The size of Heikki Viitiko’s Jokerit investment was revealed.
Heikki Viitikko is also the major owner of the Veikkaus arena. Antti Mannermaa
One of the legends of Finnish ice hockey Heikki Viitikko paid half a million euros for his Jokerit ownership.
The matter is clear from the documents of HeMi Invest oy, which owns 52.92 percent of Helsinki Jokerit.
Jokerit announced at the end of September that Viitikon and Mikko Saarnin owned by HeMi Invest becomes the biggest owner of the club when the company buys Saarni and Timo Mäkelän Jokerie’s shares held by Soldo Capital oy.
The amount of money invested by Viitiko can be found from the information of the share issue made by HeMi Invest. HeMi Invest was originally a company 100 percent owned by Saarni, but in the beginning of October, Viitikko bought 37.5 percent of HeMi Invest for 500,000 euros in a directed paid share issue.
Viitikko paid the shares, i.e. made a bank transfer of 500,000 euros, on October 7.
The amount of Viitiko’s investment is revealed in the share issue documents. Antti Mannermaa
Comparison
For 500,000 euros, Viitikko got a 37.5 percent slice of the company, which owns 52.92 percent of Jokerit.
By comparison: NHL star Alexander Barkov in 2020 bought a 10 percent slice of the SM league club Tappara for about half a million euros. Since then, Barkov’s stake in Tappara has been diluted to 7.8 percent.
They also play in the NHL Miro Heiskanen and Roope Hintz on the other hand, they recently bought a 0.87 percent slice of HIFK for just over 70,000 euros.
The commotion rose
Viitiko’s Jokerit ownership caused an uproar when it became clear that Jokerit had not approved its ownership changes with the Ice Hockey Federation’s license committee, even though Mestis’ license conditions state that all changes in ownership must be approved by the license committee in advance.
Jokerit was fined 5,000 euros for the incident. The harshest possible punishment would have been the loss of the Mestis license.
Financier Viitikko has supported Finnish hockey with a big cannon before. Mikkelin Jukurit, which plays in the SM league, owes Viitiko significant sums, and previously Viitiko had the possibility to return to Jukurit’s largest owner at any time with the convertible bond.
Since the possibility of owning more than 10 percent of another club through a convertible bond is prohibited, Viitikko has since apparently given up his right to take more than 10 percent of Jukurie’s shares.