Former owner Salonoja continues to pick up tab for losses incurred by Espoo Blues ice hockey team

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An interesting business alignment has been uncovered behind the Espoo Blues ice hockey team and its home venue the LänsiAuto Arena. In the arrangement, tracks lead through a business venture called Erja-yhtymä Oy to Luxembourg and from there to Great Britain.
      Insurance company Lombard International Assurance owns Erja-yhtymä and thereby also the Espoo-based ice hockey team. According to this scenario, Finnish businessman Jussi Salonoja, the former owner of Erja-yhtymä, no longer owns the team or the LänsiAuto multipurpose arena in Espoo’s Tapiola district.
      The business arrangements were first reported by the Tampere-based daily Aamulehti.
      “We operate as part of Erja-yhtymä. To us that is same as Jussi Salonoja”, says Blues Hockey managing director Tom Kivimäki.
      A British insurance firm Friends Provident owns 100 per cent of Lombard, which has several real estate investments in Finland and elsewhere in Europe.
     
Salonoja sold his Erja-yhtymä to Lombard already in 2004. Still, even after the transaction, Salonoja has remained as the chairman of the board both with the Blues ice hockey team and the Tapiola-based multipurpose arena.
      On Thursday Salonoja refrained from commenting on his business deals.
      When Kivimäki accepted the job as the Blues managing director he was aware of the ownership arrangements.
      “There are several twists and turns in the ownership set-up, but Erja-yhtymä is our mother corporation”, Kivimäki says.
     
Last season’s balancing of the accounts signalled a EUR 3.3 million loss for Blues Hockey, but according to Kivimäki, this season’s negative result will only be in the region of just over two million euros.
      “In our minds Jussi owns us. He is the one who makes the decisions, and he keeps us alive”, Kivimäki says.
      “We continuously need his help, as we are still not making a profit.”
     
In other words Salonoja continues to pay for Blues’ losses, as well as the outlay for using the arena.
      “Every player receives his salary from Blues Hockey Oy and pays his taxes in Finland”, Kivimäki continues.
      Kivimäki predicts that next year the LänsiAuto ("WestCar", named after an automobile dealership) Arena, which is about to change its name, will start yielding a slight profit.
      From January on the venue’s name will be the Barona Arena. A contract has been signed for a ten-year period.
      Already these days more varied events than ice hockey matches are organised at the venue, though there is stiff competition from Helsinki's own Hartwall Arena.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Anyone for hockey? (11.9.2008)

Links:
  Espoo Blues
  Jussi Salonoja (Wikipedia, in Finnish)
  LänsiAuto Arena

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