Barcelona looking to sell shares in media distribution on US stock market

Barcelona President Joan Laporta has been clear that he will never allow the club to be privately owned, despite mounting debts. However he does not see any issue with other companies owning their assets.

The Blaugrana activated four ‘economic’ levers last summer, selling off 25% of their TV rights for a period of 25 years, and then 49.5% of Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising to two different companies.

The next asset on the chopping block is Barca Media. Financial news outlet have been referenced by Sport, reporting that Barcelona are looking to partner up with Swiss venture capitalist group Mountain Ventures.

Barca Media are in charge of the distribution of Barcelona’s images and content online, distribution of their audiovisual content online, and monetisation of their online content.

Mountain Ventures would enter into a ‘special purpose acquisition company’, which are formed as a proxy business to issue shares ahead of an acquisition. Thus after entering into this partnership, Mountain Ventures and Barcelona would have the opporunity to sell and issue shares on the US stock exchange, or NASDAQ.

The value of this SPAC would be around €1.09b, Mountain Ventures would have 20% of the shares, and Barcelona would control 80%. The Swiss company are currently doing due diligence on Barcelona, but if the partnership is successful, Barca Media would be on the stock exchange by December if things go according to plan.

It appears based on the reports that the current board would not need permission from the members in order to make that kind of decision. However given what a major decision it is, it would make sense if they were to put the matter to a vote as happened with the ecomomic levers. Increasingly, the patrimony of those members decreases.

Image via LLUIS GENE / AFP