2023-08-15 07:45:46
BarcelonaAmong the dozens of people who have been seen around Barça’s offices in recent months is Thomas Middelhoff (Düsseldorf, 1953), an experienced German business manager who had to start over after he was sentenced to three years in 2014 of prison for tax fraud and embezzlement during his time at the head of the Arcandor conglomerate. Middelhoff, known as Big T from his days at the helm of the Teutonic media giant Bertelsmann (RTL, Penguin Random House, etc.), commuted his sentence by working as an assistant at a home for people with functional diversity in Bielefeld.
His downfall as a businessman has inspired him to write three books and give lectures, but it hasn’t deterred him from hanging up his business briefcase. In fact, now, at the age of 70, he has joined the bandwagon of Barça Media, the new name of Barça Studios that has allowed Joan Laporta to dispose of 120 million euros to restructure the leverage activated last summer with Orpheus Media and Socios .how.
Big T is the new director of sales – in English CSO – of the business division that Barça wants to take to the American stock market so that its digital and audiovisual business – including electronic sports – will be valued at around 900 millions In other words, he is one of the people in charge of selling a piece of Barça through a SPAC, which is how the entities that go out in search of capital for a project they intend to acquire are known. This SPAC serves as a container of expectations for the Barcelona club to attract investors who help it develop projects in exchange for a portion.
Middelhoff will share the ship with Alexander Hornung, financial director of Barça Media – in English CFO – from his position at Mountain Partners, the fund which, as reported by the Barcelona institution, must help it “access specific financing in the new North American capital markets that accelerate initiatives in the digital sector and be able to spread content to new audiences in strategic markets.” The president of this business transition will be Albert Bagó, head of strategy for Barça trained at UPC and IESE.
The creation of the SPAC to list the Blaugrana digital and audiovisual business on the stock exchange is a demonstration of Barça’s long-term vision, which is confident of consolidating juicy annual income from these channels. However, it is the short term that has marked the first injection of capital, given that part of the 120 million recently committed serves to obtain treasury and obtain fair play financial to register player contracts in the current edition of the League. At the moment, 40 have entered and three players have been left out of the registration before matchday 1: the injured Iñigo Martínez, Marcos Alonso and Iñaki Peña. More money and/or more exits are needed – Lenglet and Dest are still in the squad – to do the outstanding duties and to be able to consider more signings such as those of Joao Cancelo for the side or Joao Félix for the attack. Neymar has ceased to be a target: he will leave for Saudi Arabia.
The distribution of the cake and the participation of commissioners
Of the money already satisfied from the relever, 20 have been put up by the German fund Libero Football Finance, in which ex-Manchester United and Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon is an adviser, while the other 20 come from an unidentified Cypriot investor who is placing the money through NIPA Capital, a Dutch fund. The remaining 20 must arrive before the end of August from Libero.
If Barça has had to find 60 million for now – the other 60, up to 120, must fall in 2024 and 2025 – it is because it reflected them in the treasury plan it presented to the League. The first 60 were to be placed by Socios.com and Orpheus Media under a payment schedule that has not been met. Now, to cover the hole, the new investors buy a part (29.5%) of the 49% of Barça Vision previously transferred.
As detailed on the specialized portal 2Playbook, Libero remains with 9.8% and the Cypriot company with 19.7%. In exchange, Socios lowers its weight to 17.1% and Orpheus to 2.4%. It is worth saying that these percentages of business correspond only to Barça Vision, the business division that the Barcelona club dedicates only to NFTs, Web3 and the metaverse. The strategy of Laporta and his collaborators goes further: take Barça Media – the entire audiovisual and digital business, including Barça Vision – to the technological market to increase its performance.
The documents filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also reveal that Mountain Partners had to turn to outside consultants to attract investors capable of releasing the first 60 million already. One of them is the Croatian Primary, which has been awarded 4.1 million to mediate the arrival of the investor based in Cyprus, which, in turn, has secured between 3.75 and 5 million in consultancy concept in exchange for participating in the purchase of a section of the Barça Studios tailor’s drawer. The SPAC also plans to pay consultants to Conny & Co. Advisory AG, a company owned by Cornelius Boersch, who is also the CEO of Mountain Partners.
All this puzzle still has to go through the approval of the shareholders of Mountain and the mediators of Barça. But it is already serving so that the Barça sports area can finish setting up the first team squad for the season that has just started.
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