The difference of 148.5 million euros between the 519 that Sixth Street paid and the 667.5 that appear in Barça’s accounts is explained by the money that the club itself invested through a capital increase, which they allowed the impact of the operation on the accounting result to be higher. But Barça’s financial situation forced them to request a loan to be able to carry it out. According to ARA, the interest on this financing is around 6%, which could mean an additional cost of between 60 and 80 million in total, taking into account the nature of these operations, in which the time it takes to return the money is detrimental to the final financial cost.
To manage these television rights, Barça and Sixth Street created a third company, Locksley Invest SL, a maneuver that served to ensure that the auditor would validate that the income was fully accounted for. On the other hand, if this third company had not been created there would have been a danger that the auditor would only let the proportional part of the income be calculated for each of the 25 years of the sale.
The transaction with Sixth Street may generate interest worth an additional 100 million
On the other hand, Barça, as a partner of the company, will have to pay part of the VAT for the creation of Locksley Invest, which will have another added cost for the Barça entity. The other side will be taken over by Sixth Street. The club has also not been able to cover this expense through its treasury and the solution has been to request another loan from Banco Santander. Thus, between the cost of the capital increase and the cost derived from VAT, Barça could approach the 100 million euros earmarked for financial interests derived from an unprecedented sale of assets.
In order to be able to sell the second tranche of 15% of the television rights to Sixth Street, the Catalan entity first had to repay 100 million of the debt it has with Goldman Sachs, since the 595 million loan that this investment fund left at Barça during the summer of 2021 was guaranteed precisely with 90% of the television rights of the Barcelona club.
Thebes does not approve
This operation, however, did not go as well as Laporta’s board had hoped. The reason is that Javier Tebas’ League did not accept that the 148.5 million euros invested by Barça in the operation counted towards solving the problem of fair play financial The consequence of this is that the club had to activate two more levers, the sale of 24.5% of Barça Studios to Socios.com and another 24.5% to Orpheus Media, owned by the Catalan businessman Jaume Roures. In total, for this operation of 49% of the audiovisual production company, Barça paid 200 million, which was still not enough even to register the already signed Jules Kounde.
Locksley Invest, presidida per Sixth Street
Locksley Invest was created on January 11 this year and, since July, has a share capital of 6.2 million euros and is chaired by Robert Salvatore Sberlati Jr., chosen by Sixth Street. The American fund also has Martin Paul Galliver and Álvaro Baena on the company’s board of directors. On the Blaugrana side, two representatives appear: the executive president, Joan Laporta, and the treasurer, Ferran Olivé, who has gained weight at the club since the departure of general manager Ferran Reverter. Both are part of it as advisors. With the sale of 25% of the television rights each year, Barça will no longer receive 41 million euros, which it will have to find a way to achieve through other business channels.
