This is a project that begins with a tweezer trip, to put it quickly and easily. We have a technology company in Alicante that has been listed on the stock market for years [FacePhi, specialized in the development of biometric solutions for identity verification, National SME of the Year Award 2020]. None of us were very fond of soccer, but we wondered why there was no team in Spain that was listed, with the positive thing that is at the level of financing. They tell you it's that it's a different country, that if they did football it would be something else... they keep telling you that you can't do something that you know you can do. We began to investigate..."
Javier Mira explains it, but immediately continues with the story Salvador Martí. Officially vice president and president, in any case souls of the project: "It is also caused by a playoff to go up from Second B to Second. Hércules owed about 20 million and if he did not promote he could disappear... but in that game against him Cádiz had 25,000 people in the stands. If each of those who are, we thought, put an average of 1,000 euros in exchange for something, shares in this case, the debt would be released, the club would be sustainable and could start from scratch " [It happened in June 2016. Cádiz won, with a goal from Güiza. Hercules continues to exist... and continues to have financial difficulties].
"Creating an entity when there is already a history and a social mass is very complicated. We ended up staying with a team from San Juan, taking over the debt of 20,000 euros that it carried. We began to tell about the project to about 5,000 shareholders of our company. We are going to create a club, we are going to convert it into Anónima Deportiva and the goal is for it to go public in three or four years and be financed in a different way. That the fans themselves can be shareholders. That the players They can collect in shares and be part of the successes. If the team is winning and moving up in category, the shares will be worth more money". On June 17, 2017, the Intercity gear was launched: "The idea was to create a benchmark in the province of Alicante, hence the name so as not to link it specifically to any city."
Less than five years later, Intercity is about to make history, effectively becoming the first Spanish soccer club to be listed on the stock market. Because there already were: "Juve signs a star and shares rise, they stay out of the Champions League and they fall... it is directly linked." The bell will ring on the 25th, with an initial capital of more than four million, with a price of 1.20 euros for each share and with close to 400 shareholders already, but the process has included this conversion into SAD ( completed in November 2020) and a capital increase through credit compensation approved on September 17 at a general meeting. The questions now are... why the first? why no one before? "More due to ignorance than requirements," they say. It is convenient to abound in it.
"It is a matter of economic culture. Nor do SMEs go public, when there are many and better than ours, surely, but there is no culture of listing shares on a stock market with maximum transparency, audits... The leaders believe that by listing you lose control, but Santander is led by the Botín family, which has less than 1%. What you do is fragment the shareholding and have more resources to grow. We don't want to dominate the club, but that it be sustainable. If a manager arrives who does it better, we will let him in, because it will make the entity worth more and we will all earn more money. It is the shareholders who decide the president according to the project and the results, "they explain.
Attending the conversation as reference investors Vicente Terol ("seeing it at this point and as they say it seems easy, but the road has been long")... and Juanfran Torres. "There is a friendly relationship with them, but what I liked the most is what Intercity transmits: transparency. Those who want to invest know that they are not putting it on deaf ears, because you can recover the money by touching a button. You will win or lose a part , because the shares oscillate, but it is not lost," says the former Atlético. "When they present you with any project, in the end what you want is trust. I try to get together with good people and they are," he completes.
"Juanfran is an example", respond Salvador and Javier. "It has a very good image in a world, that of football, in which you find everything. Trusting in the project has a contagious effect. It's not just about taking it public, but about changing the operating methodology to those levels. From the first month we said that 25 was paid and it has been like that for five years. The first season they don't believe you, but when time goes by and you don't fail they talk among players. It's about giving a player seriousness project".
That transparency to which the man from Crevillente refers is taken to the extreme: "It is that the money belongs to all the shareholders. If you were born to be public, you have to tell your successes and your failures, which is what makes you strong On the subject of Reus, the Federation said that his place was worth 450,000 euros. That money is not ours, but the club's... and the shareholders. We informed that we were going to deposit it, but so did Andorra de Piqué and due to proximity they gave it to them. With Novelda the same thing... [there was a merger attempt in the summer of 2018, but the RFEF truncated the agreement between entities as they were not geographically bordering towns] The opacity it is penalized and that is one of the attractions of being listed. The shareholder allows you to be wrong, not to be deceived".
From a sporting point of view, it hasn't gone bad so far: three promotions and a campaign in which they didn't get promoted in the last game have taken Intercity from the First Regional to the Second RFEF. "The only secret is that we have a higher budget in each of the categories in which we are. If the average is 100,000 and you have 600,000, it is logical to understand that you will be on top. If the club is winning, its shares will be worth more money, but we will only become sustainable in the second division. We are two steps away. And without debt, which is the most important thing".
"There is a tremendous world of new situations ahead", insists Juanfran. "We will be setting protocols, because, being the first club, the National Securities Market Commission itself admits not knowing what relevant information is. If a player is injured for several months... do we have to notify it in the market?" , Martí and Mira abound. "It is inevitable that the rest of the clubs go public. They are waiting to see what happens with us to follow the same path," they predict. For what it's worth as a clue, Javier Tebas has confirmed his presence at the bell ringing, to which the Federation and CSD are also invited.
Intercity definitely makes history. From the stock market or life, Spanish football wants to move to the Stock Market... and the League.
22 TEAMS, SUBSIDIARIES, BEACH SOCCER...
Intercity, which visits Toledo this Sunday after linking two consecutive victories in the last two days, has Quique Hernández as sports director, Siviero as a coach... and a broad team structure. "We are not closed to new sports", it is also pointed out. "We want the children's aspiration to be to play in the men in black."
