Juve kicks-off floatation

December 6, 2001 Posted: 1440 GMT

Del Piero (front) is one of Juventus' top earners

LONDON (CNN) -- Italian soccer giant Juventus has kicked off a continental tour to attract investors.

The Turin-based club, which has been in the hands of the Fiat-owning Agnelli family since the 1920s, hopes to turn success on the field into triumph on the stock market.

It will be the third Italian club to get a stock market listing, after Roma and Lazio.

Juventus, known as the Old Lady of Turin, is Italy's most successful and best-supported club, having won a record 25 Italian league titles as well as two European Cups -- in 1985 and 1996.

It is also one of the biggest spenders in Italian soccer, with top earners such as striker Alessandro del Piero picking up salaries worth more than $100,000 a week.

The club also splashed out more than $100 million on players before the start of the season, although that outlay was partially covered by the record $66 million the club received from the sale of Zinedine Zidane to Real Madrid.

Bankers to the club value Juve at up to 508 million ($450 million), almost three times the value of domestic rival Roma but slightly less than the world's richest club Manchester United (MNU).

Football shares have had a disappointing time of late with concerns growing about multi-million dollar player transfers, spiralling wages and mounting debts.

Manchester United has seen its stock price tumble more than 40 percent this year and is currently valued at $478 million, a far cry from its £1 billion tag at the peak of the dotcom, tech and media boom in March 2000.

But some experts believe Juve could still get the price it is demanding.

"The Agnelli family is going to call in a few favours to take up the shares," Oliver Butler, editors of Soccer Investor, told CNN.

The Agnellis are one of Italy's best-known industrialist families and still own 99.6 percent of Juve through its holding company Ifi, as well as Fiat, the world's sixth-largest car marker.

Juventus is offering 38.7 million shares at a price of 3.50 to 4.20 a share to raise money to boost its off-field activities, including the building of a new sports centre on the outskirts of Turin, where it is based and the purchase and redevelopment of its Delle Alpi stadium.

The share offer runs from December 10 to December 14, when the final price will be set. It plans to hit the stock market on December 20. Juventus said 16.9 million would be new and the rest would come from Ifi.

The club has set aside at least 35 percent of its stock for the general public but warned it could be a risky investment.

"If we don't manage to achieve the prestigious sporting results that  characterise our history, the balance sheet could be hit by lower revenues," the prospectus said.

The prospectus also outlined other problems for the club, including pending doping charges against staff and the planned merger of Italy's two pay TV channels that could end the fierce bidding war for soccer rights.

In the year to June 30, television rights accounted for 44.8 percent of Juventus' turnover. TV deals have been signed with Vivendi's Europa TV until the end of the 2004/05 season.

Having finished runner-up the past two seasons, Juve is desperate for more success.

This season it recruited legendary coach Marcello Lippi, who led the club to a league and cup double in 1995 and the European Cup in 1996, as well as goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon, French defender Lilian Thuram, Czech midfielder Pavel Nedved and Chilean striker Marcelo Salas.