http://www.arsenalnews.net/
Arsenal renegotiating £133m loan
2009-09-19 00:26:49
Arsenal chairman
Peter Hill-Wood
Arsenal are poised to ease some of their immediate financial pressures by successfully renegotiating the £133 million loan for the redevelopment of Highbury.
Although the final deadline to the banks is not until next April, the initial expectation had been to repay the loan this year.
That aim, however, was dropped from the most recent set of accounts, with the club unable to generate the expected revenue within that timescale amid a downturn in the property and lending markets.
While the final amount to be repaid is likely to be higher, the willingness of the banks to change the loan conditions indicates confidence in the club’s long-term fiscal health.
Although about 600 of the 655 Highbury Square apartments are contracted to be sold, the financial climate slowed the speed at which purchases have been completed. An update will be provided in the club’s full accounts for the year 2008-09, which are due to be released by the end of the month, and are likely to include confirmation that the Highbury Square loan has already been renegotiated.
Arsenal have stressed that the two sides of the business are financed independently of each other and, amid high hopes of considerable profits, they now regard the worse-case scenario as breaking even.
In an interview for the book Arsenal: The Making of a Modern Super-Club, chairman Peter Hill-Wood admitted the prevailing economic conditions had taken the club by surprise.
“It’s a wonderful development and it’ll sell like crazy one day, but we’re in 2009,” he said.
“Sitting here today if we had sold the whole thing three or four years ago and taken a one-off payment of X million that would look very clever. When we decided not to do that we looked at all the downsides other than the current downside.”
Супер е ова 133 милиони !!! фала хајбери хахаха !!!сеа у зимичево да го донесе Чамак !!!! Моја желба е Акинфеев !!! ништо невозможно !!!! Позз