DLA Piper advises investors on a €125m financing deal with Real Betis

DLA Piper has advised a group of international investors on a €125 million long-term financing for Real Betis Balompié, a deal structured and led by Goldman Sachs.

The senior secured financing has allowed Real Betis to completely refinance its previous indebtedness, providing it with additional resources to meet its ordinary working capital and other expected corporate needs. The agreement provides for a 3-year principal grace period and an average maturity of around 8 years, with a bullet payment at maturity of 50% of the nominal amount of the debt.

The debt issuance was led by Goldman Sachs and was carried out in the capital markets, specifically in the United States Private Placement (USPP). This market is made up of top-tier professional investors in terms of volume and institutional reputation, mainly insurance companies and benchmark pension funds, all of which were advised by DLA Piper in the context of this financing operation.

Previously, the firm advised the Pricoa fund on the EUR 65 million financing of Real Betis Balompié, as well as several institutional investors on the EUR 108 million refinancing of Sevilla FC, and on the EUR 1.45 billion financing for the refurbishment of Camp Nou, the headquarters of FC Barcelona, whose investors included Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

DLA Piper’s multi-jurisdictional team was led in Spain by Jesús Zapata, managing partner and partner in the Finance department, together with Alberto Rubio, senior associate, and Sara Espina, associate in the same department, all of them members of the local Sports Finance team. Also with the collaboration of other departments such as Tax, Litigation, IPT and Capital Markets, with the intervention of María Alonso, Javier Vicente, Diego Ramos, Ignacio Osorio, Andrés Lorrio and Santiago Hierro.

The advice, subject to English law, was coordinated from the London office by Paul Gray, partner in charge of Sports Finance. Together with a team comprising, among others, Lewis Gaut and Charlotte Lewis-Williams, both Finance partners specialising in sports finance.

Jesús Zapata said: “This is a new transaction that allows us to continue working with Goldman Sachs and other sophisticated international investors in structuring financings in continental football, a particularly complex and growing sector. It is a further demonstration (after the many transactions we have advised on in recent years) that our team is a leader in the Sports Finance sector at a national and European level, demonstrating our enormous capacity to provide our clients with a multi-jurisdictional and cross-practice team, which allows us to combine an international approach without neglecting the particularities that Spain presents in sports-related financings”.