New owners The Friedkin Group have refinanced the debt on the new stadium in a deal that should make it cheaper and easier to service - saving the club money on what had been significant interest rates
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| Everton Football club Bramley Moore Dock Stadium in the snow. Photo by Colin Lane |
Everton have agreed a new financing package for the club’s landmark stadium. The Blues have secured a long-term, £350m funding deal that rearranges the lending already in place on the waterfront venue.
The move means the remaining debt has been simplified from complex, expensive arrangements that were a hangover from the Farhad Moshiri era, to a more manageable structure on lower interest rates that could save the club vast sums year-on-year.
It means the debt will be cheaper, easier and more efficient to service and is the latest example of the work behind the scenes to strengthen the foundations of the club since new owners The Friedkin Group took control in December.
The funding has been agreed with a consortium of what the club described as “blue-chip institutional lenders” and was the result of a search that inspired competition to work with the Blues.
The final years of Moshiri’s reign were dogged by financial uncertainty and funding concerns as the former owner worked through multiple failed efforts to sell the club. During that period, while work on the stadium continued it left the club signed up to a variety of expensive loan agreements, often at high interest rates and with less well-known lenders.
TFG took over the club with an expectation their track record and resources would enable them to consolidate the debt and refinance it on better terms and with reputable institutions - something achieved through this deal, which the ECHO understands is a decades-long agreement. It was reported earlier this year they had engaged New York-based banking giant JP Morgan Chase & Co to help facilitate a deal with new lenders.
It is another major step forward for the iconic ground that will become Everton’s new home in the summer. The project, valued at around £760m with ancillary works, opened to supporters for the first time last month when 10,000 fans watched the club’s Under-18s in a friendly with Wigan Athletic. That was the first of three test events required to help the venue earn its safety certificate. The second will see the U21s in action in front of 25,000 supporters later this month.
- Joe Thomas
