Inter's Financial Situation

[.h.]

Oh I get the objective, its just never gonna happen. I bet you couldnt even get 500,000 fans to pledge 1 euro ecah let alaone 100 or 1000, tbh.

I look forward to seeing how many people in that group commit what sort of money, but I'dd be surprised if you even break 10m euros from that community, to be honest.

Like I said, you look at United, Liverpool, etc, efforts. They fall way, way short of anything really meaningful.

You might get 5-10 maybe at a push 15/20k fans who will contribute towards this. It'll fall way below even 10% of Inter's market cap (perceived), and thats before even talking about trying to negotiate with Suning.



Out of curiosity, you've said so many times you dont support this Inter because of various reasons, do YOU plan on contributing? I appreciate some of the dynamics have changed (e.g. no more Conte now), but I'm still curious.


As for me, it depends on what the detailed proposal is, I wouldnt rule out contributing if we start getting to meaningful sums of money where we can actually make a real impact/take over a decent proportion, but then its a question of investment in Inter, like any other investment in a company - is spending 500 euros on Inter likely to generate a better return than, say, 500 euros on Microsoft or Amazon.

 

[brehme1989]

There's no reason to look at either Manchester United or Liverpool here.

Look at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Bayern, Dortmund, Benfica, Porto, Flamengo, Ajax etc. Half of these teams don't have the global appeal or prestige of Inter.

 

[brehme1989]

As for your question, I was planning on acquiring a season ticket (despite my disapproval of paying fucking Conte to jump ship) but if attendance is capped I will not do so as that will deprive a person of getting to games.

I would of course contribute to this project. No brainer.

 

[.h.]

But those are all clubs that (I believe?) havae been fan owned fo ra long time, and the fans didnt have to raise hundreds of millions to acquire the club. That's my point. I'd love to know what the biggest fund raising from a fan consortium to buy a club out has been - even the United effort raised like a few hundred £k. I dont know what the precedence is in world sport for a major club fan buy out, but I'd be surprised if you can find anything that even comes close to the £100m mark, let alone any significant buy out of a £1billion valued privately held club.

 

[Ethor]

Let's see 100Euros is roughly 120 USD, count me in!

 

[brehme1989]

But those are all clubs that (I believe?) havae been fan owned fo ra long time, and the fans didnt have to raise hundreds of millions to acquire the club. That's my point. I'd love to know what the biggest fund raising from a fan consortium to buy a club out has been - even the United effort raised like a few hundred £k. I dont know what the precedence is in world sport for a major club fan buy out, but I'd be surprised if you can find anything that even comes close to the £100m mark, let alone any significant buy out of a £1billion valued privately held club.

What exactly is the Manchester United attempt?
And how is it relevant? Most fans were in favor of Glazer taking over initially, they just don't like them now... Only a fringe group, quite vocal as it was locally based, didn't like the takeover. A larger group of fans didn't like the way they got the majority, but I don't recall that causing much uproar other than a few fans starting a new club.

 

[.h.]

My point on the United effort is that its probably the closest thing in 20-30+ years to trying to take over a club. As I said, I'd love to hear your examples if you have any (of relevance). Bayern, Dortmund, Barca, Real, etc, hve been fan owned for how long? I've never seen a fan effort raise tens of millions, let alone hundreds of millions, to pull something like this off.

Again, please share your examples if you have any!

 

[brehme1989]

My point on the United effort is that its probably the closest thing in 20-30+ years to trying to take over a club. As I said, I'd love to hear your examples if you have any (of relevance). Bayern, Dortmund, Barca, Real, etc, hve been fan owned for how long? I've never seen a fan effort raise tens of millions, let alone hundreds of millions, to pull something like this off.

Again, please share your examples if you have any!

It's irrelevant if it's regarding a takeover bid or not.

Barcelona fans raise ~26m annually in membership fees. Bayern raises roughy 12-15m in fees.
That's from the average Joe of these clubs. We don't have that and every year we're looking for 20m here and there. We don't have that now and we're begging for a sponsor to give us as much. You know what makes sponsors come? Public interest... You pull this off, you get 40m from sponsors on your shirt.

Sure, it's a more complex issue as you need to acquire a piece of a private company and find a way to please investors who partake in this transformation, but if there's will, it can be done. Surely you cannot expect someone to throw 10m a year for me or you to be able to become the chairman of Inter, so some thresholds will take place and there will be people chipping in millions a year just to have a seat at the table.
For this to work, a majority % is needed of course, that's the only letdown, as you cannot expect people to give money every year for a minority share that doesn't do much. The first who will be deterred by this will be those who would put the most money anyway.


Ideally, this happens via capital share increase and we don't give Suning nothing. This would be a cash injection that dilutes Suning, but it will be hard to remove them instantly (within 2-3 seasons) as they'll seek for someone to sell their shares. Unfortunately, we don't have Moratti and it's not 2013 where this could have been more feasible. But I still trust that if done correctly, it may succeed. Not sure if Cottarelli can pull this off or if he just wants to show himself in the media for indirect reasons, but I think this is a far better structure for Inter and any football club than expecting a new sugar daddy because current ownership isn't sweeting the case enough.

