US owner of Square Tallaght shopping centre set to buy into Inter Milan
Romelu Lukaku in August 2019 on his signing by Inter Milan.
US fund giant Oaktree Capital – best known here as the owner of The Square Tallaght shopping centre and purchaser of soured loans from the main Irish banks – is set to buy a minority stake in Inter Milan as part of a €275m deal aimed at shoring up the Italian soccer team’s troubled finances.
The fund is close to buying about 30% of Inter owned by the Hong Kong-based private equity firm LionRock and to provide a much-needed loan to the team.
The move could eventually lead Oaktree to take full control of the team from its Chinese owner, the conglomerate Suning Holdings. Pressure is mounting on Inter Milan to shore up its finances following the collapse of the Super League project, which held the promise of injecting more than €300m of cash into the Italian team.
The club has failed to pay regular salaries to its players in recent months and has also asked players to give up of a part of their annual salary.
Oaktree has been active from the early days of the financial crash 10 years ago in buying non-performing loans from the main Irish lenders.
Its former affiliate Mars Capital continues to be active in dealing with distressed Irish loan debt.
In more recent times, Oaktree bought The Square shopping centre in Tallaght for €250m after acquiring the loans from Nama and is involved with developer Johnny Ronan in the Irish Glass Battle site in Dublin.
Inter Milan's rival AC Milan is also controlled by a US investment fund, Elliott Management. The two Milanese teams were part of plans last month by 12 teams across Europe that within a day of its launch fell apart, amid a huge uproar.
Backed by Wall Street giant JP Morgan, its proponents said the Covid crisis had exposed the finances of European soccer.
• Irish Examiner and Bloomberg
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