Brera Holdings, a Dublin-based company that holds stakes in a number of lower-league football clubs, has had a woeful experience for most of the time since it floated in New York in early 2023.
Set as a corporate entity over Brera FC, the so-called “third team of Milan” (after Inter Milan and AC Milan), the company’s stock soon drifted well below its $5 (€4.26) initial public offering (IPO) price as it invested in clubs in the likes of Mozambique, North Macedonia and Mongolia.
Indeed, it was forced to consolidate shares in a one-for-10 conversion over the summer to get the stock above the minimum $1 level required by the Nasdaq to remain quoted on that exchange.
That was before Brera announced on Thursday it has become the latest company to randomly get into crypto, following a $300 million private investment led by star US stock-picker Cathie Wood’s Ark Invest and Abu Dhabi-based Pulsar Group.
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Shares in the company soared as much as almost 600 per cent on the news, though they have since settled more than 200 per cent above where they were changing hands before. It will see Brera change its name to Solmate and become a digital asset treasury and crypto infrastructure company by stockpiling solana-based crypto tokens called SOL.
It’s only one of a number of US-listed companies to essentially ditch their original focus to dive into the crypto craze. Former US mobile software company MicroStrategy was one of the pioneers when it announced five years ago it had bought $250 million worth of Bitcoin as a primary treasury reserve asset.
It’s now known as Strategy and has seen its share price shoot up from $15 to $340 in the intervening period.
However, Solmate is joining an already-crowded field of crypto-focused treasury companies. Its investor presentation on Thursday makes no mention of plans for its collection of football teams.
The more than 75 per cent surge in the value of Bitcoin – the most widely accepted cryptocurrency – over the past 12 months has fuelled a wave of companies being set up to become crypto treasury vehicles, raising billions of US dollars in the process.
This has lead to fears in some quarters of a bubble emerging. Whatever could go wrong?
