Nottingham Forest owner converts more loans to shares

Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, has converted another £72 million worth of loans to the Premier League club into shares.

It comes on the back of Marinakis converting £82m worth of loans into equity a couple of weeks ago. It is a move he has made regularly since taking over the Reds in 2017, in an ongoing show of commitment to the club.

Converting the loans into equity takes the debt off the club and is viewed as an indication of Marinakis’ investment in Forest. A “statement of capital following an allotment of shares” has been published on the Companies House website. It details how £72m worth of loans have been converted into 7.2 billion 1p shares.

The statement reads: “The shares were issued and allotted pursuant to the capitalisation of a debt in the sum of £72,070,000 due to the acquirer of the shares. The shares were converted at nominal value and no premium was attached to the shares.”

After the previous conversion of £82m worth of loans into shares, football finance expert Kieran Maguire explained the move on social media. He wrote: “This means that there will be no interest charged on the loans when the new APT rules kick in on interest free owner loans in a couple of weeks.”