Real Madrid’s socios nearly unanimously approved the club’s budget on Nov. 23. President Florentino Pérez clarified plans to set aside 5% of equity for a subsidiary to attract private investors, emphasising the club will remain soci-owned and not become a listed company.
By the look of things, Florentino Pérez has the wind at his back. Meeting on Nov. 23, Real Madrid’s owners, the so-called socios, were nearly unanimous in their support for the budget and other points proposed on the general assembly’s agenda. And, as Palco23 reports, the club’s President clarified in his speech for the occasion his plan for the Real Madrid’s probable change in corporate structure.
Pérez is proposing that the club set aside not 10 – the high end mentioned in previous reports – but 5 percent of its equity to establish a subsidiary and sell shares in it to private investors. Whatever size the subsidiary, though, Real Madrid is not to become listed company.
“The sole objective is to shield the club from external attacks,” he said, “and give it a proper valuation. I’ve spent many years explaining that we have enemies who would like to secure our patrimony for themselves. It is my duty to ask the socios to shield what we’ve acquired. The conclusion is clear: Real Madrid is a club of socios, but we must establish a subsidiary that we socios would be the owners of, and we shall incorporate a minority subsidiary, of 5 percent or so, in order to set a value on the club. We do not seek a stock listing.”
