October 10 – Financially beleaguered Juventus have reported a loss of €123.7 million for the year ending 30 June 2023, an improvement of more than 50% on the previous year but still a huge deficit that has helped push net financial debt to €399.9 million.
Alongside the losses the club announced a capital increase raising up to €200 million.
The news hammered the club’s stock market price on the Euronext Milan which saw a fall of 8.86% to €0.2572.
The club blamed the losses on “the negative effects on revenues and costs related to the outcomes of Italian and international sports proceedings”.
The club have had a tough year in the sports courts having had to fight losing defences against multiple accusations of financial irregularities over financial irregularities over the sales of players and the treatment of player salaries.
The battles have been lost by Juventus and the war is still not over. Italy’s The Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa (Consob), the government authority responsible for regulating the Italian securities market, opened a new case against the club at the end of July, saying it “had detected some critical issues with reference to the accounting of certain operations and management events relating to (i) the financial statements and the consolidated financial statements as at 30 June 2022 and (ii) the consolidated half-yearly financial statements as at 31 December 2022”.
In a move to help the club find a new financial balance and cope with both operational requirements and help restructure its mounting debt, a capital raise of €200 million was agreed by the Juve board.
Juventus described the money raise as “an equity strengthening manoeuvre, which involves the reduction of the share capital to the legal minimum and its contextual increase, against cash contribution, up to €200 million.”
Juve’s majority owner Exor N.V. (the holding company controlled by the Agnelli family) has said it will support the issue, “undertaking to subscribe its portion of the capital increase, equal to 63.8%”.
Exor also said it would also support future capital increases up to a maximum of €128 million.
Looking at current operations, Juve said: “Based on preliminary estimates as at 30 September 2023, the first-quarter of the financial year is expected to result in a loss exceeding one third of the share capital, fulfilling the requirements of Articles 2446 and 2447 of the Italian Civil Code.”
The financial report will now go for approval at a shareholders’ meeting on November 23.
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