Barcelona has announced that it has refinanced around 40% of its debt from the Espai Barça project. The Blaugrana will now repay this entire part of the debt by 2050.
A recurring theme during president Joan Laporta’s second term has been the refinancing of debt and the deferral of costs, after the club’s financial crisis was exacerbated by the pandemic. Barcelona has between 1 and 1.5 billion euros in debt, which has mostly been converted into long-term debt. In addition, there are the costs of the renovation of Camp Nou and Espai Barça, which increase the total debt to around 3 billion euros. The total Espai Barça project, including the renovation of Camp Nou, has a budgeted cost of 1.45 billion euros.
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Barcelona issues bonds worth 424 million euros
On Friday afternoon, just three days before the end of the financial year, Barcelona announced that it has issued bonds worth 424 million euros in collaboration with Goldman Sachs. This corresponds to approximately 40% of the debt from the Espai Barça project, which includes the development of the area around Camp Nou.
The agreement means that Barcelona will start repaying the bonds in 2033 and complete the repayment by 2050. The club states that the average cost of the refinancing is 5.19%. This equates to around 22 million euros in interest costs annually. Bonds are essentially a legal agreement that guarantees repayment over an agreed period of time.
Barcelona buys time
The debt was originally supposed to be repaid by 2028, and although this solution entails interest costs, it gives the current management more time to deal with the repayment. Since Camp Nou is expected to be at least ten months late and probably won’t be completed until 2027, this gives Barcelona the opportunity to get one of its biggest sources of income up and running again. Nevertheless, opponents of Laporta have expressed concern about the club’s growing debt, claiming that the club is still in a financially unstable situation
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