Bundesliga: Hamburger SV becomes stock company, on Bayern Munich's model

Members of Hamburger SV (Bundesliga) voted overwhelmingly (86.9% of the 9,702 votes) in favour of the HSVPlus reform at their general assembly on 25/05/2014. A majority of 75% was required for this reform to be adopted.

HSVPlus plans to detach the professional football section of Hamburger SV from the 33 other sports sections of the club in order to facilitate the entry of investors into the organisation, which has been in trouble both financially and on the pitch. The Hamburger Sport-Verein eV organisation brings together the 34 sports sections of the club and was up to now the holder of the Bundesliga license for the football section, and 100% owner of the company HSV Sport AG, which in turn owns HSV-Arena GmbH & Co. KG. The later manages the football stadium Imtech Arena (capacity 57,000).

With the reform, the company HSV Sport AG will become HSV Fussball AG, and will get the license for the football section (for players aged 16 and over). If, at that date, the association still owns a 100% stake in the company, HSVPlus forsees that 25% of the shares will soon be sold to a…