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US company loans £40m to 'super agent'

Apollo Global Management has lent millions of pounds to a company owned by football “super agent” Kia Joorabchian, as the private capital group continues its push into European sport.

The US firm has extended £40mn to Joorabchian’s Sports Invest Holdings, charging an interest rate of 10.25 per cent, corporate filings show. The debt is secured against a number of the agent’s companies including AMO Racing, AMO Stables and Sports Invest UK, a branch of Joorabchian’s management group that works with footballers “from youth to international level”, according to documents filed with Companies House.

These assets provide security to Apollo, which could potentially force a sale of them if Joorabchian, who has brokered deals including the £142mn British record transfer of Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool to Barcelona in 2018, defaults on the debt.

As well as doing his own business with the private capital group, Joorabchian is actively looking for sports deals to pass to Apollo. The unorthodox lending marks Apollo’s latest deal with a prominent player in Europe’s footballing landscape. The Financial Times revealed last month that the US firm in December extended £80mn in expensive debt to Nottingham Forest, secured against assets including the club’s stadium .  The agent has also been involved in brokering a number of Forest’s largest transfers this year, including the club’s £37.5mn record signing of Omari Hutchinson.

Apollo’s deal with Joorabchian is the latest example of large private credit firms pushing deeper into sports lending, financing more fringe businesses outside the major teams and leagues that have a longer history in debt markets.

Joorabchian made his first venture into football in 2004 through his company Media Sport Investment, investing £18mn in Brazilian club Corinthians in return for 51 per cent of its profits for 10 years. Alongside that deal, MSI owned the economic rights to a number of the club’s signings including future Premier League stars Philippe Coutinho, Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez, via a controversial third party ownership model.

There is no suggestion that Joorabchian or MSI acted unlawfully when using this model at the time, although it has since been outlawed in England. After splitting from the club, Tevez and Mascherano were transferred to West Ham in deals brokered by Joorabchian that sparked a number of disputes between clubs centred around the fairness of third party ownership. 

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