“Damage for 100 million” – Corriere.it

The Guardia di Finanza showed up yesterday in the offices of some professionals who have oversaw the sale of AC Milan from Elliott fund to Gerry Cardinale’s RedBird which took place in August for 1.2 billion, acquiring the documentation: the club is not involved. The investigation is promoted by the Milan prosecutor’s office, currently against unknown persons, for embezzlement on the basis of a complaint by the former minority shareholder Blue Skye, the Luxembourg company of Salvatore Cerchione and Gianluca D’Avanzo. The story is known, it had already been brought to the courts of New York and Luxembourg, it had resulted in a civil lawsuit in Milan (but Blue Skye then renounced the emergency precautionary appeal as the sale of Milan had already been finalized) and now it arrives in this complaint presented on October 20, in which Blue Skye complains of “a loss of guarantee on the loan for over 100 million”. Exposition in which we speak of «opacity» in corporate passages.

Blue Skye crosses his paths with Milan in 2017 at the time of the purchase of the Chinese Yonghong Li. The Rossoneri Sport company, to buy Milan in 2017, asked for a loan from Elliott, who set up, together with BlueSkye (4.27%), the vehicle company Project Redblack, which finances the Chinese, who, as a guarantee, gives the shares of AC Milan in pledge. A pledge which, as we know, is then enforced by Project Redblack.

The problems emerge, according to Cerchione and D’Avanzo, at the time of the sale to RedBird, because Elliott did not include the “release of the pledge” in the board of directors and sold without holding an auction which would have allowed him to earn more. To acquire its 4.27%, in turn BlueSkye had asked for funding from the Arena fund, whose CEO Dan Zwirn instead supports Elliott and said that the sale of Milan “was not a secret and that anyone who wanted to pay more would have been able to contact us”. Elliott, for his part, recalls the position already expressed. «Following the announcement of the sale of AC Milan to RedBird, Blue Skye initiated a series of frivolous and vexatious litigation in Luxembourg and New York, which Elliott and co-investor Arena Investors see as nothing more than an attempt to extract value to which Blue Skye has no right.”