Copenhagen Gives Up On AEG Arena

Even before the March 1 deadline, Danish media were reporting that AEG couldn’t come up with the money to build a new arena in Copenhagen and the city council will likely drop the idea.

Berlingske Tidende ran a story saying the city can give up on the idea of the US venue operator providing a 15,000-capacity building capable of staging concerts and international sporting events.

AEG won the contract a year ago to raise the funding to build and then operate a multi-purpose arena at Ørestad, about 4 miles south of Copenhagen city centre. But the company failed to come up with the estimated $225 million it needed by the June 15 deadline.

It’s since had the deadline extended to Oct. 1 and then to March 1, but BT reckons it still hasn’t come up with much more than half of what’s needed.

At one point, FC Amager soccer club chairman Brian Mollerup, who failed with his own bid to win the contract, offered to rally his backers to throw AEG a lifeline. But the talks came to nothing and some of Mollerup’s supporters had reallocated their investment capital elsewhere after failing to win the contract.

Mollerup isn’t prepared to discuss whether he would make a second bid for the arena if Copenhagen Council reopened the tendering process.

Two days after the deadline, the council still hadn’t made any comment on whether AEG will be given even longer to come up with the cash.

The local media is speculating that the city may decide that if one of the world’s biggest venue operators can’t raise 1 billion Danish kroner ($183 million) worth of support, it’s unlikely anyone can.

Despite the Copenhagen setback, AEG’s European venue management business had many highlights. It took on the running of Istanbul’s new 52,000-seat Turk Telekom Arena; the future home of Galatasaray FC soccer club; the new 12,500-seat Danube Arena in Bratislava, Slovakia; Sweden’s new 40,000-seat Stockholm Arena and the 2,000-capacity Volksbank Arena in Hamburg, Germany – a smaller venue next door to the AEG-operated Color Line Arena.

It also took on a strategic partnership with The Ahoy in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, which is undergoing a refurbishment that will increase capacity to 13,500.