US shipping investor Oaktree joins football party as new owner of Inter Milan

Oaktree Capital Management has joined the elite club of shipping’s football owners, taking over Italian giant Inter Milan.

The US investment fund took control of the Italian champions on Wednesday after their Chinese owner, Suning, defaulted on a $428m loan. Collateral for the three-year loan was a majority stake in the football club.

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Oaktree takes charge of a historic club that easily won its 20th Italian title this year with five games to spare.

“As the new ownership group, we understand the great responsibility towards the community and the historical legacy of Inter,” Oaktree managing director Alejandro Cano said.

The takeover comes in the week TradeWinds reported that Manchester City’s star striker Erling Haaland bought 600,000 shares in Henning Oldendorff’s niche shipping lender Maritime & Merchant Bank.

Oaktree, which has stakes in Danish tanker player Torm, Greek dry owner Star Bulk Carriers and US-based Eagle Bulk, is part of a growing number of shipping players with big stakes in top-tier soccer clubs across the world.

Shipowner Idan Ofer owns Spain’s Atletico Madrid, which is set to finish fourth in La Liga, while Evangelos Marinakis owns Piraeus-based Olympiacos, the most successful club in Greece. Marinakis also controls Nottingham Forest in the English Premier League.

Wes Edens, the backer of New Fortress Energy and co-owner of the National Basketball Association franchise Milwaukee Bucks, is also a major shareholder in Aston Villa.

German shipowner Martin Harren has joined a pool of investors putting their cash into Bundesliga side Werder Bremen, while billionaire boxship investor Robert Yildirim buys football teams for fun.

He bought his hometown club Samsunspor in Turkey to save it from bankruptcy and told TradeWinds in March that he was looking to invest in clubs in Portugal, Africa and Latin America.