Before the end of the year, Fútbol Club Barcelona will take another step in its privatization process that will inevitably lead it to wrest control of the capital from its members -always with their permission- and place it in the hands of large investment funds through companies created to this to be cut up and sold to the highest bidder. A short-term solution to save their accounts, but which will decapitalize the company for the future by outsourcing the club’s most profitable business lines.
In June this year, the Barça board of directors registered three new companies, Sudburylane, Locksley Invest and Bridgeburg Invest. The latter is the great protagonist of the IPO proposed by Barça in the New York Nasdaq index through a spac llamada Mountain & Co, in a complex operation that passes through the Netherlands, where the board of directors has decided to establish the future headquarters of Barça Media -which will be the company listed on the NYSE-, but it will maintain its business activity in Barcelona. It must be taken into account that FC Barcelona is one of the only four clubs in Spain along with Real Madrid, Athletic Club Bilbao and Osasuna that, a priori, cannot be listed on a public market, such as New York. Its capital is in the hands of the partners and not the shareholders. That is the difference, the corporate regime since these clubs have preferred -as they have publicly acknowledged- not to be a public limited company, as the rest are, to avoid being acquired by large fortunes such as those treasured by Arab sheikhs, as has been the case. It happened with other teams like PSG, Manchester City or Newcastle.
Barça will thus follow the steps taken by Ferrovial, which made the change of tax headquarters effective in its case in June and this also meant that its shares on the Stock Exchange changed from Spanish to Dutch nationality. They are also listed on EuroNext Amsterdam, although with derisory trading volumes. But in the search for similarities nothing else remains. The fact that Barça Media establishes its headquarters in the Netherlands, announced yesterday by The countrycould also respond to a particular request from its investors regarding the possible advantages of domiciling there, in a country that is particularly friendly to companies.
For the second step, the stock market debut, FC Barcelona has opted for the fast lane (It is estimated that the process lasts two or three months, compared to six/seven for a traditional IPO) and probably the least clear in terms of information for investors. It will do so through Mountain & Co -advised in Spain by Cuatrecasas-, which is a spac Listed on the Nasdaq since 2021.
The concept of spac It became popular five years ago on Wall Street, although it is now going through its lowest hours after the NYSE regulator, the SEC, has demanded greater transparency and control in its operations. But which is a spac? It could be defined as a empty shell that is listed on the market and that has investors, but that does not have any type of activity. It is a pure and simple financial strategy and they wait for a company that wants to go on the market to take an interest in them. In fact, they are usually thematic and cover several companies.