Italian Journalist Marco Bellinazzo: “Suning Would Sell Inter If €900 Million Offer Arrived”

Inter’s owners Suning would have a vested interested in selling the club if received an offer just shy of the €1 billion mark, according to football finance expert Marco Bellinazzo.

For a number of weeks now, there has been talk of the Chinese retail giant potentially selling a minority or perhaps even majority stake in Inter – with three private equity funds, most notably BC Partners, thought to be interested – where they have been the majority shareholders since purchasing a 68.5% stake in 2016.

The Nerazzurri are facing financial difficulties at the moment and the problems are not only limited to Inter but also Suning’s other club Jiangsu FC.

“There are problems with paying salaries even at Jiangsu,” Bellinazzo began as he spoke to Italian radio station Radio 24 today.

“What adds to Suning’s crisis is the need to make ends meet while also obeying the new restrictions from the Chinese government.

“Suning are considering selling part of Inter but it depends on the offers that will arrive.”

Bellinazzo then went on to share his beliefs about Inter as a club and explained how a fund could potentially invest into Inter.

“Inter are a club that is on the up again and has unfulfilled potential; even a minority stake could be interesting to investors so that they could buy it cheaply and resell it.

“Funds are full of liquidity unlike companies.

“With funds everything happens quickly; you start talking about a minority stake and then we go from €500 million to €1 billion and then suddenly they take all the company.

“The fund may have a speculative perspective.”

Bellinazzo then discussed Suning’s stance on everything at the moment as far as a sale is concerned.

“It is then necessary to understand if Suning wants to remain as a partner or wants to sell everything.

“Now, Suning have a vested interest in saying goodbye if an offer of €900 million should arrive.”

In conclusion he discussed the issue of Inter’s salaries, which have not been paid for the last two months, as well as the January transfer window, which has been a very quiet one for Inter.

“There will be no problems with salaries, the injection of new capital with the funds will arrive at the end of January.

“Suning do not want the transfer market to create an additional financial burden but if there were opportunities to trade, Inter will be ready.”