In This Article:
(Bloomberg) -- JPMorgan Chase & Co. is speaking to institutional investors about raising more than £300 million ($376 million) of debt to support a stadium refinancing for Everton FC, the Premier League football team recently acquired by the Friedkin Group, according to people familiar with the situation.
Most Read from Bloomberg
Separately, the bank is also providing a loan of £130 million to the Friedkin Group for the club that it acquired from British-Iranian businessman Farhad Moshiri at the end of last year, the people said, asking not to be identified because the information is private. Considerations are at an early stage and details of the debt financing could change, the people said.
Spokespeople for JPMorgan, Everton and the Friedkin Group declined to comment.
Everton plans to open its 53,000-person stadium in August, when the next season is due to start, though a few test events are being planned before then. The first of these, an under-18s friendly fixture, will take place on Feb. 17 with a capacity of 10,000 fans.
The club expects the new stadium to sharply increase matchday turnover, which totaled £17.3 million in the financial year that ended in June 2023, according to the club’s last set of published accounts. The number of revenue-generating hospitality seats will jump to 5,500 from around 1,400, according to Colin Chong, Everton’s interim chief executive officer.
The club has sold out all of its available seasonal memberships and its “new home is already becoming a commercial platform for growth,” Chong said in a recent matchday programme.
Capacity is set to rise 36%.
Other football clubs that have raised US private placement debt for new stadiums include Tottenham Hotspur and FC Barcelona.
On the field, Everton remains precariously placed just above the relegation zone, consisting of the three lowest-ranked teams due to be demoted to the Championship league.
Everton would lose a chunk of broadcast income if it were demoted at the end of the season, though the impact of this would be smoothed out by the award of so-called parachute payments.
(Updates with matchday programme comments from interim CEO starting in fifth paragraph)
Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek
-
Luxury Brands Need to Get Over Their Youth Fixation to Offset Drag From Trump’s Tariffs
-
The US’s Worst Fears of Chinese Hacking Are on Display in Guam
©2025 Bloomberg L.P.