The figurines Panini they could become American. According to some rumors, the shareholders of the company that publishes the famous Calciatori album would have instructed the US investment bank Lincoln International to assess any interest from groups made in the USA.
It could leave in the next few weeks an auction limited to a few subjects: according to what Il Sole 24 Ore writes, a maximum of 4-5, which would include both private equity funds is large multinationals. The price of the Italian group is not low: the valuation would even go so far over one billion euros.
In the last decade, the shareholders of Panini - which operates in 125 countries - have thought more than once about the possibility of selling, but so far no buyer has gone all the way.
Among the hypotheses circulated, one of the most concrete was that of the merger with The Topps Company, a trading card giant based in New York, historically specialized in American baseball but recently also very active in Europe, having acquired the rights to the English Premier League together with the assets of Merlin Publishing. However, it is not obvious that Topps is one of the groups interested in Panini.
To scare away potential buyers is the strong cyclicality of the business in which Panini operates: in the years of the World Cup the turnover can rise up to 7-800 million, while when the Europeans are held it drops to 600 million, to reach around half a billion when no football events are scheduled.
This year, after the World Cup in Russia, Panini should close the balance sheet with record results, surpassing the record set in 2014 after Mundial in Brazil, when revenues stood at between 700 and 800 million and EBITDA reached 200 million. Like today, after the World Cup four years ago the shareholders had entrusted the Japanese investment bank Nomura with the task of evaluating the interest of possible international buyers, but even in that case the operation led to nothing.
