MILAN – Here we are, today by 6.30pmif there are no sensational surprises, Inter will move from Suning to Oaktree Capital Management. By the aperitif time, i.e. when the offices in Luxembourg, headquarters of the holding companies with which Suning check Inter’s odds, if Steven Zhang he will not have found a way to repay the American fund of 385 million due, the Nerazzurri club will lose. Without money, in fact, Oaktree will immediately start the procedure for enforcing the pledge, established in the documents signed by the two parties on May 20, 2021 (official communication tomorrow). In those documents, clear for three years and never discussed again by Zhang despite the obvious and obvious difficulties in finding a way to repay the loan, it was written that the loan was not “guaranteed by Inter or by any assets of the Nerazzurri club and its subsidiaries”but “partly from a pledge of shares in Great Horizon sarl, Grand Sunshine sarl, Grand Tower and International Sports Capital spa”. The first three companies, under Luxembourg law, are part of the control chain of 68.55% of the Nerazzurri club created by Suning; while International Sports Capital spa is the holding company that holds 31.05% of Inter’s shares and which refers to LionRock.
Zhang is desperate, Oaktree is not moved: this is what is happening now at Inter
Inter at Oaktree
So, Oaktree will take over the 99.6% of the shares, the remainder belongs to small shareholders. Only with the arrival of the money will this procedure not be activated. No extensions are foreseen: Zhang did not ask for it because due to his status as a “debt collector” he obviously does not have the requirements to do so, but also because he probably would not have obtained it from Oaktree after Saturday’s accusatory letter. Considering that the way to have a new loan from Pimco has vanished in recent days – if it really existed (yesterday Bloomberg raised doubts) – the only chance that Zhang has to save himself is if in the last few hours, in particular his father Jindong, has obtained help from the Chinese government. However, a remote hypothesis, also considering the 320 million debt of Steven Zhang himself at home towards China Construction Bank, a state-controlled credit institution.
