A consortium of Chinese investors has offered to pay 55 million euros (US$67 million) for a 15 percent stake in Inter Milan, a move that will make them the second-largest shareholder of the 18-time Italian champion.

Inter Milan said in a statement that China Railway 15th Bureau Group Co, a unit of China Railway Construction, will work with it to build a new stadium that is scheduled to be completed by 2017.

Massimo Moratti, Inter Milan’s owner and president, told Xinhua news agency that “the main aim (of the deal) is to build a new stadium, that's what the agreement with China Railway is really about." He added that “the Chinese investors will contribute to the strengthening of the club, but presently our main objective is the construction of the new Inter stadium.”

Inter Milan and arch-rival AC Milan, owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi; currently share the 80,065 capacity San Siro Stadium, which is owned by the family of Berlusconi. According to Bloomberg, the new stadium will be 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from San Siro on the site of the 2016 Milan Expo, and will seat 60,000 people. It won’t be shared with AC Milan.

Chinese builders have been stepping up pushing overseas because of slower growth at home. China Railway Construction this year signed two projects in Africa with a total contract value of 9.1 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion). China Communications Construction, the nation’s No. 2 builder, and machinery-maker Sany Group in April signed a deal to build a stadium in Qatar for the 2022 soccer World Cup.

"The move by China Railway Construction may be largely due to its eagerness to win overseas projects since it has no experience in investing in any sports teams even domestically,” Christina Zhu, an analyst with Zhongtian Investment Consulting Co, told Invest In. “But as Chinese companies step up overseas expansion, we can expect more enterprises, even privately-owned ones, to take stakes in sports giants like Inter Milan to boost their images.”

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