Shareholders’ meeting at 1.30 pm
Breath in suspense for Sampdoria. Another last attempt will be staged today to try to unblock the transfer of ownership of the Sampdoria club which, after relegation to Serie B, needs to find a buyer to avoid bankruptcy. The extraordinary shareholders’ meeting is scheduled for 1.30 pm from which it is hoped that good news will arrive with thousands of fans who have gathered at Corte Lambruschini, the official headquarters of the company, to make their voices heard.
Negotiation
In the meantime, it’s a matter of course. The patron Massimo Ferrero has in fact rejected the first offer arrived from the consortium made up of Andrea Radrizzani (owner of Leeds United in England) and Matteo Manfredi with the support of QSI (Qatari parent of Paris Saint-Germain) who had agreed with the board of Sampdoria administration but met the opposition of the film entrepreneur. The offer provided for the payment of around 30 million euros, to free Sampdoria from the trust in which Ferrero had inserted it, which holds 55% of the company’s shares.
The question is obviously economic: between supply and demand, a tens of millions would dance. In fact, there is also the issue of the logo leased back from Ferrero’s Sport Spettacolo Holding to Banca Intesa to be resolved. Radrizzani and Manfredi would not like to pay while “il Viperetta” (this is the nickname by which the patron of Sampdoria is known in the cinema environment) would demand a few million euros for what he has already paid. There is actually a solution to get around Ferrero, but it would be an ultima ratio. Article 120bis of the business crisis and insolvency code gives the possibility to carry out a forced capital increase with the approval of the Court. A road which, however, would carry the real risk of legal disputes.
Salaries to pay
All this collides with the very tight deadlines of the deal. The club has been in financial difficulty for months and the players have faced the whole season with late payments and unpaid months. By tonight, however, to avoid four penalty points, 13.5 million must be paid, which represents the first quarter of federal salaries for 2023. A solution had been found: Samp would use the advance from the Serie B parachute supplemented by a “bridge” loan from a bank. And here we return to the bomb on the sale of the club. Before opening the coffers, the bank asks for guarantees on the arrival of an investor willing to put liquidity into Sampdoria’s coffers. And without Ferrero’s go-ahead, that guarantee doesn’t exist today. Radrizzani himself seems willing to advance part of the liquidity, but evidently before exposing himself he wants to have some certainties on the deal.
The shareholder Barnabas
Also present at the meeting – as a small shareholder Alessandro Barnaba, the Roman financier ex Jp Morgan e founder of the Merlyn Advisors fund who has already tried to take on Sampdoria: “We’ve been working on this operation for six months, I don’t know the details of the new offer… if it’s a serious and solid project we’ll vote in favour, if it doesn’t go ahead we’ll continue to monitor the situation”.