These are days of frenetic activity in the RCS Group. On Friday, December 18 CEO Laura Cioli must submit the new plan  to the board of directors that, upon approval, will be presented on Monday, December 21.

But there is another deadline looming , namely that of 31 December, the day where the creditor banks expect an appropriate payment to cover at least part of the debt of the company. The first move to raise cash, after the sale of the book division Mondadori, could be the sale of several newspapers in Spain held by RCS Group but to make the deal more attractive for new investors, RCS Sport, one of the few divisions of the Group with a profit (about 10 million euro), could come into play.

According to Tuttobiciweb, there are three offers Laura Cioli's table for the cycling package (notice that the Giro d'Italia can not be sold because it is owned by the Bonacossa family and so the portfolio only includes races like Milan-Sanremo, Tirreno-Adriatico and Il Lombardia): the most interesting is that of the Chinese Dalian Wanda Group headed by tycoon Wang Jianlin, the richest man in China. Dalian Wanda has decided to invest heavily in the sports world: among other operations it has acquired 20% of the shares of Atletico Madrid: it took control of the World Triathlon Corporation (WTC), the owner, manager and organizer of the Ironman Triathlon competitions, for $650 million; it bought Infront Sports & Media for one billion euro. And now it has turned their eyes to the cycling world as it is also considering negotiations with ASO, owners of the Tour de France and several classics and shared owner of the Vuelta a Espana.

The second offer for RCS Sport is from Discovery Channel , the third largest TV company in Italy with a share of 7%. The third comes from America from IMG , a company specializing in the management of television rights and a direct rival of Infront.

In light of these negotiations, it is worth remebering that was RCS was very close to purchasing the Vuelta a few years ago. If the deal had been signed, the balance of power in the cycling world would probably have been different and RCS Sport's market value probably a lot bigger.