 

[.h.]

So you have no examples of these sort of fan consortium efforts to buy a significant chunk of a club ever succeeding or raising a large amount of money?

Just being clear on your post. It's a bit verbose jus to say No



Remember, there's nothing that forces Suning to the table. If we were a publicly listed club with >50% of our voting rights being floated, we might have a small (doubtful) chance. But right now, the only thing we can do to force their hand is a """hostile""" takeover. And there's no pressure on Suning to sell. If they were going to sell, probably better to sell 100% for 1 billion-ish euros, than sell 20% for 200m and still get left with a loss making asset.

 

[brehme1989]

You have the tendency of wanting to control the discussion, expecting that your idea and your narrative is the only thing that exists. There's no reason to answer your question with a yes or no because you keep ignoring the dynamics here. We do not care about case studies, we only care if this is possible. And it is.

 

[.h.]

It's not possible. Thats my point. And to disprove my point, there are two easy ways:
1 - Demonstrate why it is possible
2 - Provide examples of where something similar has happened before.


re: 1, you yourself just admitted that a majority shareholding would be needed. Based on what we know, that translates to something like 500m euros. Even if we get 100m from these big name celebrity investors (not a chance. I'll be surprised if we even break 10m from them), that means Inter fans need to raise 400m euros. And, to my point, these typical fan-led efforts dont even raise more than a few million. Yes, sure, maybe Inter is somehow special, but you're expecting _HALF A MILLION_ people to contribute 1000 euros each? Not a fucking chance.

That's BEFORE you even discuss having to get Suning to the negotiating table, and subsequently, the fact that they'dd sell a minority/majority stakeholding but not 100% (unless you now want to raise 1 billion euros)?

Re 2, there are no examples that even come close to the scale of Inter's requirements.


So the point of my post is to further the discussion, because the challenge I pose you is insurmountable. This would be completely unprecedented in world SPORT (let alone football), is far beyond the practical means for the fans of the club, and just wont happen.



It's no different to how, say, employee buy outs for big companies never work. The sweet spot to 'buy out' Inter would probably have been pre-Moratti or pre-Suning, when valuations were very different. Grass roots initiatives dont raise hundreds of millions for causes like this. They never have, and they never will. The closest I can think of is Bernie Sanders (off hand) who raised $108m USD for his 2020 presidential campaign.


According to this - https://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/181341#:~:text=In fact, Inter Milan sells,strikingly similar to AC Milan. - (dated and fact check grey zone, but lets take it at face value), we cant even convince 500,000 Inter fans to buy a fucking jersey let alone invest 1000 euros each with no reward, payback, and practically will just have to continue to write checks for the club for a few more years to stabilise LET ALONE build a fucking stadium.



AND not to mention all that in the middle of a recession



Like I said


Not a fucking chance in hell will this even come within 10% of succeeding (e.g. if we need to raise 500m I'll bet my account we dont even make 50m).



The ONLY option we have for success is basically a 'fan backed private buyout', e.g. fans get the chance to invest token amounts (say up to 10-20% of club worth) when a reasonbly ethical private equity (lel) company decides to buy out Inter and wants to get fans on board and invested into the ownership.

 

[brehme1989]

Remember, there's nothing that forces Suning to the table. If we were a publicly listed club with >50% of our voting rights being floated, we might have a small (doubtful) chance. But right now, the only thing we can do to force their hand is a """hostile""" takeover. And there's no pressure on Suning to sell. If they were going to sell, probably better to sell 100% for 1 billion-ish euros, than sell 20% for 200m and still get left with a loss making asset.

Which is exactly why this can be viewed as free money. There's no takeover, there's raising funds for equity in a capital share increase.

There's no one to pay 1bn.
There are only people willing to loan loads of money with a very unattractive interest rate.

And if Moratti, Armani, Del Vecchio (Luxottica), Provera (Pirelli), Profumo (Leonardo), the Azimut guys, Polegato (Geox) and so many others mobilize.. with the help of other prominent Interisti of the Italian business world and even globally, I don't see how this cannot escalate into a potential change of ownership style. The only friction here is Suning being uncooperative, but if they need money, they'll say yes to money at favorable terms.

The ONLY option we have for success is basically a 'fan backed private buyout', e.g. fans get the chance to invest token amounts (say up to 10-20% of club worth) when a reasonbly ethical private equity (lel) company decides to buy out Inter and wants to get fans on board and invested into the ownership.

And this is exactly what we're talking about. You don't transition from mega corporate to non-profit overnight.

 

[.h.]

And Suning hve shown no interest in decreasing their equity stake. So, you're now speculating that Suning will somehow want to do a capital increase without any basis for that at all (to date the only ones they've done are D2E on their own debt book).



This has, as ever with many discussions with you, gotten to the point of being pointless to continue. We'll see where it ends up in 8 weeks? 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? Pick your timeline. If I'm wrong I'll happily admit it.


