Economic and Financial Solidity of the Park project (and therefore the Cluster).
Notwithstanding the current deep Italian economic/financial crisis, the Park and OMC projects are economically and financially solid projects because of their solid fundamentals and facts:
- Very extensive formal financial business planning by internal top consultants, and top global consultancies like Ernst & Young, REAG, and Scenari Immobiliari;
- Detailed MOUs with 14 locating and/or co-investing partners of the Park, Labs and/or Cluster.
- The project may be considered financially by 80% a real estate operation as it involves a very profitable mixed-use development, and media/video production studios are mostly a space and equipment rental business, which carry risks much lower than other businesses.
- The Municipality Formello where the projects are located has the highest per-capita income in Central and Southern Italy, with a population that saw a 70% increase in the past 10 years and keeps growing, and its neighboring districts have similar characteristics.
- In time of credit crunch, we believe the Park project has high chance to appeal also to non-Italian financial institutions for the financing of the 50-70% of total costs that – as it is usual for real estate development projects – usually is contributed by financial institutions, for the following reasons:
- The international nature of our 14 co-investing partners in web/video media production and innovation, the unique locational advantage of the real estate development operation, the involvement of a world class consultants
- Foreign financial institutions (private and foreign) have started scouting Italy for opportunities as Italian banks are so low on cash, that they cannot take advantage of profitable lending/equity opportunities.
- We have established solid contacts with certain northern African and eastern sovereign funds, including a former (post-revolution) director of the Libian Sovereign fund.