreirais one of the issues that explain the reason for the delay in the announcement of the agreement.
The press conference that the president of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, offered last week to give explanations about the so-called ‘Negreira case’ and the subsequent meetings he held with the clubs of LaLiga and with the president of UEFA, Aleksander Ceferin, would have helped a unblock the alliance with investors.
Espai Barça, a project that began in 2014
The road to starting the remodeling works of the Camp Nou has been long. Nine years have passed since the Blaugrana partners approved the project by a large majority in one referendum held on April 5, 2014.
In the meantime, the entity, then chaired by Josep Maria Bartomeu, had to agree with the Barcelona City Council on the urban plan and the works license to transform the stadium’s surroundings.
In this period, the club goes demolish the Ministadiumfiefdom of the subsidiary, and goes build the Johan Cruyff Stadium in the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamperinaugurated in August 2019.
But the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in the first quarter of 2020 and the resignation of Bartomeu as president in October of the same year delayed the start of the works.
With the victory of Joan Laporta in the presidential elections held in March 2021, the incoming board of directors decided consult the partner again his opinion on Espai Barça.
The reasons for the partner to take the floor again were the years that had passed since the first consultation, the increase in the price of the project (in the beginning it was estimated at 600 million), the need to request a loan from investment banks and the modifications that have been made.
On October 23, 2021, the general assembly of compromise partners already approved the financing of 1.5 billion euros, but Laporta finally agreed to hold another referendum where the entire social mass of the Barcelona entity could decide on one of the most important projects in the history of the club.
87.8% of voters approved on December 19, 2021 that the club could request funding to run Espai Barça. Almost a year and a half later, FC Barcelona has convinced the investors which will allow the old Camp Nou, inaugurated on September 24, 1957, to resemble a 21st century stadium.
“This operation confirms, once again, the credibility of the club within the financial markets regarding the Spotify Camp Nou project, epicenter of Espai Barça, an essential project to keep FC Barcelona in the leadership of the world sport, one of the pillars of the club’s economic recovery and future viability, and an instrument that allows the continuity of the governance model, where the more than 146,000 members of the Club are the owners”, concludes the FC Barcelona statement .
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