Paraphrasing Companys (and by extension Guardiola) on the balcony of the Generalitat: the . FC Barcelona announced yesterday afternoon that it has signed the final documents with the investors who will finance the construction of the new Spotify Camp Nou and the rest of the Espai Barça. As La Vanguardia announced, it will be 1.45 billion that will finally leave the investors gathered by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. 900 of these millions will be for Barça’s new home.
The financing will be done with a flexible structure by “20 of the financial entities of international prestige”, according to the club’s official press release. Barcelona, ​​which received a BBB rating from investors, will have to repay the loan over 24 years.
Not all the money will arrive immediately or have to be returned at once. The contract has been made in variable sections of 5, 7, 9, 20 and 24 years. At the moment, the interest that Barça will pay will be close to 6%, but the club has reserved the possibility and trusts to be able to lower this type of interest in the future.
Of course, the Barcelona club will have a shortfall until the new stadium is completely finished in the summer of 2026. This means that the club will finish paying for the new stadium in 2050.
Of the money obtained, Barcelona will have to use the first 200 to pay back the bridging loan that Goldman Sachs provided shortly after Joan Laporta became president of the club.
In its statement, the entity highlights that among the 20 investors there are “reference partners” such as the aforementioned Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan, but it also cites investors such as JLL, Pérez-Llorca, DLA Piper, Key Capital Partners, Legends and IPG 360.
It was the trustees’ meeting on October 23, 2021 that gave permission to the board of directors to seek financing for the construction of Espai Barça, which includes the new stadium, the future Palau Blaugrana and the arrangement of the surroundings of the Barcelona facilities in the Corts district. Two months later, in December, there was a telematic referendum in which the members also supported the initiative to get the necessary money.
Subsequently, after more than a year of negotiations, the board approved the main lines of the agreement on March 30, although the club gave itself one more month to try to improve as much as possible the conditions
It should be remembered that Barça always insisted on putting as the only guarantees for investors the future income that will be achieved when the new stadium is already operating at full capacity. The calculation is that 247 million are entered annually.
The Turkish construction company Limak will be in charge of the works. The cranes will arrive at the site this summer. And Barça’s first team will play the entire next season, 2023-2024 – already starting with the Joan Gamper trophy -, and the initial part of 2024-2025 (until November, as Limak guarantees), at the Olympic stadium LluÃs Companys in Montjuïc. The usual Camp Nou has four games left.
