Fortaleza Esporte Clube is finally in the market to sell a portion of the shares of its avoidance of football (SAF). From a match, a challenge: the club from Ceará wants a minority investor, an unprecedented strategy in the elite of Brazilian football.
XP Investimentos received the mandate to make a wide roadshow with national and foreign investors. “I can say that world football players who already invest or are interested in investing in football have been aware of the Fortaleza case,” says SAF CEO Marcelo Paz, to Infomoney.
It now remains to convince the market to embark on a thesis that gives up control in a possible investment, a challenge recognized by the current management and agents involved in football business due to the greater appetite of project control managers.
To approve the update of, Fortaleza defined more rigid rules and would need to gather a larger amount of votes in the Deliberative Council to negotiate a portion equal to or greater than 51% of society.
Even not to limit the possibilities further, Fortaleza is willing to hear several contract designs, provided that the purchase of participation of the new shareholder is limited to 49%.
Among the possibilities for sale, however, it is not ruled out that an investor enter as a minority and has a purchase option to become majority. In such a contract, the decision would return to the General Assembly of members and will again demand approval by a broader margin.
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“We believe this investor may participate in management, and then discussed in the investment agreement, what would be this participation, what a board he will take, how much seats in the board of directors he would have according to the percentage,” says Paz.
Its assessment is that the minority thesis can be even more accepted by Brazilian investors, given the closest accompaniment to the Fortaleza operation in recent years. What makes negotiation with a foreigner as possible is the proportional amount of investor in the football market outside Brazil.
Since the middle of the past decade, Fortaleza has undergone a restructuring process that led the National Football C club to recent Copa Libertadores disputes due to the good classifications in Serie A Brasileirão.
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The sports results were a consequence one in football. The restructuring allowed the club to approve its SAF calmly in 2023 in a very different scenario of indebted clubs that followed the same path, such as Botafogo, Cruzeiro and Vasco.
“It would be interesting for us to sell [a participação minoritária] This year to capitalize on the club. However, it is no use setting a deadline to sell anyway, ”says Peace.“ More important than the deadline is the form, it is the content. ”
