The looming expiry date for repaying the massive loan taken on from US-based fund Oaktree Capital is set to cause Inter owners Suning to lower their asking price for the Nerazzurri.
This according to today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, via FCInterNews, who report that the current owners will essentially be forced into accepting a lower bid than they’ve previously made the asking price as InvestCorp’s interest firms up.
It has been widely reported for some time that while Suning would not consider a sale of Inter to be completely off the table, they would not listen to any offers for the club worth under €1-1.2 billion.
However, according to the Corriere, this could change given the fact that the expiry date for the loan from Oaktree is only getting closer and closer.
That loan, taken on in 2021 to inject operating liquidity into the club, was for €275 million, and with interest Suning will have to repay a total of €375 million.
Should Suning fail to repay this amount before the loan comes due, then control of the Nerazzurri would pass over into the hands of Oaktree, considering that the club had been put up as collateral when the loan was made.
This is an eventuality that Suning would be very keen to avoid, but the possibility of refinancing the loan appears more and more remote given rising interest rates.
Accordingly, the Inter owners could increasingly feel that their best option would be to accept a sale within the next year or so.
In this sense, the only option for Suning could be to go down on their asking price for the club.
In the background there are widespread reports that Bahrain-based fund InvestCorp are getting very serious in their interest in purchasing Inter from Suning.
The fund have been reported to be targeting funds between $545 million and $654 million USD to make an offer, and Suning may have lost a lot of leverage to demand much higher given the situation with the Oaktree Loan.