Economic and finance wise, should we understand PIF more or less as a pure 'sovereign fund'? Just like say Australian Superannuation (Pension) fund? The Arabs are buying 30% Inter just to make some safe investments?
How would Inter benefit from having an Arab sovereign fund as a minority holder? I am asking this because the money might not be 'clean' but in term of long term benefit for Inter, I am wondering does PIF provide Inter something more than just helping Sunning short-term liquidity issue? To put it more bluntly, are we buying Messi?
Actually a great question.
The answer is, we cannot know. It all depends on the reasons for their involvement.
Ignoring all the politics, let's just dissect this and see what the situation can be like with a minority shareholder.
Assuming it will take place, we're talking about a 30% shareholder situation. Perhaps they want more, but we know that Suning wants to transfer that 31% or whatever it is to the guys who will bring fresh liquidity.
If this shareholder wants to complete the transaction eventually, unless there are triggers involved that make them buy out a portion of Suning's cut to eventually make them the major shareholders, then perhaps it is not to their best interest to add a Messi. It would eventually raise the valuation of their investment, meaning that on paper they'll have more (unrealized) but if they want to complete the deal, they'd have to pay more money per share.
If they just want a piece of the action, then they will want someone like Messi. Because they'd be satisfied to have an investment that has increased in value.
The issue is, how do you add the funds needed for a Messi? It's not just the fact that you're part owner makes you able to throw money there.
There are two ways of funding. And a third, indirect road is also available which is more and more common these days in football due to stupid UEFA regulation. That indirect method is through sponsorships, but those are curbed. As is the amount a shareholder may pump to the club with any other of the two methods.
So whomever comes now as a minority shareholder will add needed liquidity. How do you add money to a company?
Well, you can either loan the money, so you get an equity cut (% of the company's shares) for a fee, that goes to the selling shareholder's pocket and then provide the company with say, a 200m loan deal. So you'll be expecting that back. With interest usually. Usually this is also how an LBO (leveraged buy out) works, which is what BC Partners will most likely be going after. So loaning money to the club adds 'assets' on the balance sheet, as cash, but also adds 'liability', as you now have an extra long term debt to compensate for that.
The other way you can do this, is by issuing an increase of share capital. This is usually the most common practice performed by football club owners that want to pump extra money. What this means is that the company had let's say 10,000,000 shares, worth $1,00 each. It needs $2,000,000 right now which it cannot find from elsewhere. The owners then issue this and ask the rest of the shareholders to cover it themselves. They set the share price, but to keep it simple, let's say that they also pretend that the club's valuation has increased, so the price is also set at $1 rather than make it $0.83 plus a couple of extra decimals to keep the valuation at $10m. Usually this means that everyone will chip in their percentage. If you fail to do this, your % of equity will decrease. This is what they call dilution. So if other shareholders are diluted and someone else cover their dues, the % of equity of this person will increase.
So this gives incentive to new potential shareholders to get a piece of the pie. Company gains 'assets', the money, like before. But now what increases is the 'capital'. Assets = Liabilities + Capital. Because the company is essentially a vehicle where an investor puts in the capital and expects it to come back to him. They're both things that the company owes to outsiders.
Combinations are also possible, of course. So you could have someone get in the action by a capital increase and then grant a loan to the company they got a % of.
I'm not exactly sure what the shareholder situation is now and what exactly Suning is after. They wanted to replace Lionrock apparently, but I'm not exactly sure how to uncomplicate things in writing if that's the situation as these rae minority shares exchanging hands in a few words. Lionrock also partly owned Suning Sports, so we can understand that this whole situation becomes even messier.
Lionrock Capital has been with us as a minority shareholder for some time but we do not really know nor hear about any of their actions. They evidently cannot add funds to the company, Suning also has not allowed them to extend their ownership as we have not heard about a sale of shares nor of any share capital increase.
Now, is there incentive for a minority shareholder, apart from a financial perspective, to give money to a football club? Signing Messi for example would require at least an extra $200m on top of our needs. Sure, a fund may do that, get Messi on some sponsorship deals for their own purpose, flash him around, say that they co-own Inter who Messi now plays for and get their money back + interest from this whole charade. While their investment valuation increases. While it will be very hard for them to get the majority stake, assuming Suning sticks around and does the minimum required as shareholder, it will also be near impossible for them to buy back the share they just sold. The minority shareholder will be asking for far more now and it may be uneconomical for the majority shareholder to keep this going, so a new deal may be cut and the minority shareholder, being in a better financial position (outside of Inter) and also have a better project worked out for future cash flows at Inter, may be in a position to, yes, pay more for the remaining %, but face a majority shareholder that cannot keep up with the growth. This is highly unlikely of course in our case provided that Suning is still around and the Chinese do not call for a full divestment, but it's still possible.
Now back to the political part for a final note. I reckon that the Chinese may be more lenient with owning Inter if it bridges them with a sovereign Arab fund. It opens the doors for multiple transactions, but we will now face unprecedented geopolitical risk for Inter, as we will be relying on International Relations between two regions that do not have a direct interest in Italy and if their relationship becomes sour, Inter will be the one to suffer. That's a political risk that Inter will be facing if this goes on. Usually money wins, but when even one of the parties is too ideological, you cannot have a working relationship. Best case scenario would be that one of the two parties 'wins' the Inter battle if it ever goes there. Facing scrutiny by Italy in case they don't like either the Chinese or the Arabs is not something of concern for Inter, we already face enough scrutiny for being Interisti
10 years of FIF
Other countries sell weapon to countries to continue the wars. Why even start getting political about that? 
