Barça refinances 40% of the debt for the new Camp Nou

BarcelonaBarça announced this Friday that it has closed a bond issue worth 424 million euros, allowing it to refinance 40% of the debt related to the Espai Barça before the return of the men's first team. to the Camp Nou on August 10 to compete in the Joan Gamper Trophy. With the participation of Goldman Sachs, which is handling the transaction from the investors' point of view, Barça has converted, through the same existing financial structure, a total of €424 million of debt used for the construction of the new stadium, which had an initial maturity in 2028, into a new structure that will begin to be repaid in 2033 and will be fully paid off in 2050.

Thus, the Barcelona club, As ARA explained in May, has confirmed the impossibility of repaying the financing for the new Camp Nou within the parameters established until now. Barça and Goldman Sachs had been making moves to refinance the operation for some time because the club could not meet the loan maturities of the coming years (approximately 800 million before 2028) as planned. The figure resulted from the bonds (122.5 million for the first maturity of the operation), interest, and bridge loans. This forecast was already inappropriate because the work on the asset that should allow repayment of the financing for the Espai Barça, the remodeled Camp Nou, They are almost a year late.

2028 was the first major hurdle to emerge in the previous financing for Espai Barça, but more dates appeared later. Barça was due to repay 246.5 million in bonds in 2030, and 266.5 million in 2032. That is, between 2028 and 2032, Barça was due to repay a total of 635.5 million of the Espai Barça bond issue (excluding interest).

A good interest rate for Barça

The option to refinance part of Espai Barça's debt was included in the same financing, and the interest on the refinanced amount, according to Barça, amounts to 5.19%. "It's a good percentage for Barça," say industry sources consulted by ARA. In the first financing, the interest rate on some bonds exceeded 7%. In any case, They point out that these interests will not be accrued as until now. and will have to begin to be amortized. "This transaction demonstrates the strong demand that Barça is capable of generating among financial investors, as well as the positive trend in the entity's economic condition, reducing the risk premium to almost half of the initial transaction issued in 2023," says the Barça statement. The Blaugrana club also maintains that "the closing of this transaction is further evidence of the statement recently issued by the Morningstar DBRS rating agency, which confirms the evolution of the rating from stable to positive."

"This fact [the evolution from stable to positive] has an influence on the price to be paid for the debt. That is, the refinancing is still obtained, but with a somewhat more favorable rating. Furthermore, it is obtained at a slightly lower price and with a broader catalog of buyers." recently told in the ARA A financier close to Barça spoke about the benefits of this change in Barça's rating in relation to the refinancing of the Espai Barça that was being negotiated.

An operation aimed at refinancing

On the other hand, a person involved in the refinancing of the Espai Barça recently told this newspaper that "the operation [of financing the new Camp Nou], from the outset, was not designed to repay the money, it was designed to be refinanced." He argued this: "It is an operation totally linked to the stadium's income, and Barça cannot pay for it with its treasury in the current situation. Therefore, if the stadium works are delayed, there must be a postponement."

Barça announced in April 2023 the closing of the financing of the Espai Barça. This operation was carried out with a total of 20 investors and for a value of €1.45 billion. In this context, the financial structure that was initially closed has different tranches of 5, 7, 9, 20, and 24 years, refinanceable and with a flexible structure, which includes a grace period. The club will begin paying for the operation once the stadium works are completed, using the income generated by the new Camp Nou.