How Ebury supports football transfer receivable finance transactions with paying agent accounts
Background
Professional football clubs increasingly rely on receivables financing from private credit firms to manage cash flows of player acquisitions. In these transactions, the selling football club uses future revenues from transfer fees to secure financing and get access to cash immediately. The private credit firm requires assurance that future transfer fee payments will be handled in accordance with the agreed financing conditions before proceeding with financing.
Challenge
Football transfers often involve significant sums moving between clubs, often across borders and currencies. Payments are often made in multi-year instalments with performance-related add-ons, sell-on clauses, and solidarity payments. In addition, agent commissions may be due. For a lender to obtain the assurance that its debt service and interest payments will be prioritised over other payments, a payment waterfall is required. In addition, other parties involved (selling club, agent, law firm, etc.) require transparency into whether funds are received and where they are held, and benefit from streamlined execution.
Our solution
Ebury can act as a paying agent, receiving incoming transfer fees, holding funds for scheduled payments, handling currency conversion, and distributing payments in line with the contractual payment waterfall. Ebury streamlines the transfer payment process and transfer lending by offering to:
- Receive incoming transfer fees on named IBAN accounts, individually dedicated to each transfer
- Hold funds securely and separately until scheduled payments are due
- Handle currency conversions in cross-border transfer payments
- Disburse payments in line with the contractual payment waterfall
- Hold funds in safeguarded and segregated accounts to ensure the safety of funds
- Provide transparency and tracking for lenders, selling clubs, and agents
- Allow for pledging of paying agent accounts to add further assurance to the lender
Let’s start a conversation
Get in touch with our experts to discuss your fund's needs and how Ebury can help. You can also visit our page to learn more about our solution.