But these sorts of activities never work. And those names you call out - I bet they put in comparatively token amounts of money only (e.g. it might be a mil or so each, but it wont be any heavy weight commitment).



I'd put more faith in something like a Ryan Reynolds-style buy out of the club.


My predictions:
1 - The 'celebrities' put in no more than 20m pledge in total towards the effort
2 - No more than 20,000 Inter fans actually donate money (you'll get more pledged, probably, but when it comes to time to pay, a lot wont)
3 - This effort raises no more than 40m total (and I really doubt itll even go past 10m, tbh)
4 - Absolutely nothing comes out of this



I'd love to be wrong, but I'm not that naive.

 

[brehme1989]

Of course it could fail miserably, but the idea is to essentially make Inter a company owned by several shareholders with an increased fan ownership.

The biggest concern from some of the big wallets is that they would be unwilling to participate if Suning doesn't exit.

You keep calling them "celebrities", but we're talking about mega-rich business people here, not a group of actors and former athletes that will chip in 5k each. Those are there just for the PR. You think Cottarelli isn't well connected and would put his reputation on the line claiming he can raise 400m euros? I also think he's too optimistic about the figures, but even if we talk 25-50% of that, it's far better than getting nothing.

This is also not the first attempt by Cottarelli. He tried doing this in 2018 iirc but the Chinese told him to leave. He didn't go public then, but decided to do it now. So I guess this means that he's more certain of the project now. It's a very ambitious plan, but it's one that I was talking about, even on this site, long before Cottarelli laid it out.

 

[.h.]

Rich people dont get rich by giving away tens or hundreds of millions to charitable causes , Which, given our debt sheet, is effectively what it is. These guys could have tried to buy Inter when Moratti sold, when Thohir sold, they've had plenty of chances and presumably didnt do it then for some reasons. With us on an even higher valuation now, its even less likely.

It's 100% destined to fail miserably. But if you want to invest emotional energy and money on this, go for it.

 

[CafeCordoba]

If this becomes available for foreigners, I definitely would at least consider chipping in. And I wouldn't be expecting returns of like when investing to Amazon, Microsoft, Apple or whatever. If I want to invest to those kind of companies, I do that.

I don't quite get your negativity on the subject browha. Like, let it play out and don't doom and gloom about it so furiously (14 posts in 2 days almost exclusively just to bash this). It can surely fail because of the high target, but we don't know Suning's plans. We don't know ANYTHING about their plans. And the past is not a proof of anything what will happen in the future, specially when it comes Suning.

 

[.h.]

well, in your words, its a discussion forum and discussing it doesnt hurt anyone so why not? Better to speculate about this without any facts than the mortality of Christian Eriksen, by a long way.

TBH, because:

1 - We'll never even raise 5% of the money we need to raise to make something like this a success
2 - There's NO historical precedent whatsoever for anything even like 10% the scale of this, let alone actually achieving it
3 - There's no indication whatsoever that Suning would be interested
4 - I'm quite surprised at how naive people are acting


If Suning waanted to sell the club, they would have months ago. I have no doubt that, if they were to take on a minority shareholder, they'd want to cash out rather than raise equity (to help manage debts in the various holding companies, rather than to directly take profit, but perhaps also that) - and bringing on a big name as the minority shareholder would make much more difference than a fan collective. You bring in a PE or something they might have the contacts to help you increase sponsorship, etc, and they'll have the money to continue to participte in fundraising if required going forwards.

A fan collective is a disaster for any level of decision making - it's obviously a very different model, but look at something like this:

MyFootballClub - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In general:
1 - People are fickle and will lose interest quickly (bear in mind we'd continually need to raise capital annually just to keep afloat, let alone invest in a new stadium, etc)
2 - People do NOT put their money where their mouth is, when time comes to stump up (I would expect the celebs/business people to be about 100% investmentledge ratio, but depending on the structure, the fans might be as low as 10%)
3 - Grass roots activities on this level of scale seldom work


Like I said, you have my predictions. This wont fail slightly. This will fail majorly - it wont raise 5 or 10% of any useful amount (e.g. to be clear, a useful amount is enough to buy a significant enough stake in the club that Suning would care, so lets call it 300-400mil?)




and then all that, set against the concept of a massive pandemic, many people hit very hard and poorer than they were before, record levels of government debts, etc. It's all just a bit tone deaf, too.

 

[CafeCordoba]

Let's hope it succeeds, let's hope you are miserably wrong.

Because this club indeed needs capital.

 

[.h.]

I hope so too! Predictions arent about what I would like to happen, just what I think will happen.

I'd love to have signed Tonali, Kumbulla, Mancini, Romero, etc etc etc etc. Nothing would have made me happier. But I try to focus on practicalities

 

[brightbackground]

I'd love to have signed Tonali, Kumbulla, Mancini, Romero, etc etc etc etc. Nothing would have made me happier. But I try to focus on practicalities

Funny, because to me that's like the only advantage of being broke; it prevented us from blowing millions on mediocres like Tonali, Kumbulla, Musso, etc. Now at least we get them for free.