Serie A welcomes second foreign owner
Inter Milan follow Roma’s lead by selling majority stake to foreign party as Indonesian businessman takes 70% stake.
Indonesian businessman Erick Thohir signed a deal to take over a majority stake of Inter Milan on Tuesday, becoming the second foreign owner in Serie A.
“Everything has been signed,” Inter president Massimo Moratti said.
The deal for a 70 percent stake in the club is reportedly worth $475 million.
“Yes, I’m satisfied,” Moratti said on Inter’s website.
“It’s been a lengthy process but it seems to me that the whole thing is balanced and was done well.”
The first Serie A club to cede majority ownership to foreigners were Roma, which was taken over by a group of Boston executives in 2011.
Thohir is part owner of the Philadelphia 76ers and D.C. United.
It remains unclear if Moratti, who has owned the club since 1995, will remain president.
“That I don’t know,” Moratti said outside the office of his family oil company, Saras.
Inter have won 18 Serie A titles and three European Cups.
Moratti took over the club after his father Angelo was owner during the team’s early glory years in the 1960s, when Inter won the European Cup twice.
After some difficult years under the younger Moratti, Inter returned to the top after the 2006 match-fixing scandal and won five consecutive Serie A titles from 2006-2010. In 2010, Inter also won the Champions League and the Italian Cup for an unprecedented treble in Italy, with Jose Mourinho as manager.
However, Inter struggled again in the past two seasons – finishing sixth in 2012 and ninth last season with the same number of losses (16) as wins.
Inter are coming off their first loss of this season, a 3-0 defeat to first-place Roma, which left the team in fourth place under first-year manager Walter Mazzarri. The Nerazzurri visit Torino on Sunday.