The State is preparing to sell nearly a quarter of the capital of AS Saint-Etienne (L2) which it has held since the confiscation of shares held by a businessman convicted of fraud, he said. we learned from official sources. “This situation was atypical, these are the only shares of a professional sports club that we currently hold and the Agency for the Management and Recovery of Seized and Confiscated Assets (Agrasc) is not intended to manage a club football,” its general director, Nicolas Bessone, told AFP on Thursday.
A decree published in the Official Journal on Wednesday formalizes the upcoming “transfer by the State of 1,112 shares in the company Croissance Foot Sarl, representing approximately 49.4% of the capital of this company”. The operation, which should be effective in October, validates a transfer protocol concluded at the beginning of August between the State agency and Roland Romeyer, one of the two main shareholders of the Saint-Etienne club, via Croissance Foot. It will be carried out at a price of 2.2 million euros, with a possible variable portion of 30% of the sums received by Croissance Foot beyond 5 million euros in the event of a subsequent sale of ASSE.
1,113 shares held by a Saint-Etienne entrepreneur
“This transaction preserves the financial interests of the State as well as those of the historic club that is AS Saint-Etienne, while being likely to facilitate the sale desired by its current shareholders,” adds Nicolas Bessone. Croissance Foot owns 44% of the Saint-Etienne club, as much as Cesse Foot, the company of the chairman of the club’s supervisory board, Bernard Caïazzo. Half of its shares (i.e. indirectly 22% of the club’s capital) were confiscated by the State in 2016, i.e. the 1,113 shares held by Adao Carvalho, a Saint-Etienne entrepreneur convicted and imprisoned for “concealment of money laundering and abuse of social goods”.
At the end of the transaction, the State will retain a share of Croissance Foot in order to have a right to review the resale operation of the Saint-Etienne club announced several years ago, a source close to the matter told AFP . Several potential buyers have withdrawn in recent years and the conflict over the seized shares has sometimes been put forward as a hypothesis of their reluctance.