According to documents reviewed by Italian magazine Panorama, Suning do not risk losing Inter for free if they fail to repay the €275m loan to Oaktree, as they had protections written in to avoid a repeat of Milan’s plight.
The clock is ticking down for the repayment of the high-interest loan to American fund Oaktree in May 2024.
It had been assumed that the Serie A club was essentially up for repossession in case the loan was not repaid, a similar situation to the one that saw Yonghong Li hand over AC Milan to Elliott Management.
However, Panorama examined the paperwork of the loan agreement and maintain Suning learned from the experience of their city rivals, writing certain protections into the deal.
If Suning do have to hand Inter over to Oaktree, they will nonetheless receive somewhere between €150m and €300m.
This is because the ‘enforcement of the pledge’ part of the contract covered by the laws of Luxembourg includes wording about the ‘fair market value’ of the assets.
Seeing as Inter is worth considerably more than the €275m loan, anything above that sum would need to be paid to Suning by Oaktree to make it a fair trade.
The value of the club would then be decided by an independent appraiser.
Inter is expected to be worth in the region of €1.2-1.3 billion, taking also into account the €750m in debt.
The paperwork also allows for Suning to remain as a minority shareholder at Inter if the club is taken over by Oaktree.
Panorama – Zhang non cederà l'Inter gratis: lo prova un documento https://t.co/4AmeC3OYe2
— Gianluigi Longari (@Glongari) January 11, 2024