Goldman Sachs to the rescue of Nou Mestalla

Image: Valencia CF

The LaLiga team Valencia C.F. has called in the investment bank Goldman Sachs to raise €120 million as the club looks to reschedule its debt and get a steady flow of funds to complete the redecoration of its partially built new home ground – the Nou Mestalla in Valencia, Spain – 15 years after construction work got halted.

‘INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL’ stated that the club is looking to refinance the debt it has with the CaixaBank and its largest shareholder, Peter Lim (Singaporean business magnate and stockbroker).

The Valencia C.F. – or simply Valencia – is a Spanish professional football club based in Valencia, Spain, which currently plays in LaLiga, the top flight of the Spanish football league system.

The Mestalla Stadium is a football stadium in Valencia, Spain. The stadium is the home of Valencia and has a capacity to hold 49,430 spectators making it the eighth-largest stadium in Spain and the largest in the Valencian community.

The 50,000-capacity Nou Mestalla is a partially built football stadium in Valencia, Spain, intended as a replacement for Valencia’s current home ground, the Mestalla Stadium. The basic concrete structure of the stadium was built between August 2007 and February 2009 but work was then halted for financial reasons. The design was revised in 2013 with a reduced capacity.

Founded in 1869, the Goldman Sachs is a leading global investment banking, securities and investment management firm. Headquartered in New York (US) they maintain offices in all major financial centers around the world.

The CaixaBank, S.A., formerly Criteria CaixaCorp, is a Spanish multinational financial services company. The CaixaBank is based in Valencia with operative offices in Barcelona and Madrid. It is Spain’s third-largest lender by market value after the Spanish multinational financial services companies Banco Santander and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA).

‘INSIDE WORLD FOOTBALL’ further stated that Goldman Sachs has begun marketing the opportunity and is expected to have proposals secured by the end of the month.

Valencia in the 2019-2020 financial year reported revenue of €172 million but in the COVID-impacted 2020-2021 seasons the revenue dropped to €108 million.

The club’s debt was reduced by 13 percent in the 2022-2023 seasons but still stands at an uncomfortable €297 million though the 2023-2024 seasons figures have not been reported.

Construction work on the Mestalla Stadium was suspended in February 2009 but this July a license was granted to restart building work which is expected to commence before the year end.

In May, the club sold the commercial land adjacent to their new stadium – the Nou Mestalla – for €30 million to the Atitlan Real Estate Developments SL, a subsidiary of Grupo Atitlán (an investment group focused mainly on Spain and Portugal). The fresh fund triggered the process of restarting the stadium work.

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