It was presumptuous to think that Investcorp would complete the purchase of AC Milan in such a short span of time, according to one expert.
Alessandro Giudice – a journalist for Corriere dello Sport and finance expert – spoke to Carlo Pellegatti’s YouTube channel about the current situation regarding the sale and confirmed that the times will be a bit slower than many sources were reporting.
“I wrote it on the first day, a one billion and one hundred million operation seemed a bit excessive for Investcorp, because they are a fund that has never carried out operations of that kind,” he said (via SempreMilan.it).
“They have done operations of 100-200 million, and it is not the same thing to do such an operation, even as a financial structure. However, it was said, still in the field of assumptions, that Investcorp has Mubadala, the Abu Dhabi fund behind them and perhaps they had their backs covered.
“The truth is that Investcorp is a fund, unlike Elliott, which does not pay first and then goes to look for [how to fund] the operation, but thinks with a somewhat different logic. They find the operations and then have a series of contacts and they find the investors because they have enormous credibility with Middle Eastern families.
“But they still have to build the financial structure. I believe they are dealing in a non-trivial operation. I think the triumphalism was excessive, the rush to say ‘all done’. Operations of this type are not done in a week to fifteen days. Perhaps it will take another month, two, to understand if one or the other will succeed.”
Investcorp may face a race against time to get the deal over the line though, because MilanNews are among the sources to report that RedBird are attempting a hijack on their takeover bid.
The Bahrain-based fund are now beyond the month of exclusivity granted, and they have proposed a financial structure to buy Milan that does not completely convince Elliott, whereas RedBird appear to have put forward better terms.