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Revealed: Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris bankroll £124m Aston Villa injection - new paperwork filed
Aston Villa owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris have injected another £5million into the club in the form of a new share issue, Football Insider can reveal.
A Companies House submission on Tuesday (9 May), backdated to 26 April, shows that 5m new shares have been allotted for £1 each.
It is not clear whether the investment comes in the form of new cash or the conversion of debt into equity.
Villa’s accounts for 2021-22, the most recent financial year on record, show that the club’s gross debt stands at £25m.
That figure was made up of £7m owed to the owners and a new £18m overdraft facility.
The most recent share issue is their seventh in just over 12 months, with the total invested in that time adding up to £123.5m.
Villa’s £400,000 profit in 2021-22 was the club’s first since Edens and Sawiris bought the club in 2018, and – astonishingly – the first under any owner since 2002.
That surplus, which was largely due to the sale of academy product Jack Grealish to Man City for a club-record £100m, followed losses of £99.5m and £68.9m in the previous two financial years.
Both of those seasons were heavily impacted by the pandemic, with matchday, commercial and media income all severely depleted.
On the pitch in 2022-23, Villa still harbour hopes of qualifying for lucrative European football for the first time in over a decade.
They are 8th in the Premier League following last Saturday’s (6 May) 1-0 loss to Wolves, with matches against three teams above them – Tottenham, Liverpool and Brighton – to go this season.
In other news, Aston Villa to pounce for Serie A superstar as deal edges closer.