In recent days, AC Milan has announced important news for the future of the Milan club. In an official press release published on December 20, the Rossoneri specified that RedBird Capital – the fund led by Gerry Cardinale, who has managed AC Milan since 2022 – carried out a refinancing operation of the loan granted by the selling company to the acquiring company. This is the agreement concluded with the Elliott fund, the former owner of AC Milan, as part of the transaction which brought RedBird to control the Lombard team for a sum of 1.16 billion dinars. euros. Gerry Cardinale paid Elliott 600 million euros and financed the remaining part – 560 million euros – with resources made available by the seller (Elliott precisely) with an interest rate of around 7%. Now, thanks to this refinancing carried out 8 months before the August 2025 deadline, RedBird has paid an additional 170 million, thus bringing the investment in Milan to 770 million euros. To this amount, we must add the 55 million euros paid by the shareholder to support the San Donato Milanese stadium project, for a total which exceeds 800 million euros. At the same time, the principal amount of the loan was reduced to 489 million, with a new maturity set for July 2028.
But what does this operation mean for Milan and for the owners? Based on the facts, RedBird anticipated the expiration of the seller’s loan, extending the loan for another three years, a sign of the desire for a long-term commitment with the Rossoneri club. The timing with which the operation was closed highlights the differences compared to what happened with Oaktree’s 275 million loan to Steven Zhang for the management of Inter or with Milan themselves at the era of Yonghong Li, a Chinese businessman who was forced to abdicate after being unable to repay the loan provided by the Elliott fund. A theme recently returned to by AC Milan President and CEO Giorgio Furlani, who spoke during a masterclass at Harvard Business School, analyzed this dark period for the Rossoneri: “By July 2018, Li had completely stopped investing money in the club. Defaulting on his loan, Elliott took over the club from the Rossoneri. To say that Milan was poorly managed is offensive to poorly managed companies: it was not managed at all”
Looking for Arab investors
Gerry Cardinale therefore bought time and extended the deadline until August 2025 to allow RedBird to focus forcefully on the new stadium project. The year 2025 will be important in this matter, during which it will be understood whether the option of a new San Siro with Inter will really be viable or if all efforts will be focused on San Donato, where the owners have already invested 55 million euros, by purchasing the land on which to possibly build the structure and strengthening the company’s assets. The simultaneous change of ownership of Inter from Steven Zhang to Oaktree also allows the American businessman to be able to count on an economically more solid partner if the project of a new San Siro were to be chosen for the future. By following this route, the costs of the investment would effectively be halved, revenues would remain unchanged compared to investing in two separate stadiums and both teams could remain in the iconic district, thus avoiding moving outside of Milan. In addition to the stadium project, which, if approved, would give a significant increase to the value of Milan, possibly allowing RedBird to be able to evaluate a future sale of the club at figures significantly higher than those of the purchase, the refinancing The loan also opens the door to the possible entry of minority shareholders.
If Cardinale decided to sell the club for an amount equal to the residual debt, i.e. the 489 million mentioned in the official press release, he would still retain control of Milan, but would thus be able to count on an actively more involved partner than a simple creditor, role currently occupied by Elliott. An option that Cardinale mentioned in an interview given in February to Football and Finance : “Currently, there is a lot of capital in the Middle East interested in investing in sports and we are open to collaborating with potential partners who could join us. Both as a sponsor and partner in the construction of the new stadium, or as minority shareholders as true value-added partners, but as I said, I will not give up control“. Two years after joining Milan, Cardinale confirmed his commitment to the Rossoneri club and the centrality of the new stadium in his long-term project. The owner’s hope is that things also start to work on the pitch, given that qualification for the Champions League still remains a primary objective to consolidate the level reached by Milan in recent years in terms of sport and positioning of brand.
