Featured image credit: Valencia CF
Spanish LaLiga football club Valencia CF has engaged US investment banking company Goldman Sachs to raise around €120m (£101.3m/$132.4m), as it aims to get its long-delayed Nou Mestalla project back on course.
First reported by El Confidencial, and reported by multiple other Spanish news outlets, Goldman launched an operation to seek out investors on September 3, with a selection of partner or partners set to be made at the end of the month. Valencia is said to be carrying debt of around €300m, a large proportion of which is required to be repaid in just over 18 months.
Valencia is also seeking to refinance debt through the new investment, with its main creditors including CaixaBank and entities connected to the club’s main shareholder, Singaporean businessman Peter Lim.
However, the club’s stadium situation is also at the forefront of these plans. In July, Valencia announced that it had received the green light from the city council to resume work on its Nou Mestalla project.
The city council received the required building permit for the Cortes Valencianas plot of land, which the club said represented the “first necessary milestone” for the construction work on the project to resume.
Valencia is working with the project’s construction company and architecture firm to restart on-site within the next six months, with an execution masterplan needing to be presented to the city council by October 12.
In May, Valencia claimed a breakthrough for the project with the sale of land on the stadium site, while it also engaged Legends to assist in enhancing the fan experience offering at the future venue.
Construction work on the Nou Mestalla was suspended in February 2009 and the venue has since become one of the world’s most notorious stadium projects. However, Valencia in May said it had reached an agreement with Atitlan Desarrollos Inmobiliarios, a subsidiary of investment firm Grupo Atitlan, for the sale of land attached to the Nou Mestalla.
The deal was worth in the range of €30m to €40m, according to Spanish media reports, with the funds set to be diverted to the stadium project. Área Desarrollo, a subsidiary of Grupo Simetría, will participate in the execution phase of a development scheme that intends to deliver two tower blocks on the 40,000 square metres of land that would house a hotel, offices and commercial premises, in turn providing more pedestrian traffic to the stadium, delivering on the vision of having a facility that is of use 365 days a year.
In June 2022, Valencia publicly presented revised plans for the Nou Mestalla, including revised capacity figures that will see the stadium delivered to a 70,000 capacity, but initially limited to 49,000. The club said at the time it was hoping to restart construction work in October 2022, but conceded that the delivery date for the Nou Mestalla was likely to slip.
The long-running impasse over the project has also seemingly cost Valencia, and the Nou Mestalla, a place in Spain’s hosting plan for the 2030 FIFA World Cup. In July, the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) announced its 11 proposed stadiums for the World Cup, with the Nou Mestalla among the venues that did not make the cut.
Spain is set to co-host the World Cup alongside Portugal and Morocco, with Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay also set to stage “celebratory” matches during the tournament. The RFEF announced a 15-venue shortlist in July 2022, which has now been whittled down to 11.
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