FC Barcelona | Mark Syria: “Barça is looking for one hundred million to pay salaries”
Mark Syria, financier and partner of Barca, and Ivan Cabeza, economist, professor at the University of Barcelona and also a partner, presented Modigliani in the hall “Barcelona School of Finance” presentation “Financial solutions for FC Barcelona”. It was a demonstration of the economic situation of Barça and the necessary recipes to reverse the crisis, which lasted an hour and in which in an absolutely didactic way they were presented to those who today manage the organization in order to preserve, above all, the ownership model. Not to be confused with the management model, which they warned should be urgently avoided: “Without a vice-president for economics, without a general director and without a corporate chief executive, Barça is unsustainable.”
The speakers’ intention was to provide the club with a formula to avoid being “in the hands of a single lender” such as Goldman Sachs, which they explicitly referred to. To do this, they proposed to “diversify the debt” because “we have an unrivaled opportunity to engineer a debt restructuring that allows us to maintain the ownership model, generate free cash until Spotify Camp Nou is fully operational, and be competitive with the clubs.” “Status in the short to medium term,” explained Mark Syria.
“The current situation in the financial markets in 2024 is optimal for responding and restructuring debt in the short to medium term, avoiding various unaffordable maturities, such as the €568 million due in 2028.”, added. Syria, together with the economist, professor at the University of Barcelona, and partner of the Barça division, Iván Cabeza, presented the first of the solutions of the package of measures for immediate implementation that they propose to the FC Barcelona.
“It is necessary to change the current debt structure by providing a 15-year loan of 800 million euros with a two-year grace period to wait for the full operation of Spotify Camp Nou,” he explained. This first step leads to the second movement: “A new 25-year Spotify Camp Nou bond rated BBB or higher is needed,” Syria added. “It will consist of a €1,450 million issue that will amortize the current (~7%) by reducing interest rates to 3.5%-4%, making the operation viable,” he said.
BLM does not touch
And everything the club does to move forward means the backpack continues to grow, two economists explain. Consequently, they spoke out strongly against a possible sale to BLM: “I hope this never happens. Imagine that I buy 49% of La Masia for 300 million euros. And of the four who will rise to the first team, Balde, Gavi, Lamin and Kubarsi, two are mine, two are yours. It’s the same thing,” Cabeza said.
They also warned, as Syria assured, “since everyone in this world knows that Barça is looking for one hundred million euros to pay wages. This does not correspond to any economic plan.” Mark also warned that “liabilities to financial institutions amount to over one hundred million euros” and that “we are not viable and sustainable today” unless a viability plan like the one they are proposing and which they are prepared to implement is urgently activated. . change and discuss what is needed to save the club.