Frankfurter Eintracht has created the financial framework to attack the top of the Bundesliga in the coming years. Chief Financial Officer Oliver Frankenbach presented the figures for the past 2022/23 financial year on Friday. With a record turnover of 310.2 million euros, a profit after taxes of 17.6 million euros and the reduction of debts from 62.9 to 48.6 million euros, the most important key figures were extremely pleasing.
But the great future opportunities derive primarily from other numbers. The renowned financial platform Football Benchmark, with which UEFA also works, lists the traditional Frankfurt club in its current statistics of the most valuable European football clubs. Football Benchmark has calculated 18,685 million euros for Eintracht as the average of their estimates (squad, infrastructure), only Bayern Munich 3.84 billion euros/5th place) and Borussia Dortmund 1.66 billion euros/13th) are worth more in football Germany. The European ranking is led by Manchester City (3.94 billion euros).
Frankenbach confirmed the seriousness of the financial platform. “We work closely with Football Benchmark, they can be confident that the rankings are as presented. Eintracht is the third most valuable club in Germany.” This means that Eintracht shares are traded higher on the investor market and equity capital could be significantly increased. If Eintracht wants it. There is no more pressure.
Further strengthening
Thanks to the successful past financial year, the equity ratio has already increased from 4.9 percent to 16.0 percent. The transfer of Randal Kolo Muani to Paris St-Germain for 95 million euros, which falls into the coming financial year in terms of balance sheet, will also be used in part to increase the equity ratio to 25 to 30 percent, which Frankenbach calls the desired goal.
And there are signs that Eintracht will be further financially strengthened. According to Frankenbach, a contract ready to be signed was negotiated over the summer between Eintracht Frankfurt Fußball AG and the minority shareholder “Freunde der Adler”, which regulates the repurchase of their share package by the AG at a very favorable price.
Eintracht AG could then place these shares on the market at a significantly higher price. The CFO did not want to provide any information as to whether the takeover by Eintracht AG involves the entire package of 16.81 percent of the “Friends of the Eagle” or just a large part of the company’s shares, for which Supervisory Board Chairman Philip Holzer and Supervisory board member Stephen Orenstein. In any case, it is a significant sum in the millions.
If the contract were to come about, it would be the fulfillment of the “Friends of the Eagle” promise to sell shares to Eintracht at the price that they had offered Eintracht in the summer of 2022 in order to further increase their share package. There were later disagreements with the Eintracht board and members of the board of directors of Eintracht Frankfurt eV about the amount of the offer to Eintracht (around 100 euros per share), who, after a bank valuation, considered around 155 euros per share to be appropriate.
The sum was based on an enterprise value of 500 million euros. According to Football Benchmark, even this assumption is now clearly too pessimistic. Orenstein and Holzer would forego a lot of money in favor of Eintracht if they sold under the announced conditions and would at the latest smooth out the distortions of the past.
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Frankenbach announced that neither the very solid financial foundations nor the current windfall from Kolo Muani would tempt them into making a steep attack on the top of the Bundesliga. “I rule out individual transfers over 25 million because they would destroy the basic concept of Eintracht.” The large transfer fee would be accompanied by a salary that would go beyond the current framework and could lead to unrest in the team.
In addition, with very high expenditure on the transfer market, the pressure would be very great to have to generate income again. Which would spoil the prices for Eintracht. The rise of Eintracht should therefore continue to be continuous, rock-solid, in small steps, without the risk of falling.
