Soccer-Juventus picks banks for up to 400 mln euro cash call

MILAN, July 30 (Reuters) - Serie A soccer club Juventus said on Friday it has signed a pre-underwriting agreement with a group of Italian and international banks for a planned capital increase of up to 400 million euros ($475 million). Like other soccer clubs in Europe, Juventus have been hard hit by the fallout of the pandemic, which has prevented fans from attending matches and reduced marketing and merchandise opportunities. Turin-based Juventus said it selected Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Mediobanca e UniCredit CIB as joint global coordinator of the offer, saying the banks agreed to enter an agreement to underwrite any unsold share.

Juventus said top shareholder Exor, the Agnelli's family holding company, would back the proposed share issue to keep its 63.8% stake. It said it expected to complete the cash call by year-end.

Juventus was among 12 of Europe's leading soccer clubs which made a failed attempt to set up a breakaway European Super League in April, a project which JP Morgan was ready to bankroll with a 3.5 billion euro grant to the founding members.

($1 = 0.8414 euros) (Reporting by Elvira Pollina; editing by Jason Neely)