Oaktree he took all of Inter. The American fund, in fact, also took over the 31% belonging to LionRock, a Hong Kong fund that entered Inter five years ago, in 2019, taking over the shares previously owned by Erik Thohir, the Indonesian broker who owned Inter before the move to Suning. But who is LionRock? Who’s behind it? What is his value at Inter? All questions that he asked himself Corriere dello Sport.
The newspaper presents the LionRock fund like this: “LR entered Inter in February 2019, purchasing for 150 million the remaining shares still in the hands of Erik Thohir, the Indonesian financier who had purchased Inter from Moratti and then sold it to Suning. he did by taking over, through a vehicle, Thohir’s Italian company, International Sports Capital SpA (ISC) with 31% of Inter in it, a typical fund instrument, but this is based in the Caymans: not the greatest transparency. because for the EU they were on the black list from which they were removed a few months ago. When LionRock purchased ISC, founder Tseung became sole director, celebrating in a photo with Steven Zhang and a number 31 Nerazzurri shirt. In April 2021, right in he imminence of the Oaktree financing and the establishment of the pledge on the shares, Tseung was replaced in the position by the Canadian Tom Pitts, manager of LionRock who would then pledge the Inter shares of ISC to Oaktree, on 19 May 2021. The pledge, we read in the minutes of the Board of Directors, it expired on May 20, 2024, the fateful expiration of the loan to Zhang to which the ISC pledge therefore also seems connected. ISC had no direct benefit from the loan and yet Oaktree, by enforcing the pledge, will also collect its 31%.”
But there are several questions, some things that don’t add up, underlines the Corriere dello Sport: “Why on earth does a fund pledge an asset, paid for 150 million, without consideration? Why does it accept an operation in which it risks losing the entire capital without benefiting from it and who therefore are the investors (better: the benefactors) of LionRock? According to persistent rumors, behind LionRock there was a group of Italian partners who invested in Inter and thus lost everything. Among these, one might say, Moratti himself. Are things really like this? Therefore, if Zhang had partners who never came to light, perhaps it would explain the fact that Inter’s share capital has remained unchanged in recent years. All the sums paid by Zhang to Inter in recent years were shareholder loans, or payments towards a future capital increase. Perhaps to avoid diluting LionRock’s shareholders? In order for that 31% to remain so because both had “contributed” to the Oaktree financing by pledging their respective shares?”, asks the newspaper.