Erick Thohir to sell majority share of Inter, Italian press reports

Following a story from the Italian news outlet La Stampa, Sky Sports Italy is reporting that Erick Thohir, Majority Owner of Inter Milan and Managing Partner of D.C. United, will share his majority stake of Inter to the Suning Group, a business consortium based in China. Per the report, Suning will purchase between 60 and 70% of the club at a valuation between 600-700 million Euros, or $660-775 million dollars, which would definitely be a profit on the allegedly $250 million that Thohir bought the team for in 2013.

Thohir had been in talks with Suning for several weeks for a minority share of the club to raise revenue in part to help pay for renovations to the San Siro (with cooperation from AC Milan). If this news is true, though, it would be curious to see what exactly turned things for Suning to go from an assumed 20% share to majority ownership. Massimo Moratti, who holds an approximately 30% share of the team, would divest himself of his shares while Thohir (who celebrated his 46th birthday yesterday) would move to a minority ownership of 30-40% while retaining the Presidency position.

Assuming this new development is accurate, what would this mean for D.C. United? That remains to be seen. As far as we know Jason Levien is in England to finalize a deal that would allow a group that includes him and Steve Kaplan majority ownership of Swansea City in the Premier League, so any sort of plans for them still need to be hashed out.

Regardless, it's certainly worth keeping an eye on developments of United's partner club in Italy as the deal is expected to be finalized sometime this summer.