Dubai Royal Family interest in United

theimperialinn

so where have all the offers been over the last few years?

devilish

Maybe it wasn't the time to sell?

Dreaded

Why do you think they would all be made public?

theimperialinn

Because we are the biggest club in the world, word would have got out!

Julian Denny

Wasn't there talk of an offer in the last year which the Glazers turned down ? If it is in vogue for these mega wealthy types to get involved with English clubs, it is almost certain someone or some group could make the Glazers an offer they would find difficult in turning down. It could be just a matter of time.

GAngel

You think that the glazers would sell the club right after they bought it . When they feel they have maximized the brand sufficiently in the medium or long term (No way they'll sell before there 5 year plan is over unless the offer was insane) then they might entertain offers.

Also in sports rarely do bidders just show up the team would have to be put out on the market first and then every consortium on the face of the earth would be scrambling to get there hands on a brand that has more supporters than people in the entire usa.

Chris H

Published? More like imaginary. The most recent figures I believe we have access to are for the 2006/07 season. Total turnover for the club was either £212m or £245m, depending on whether or not you include long-term revenue from the Nike deal. The club says £245m, Deloitte & Touche 2008 Money League report says £212. Keep in mind this is turnover, not profit. Profit for that season is estimated to be £59.6m.

That's a lot of profit! Unfortunately, those figures don't take the debt into account. The club openly admits that interest payments on the debt are now £58m a year. Meaning an actual profit of...... £1.6m. That's not a lot of profit, that's treading water. Revenue is expected to rise for 07/08, and further still for 08/09, but turning a profit of £148m for 2008 is very, very, very, very unlikely. The £58m a year just to pay interest on the debt isn't going away any time soon.

fredthered

Hang on. Before Glazer the club was a PLC so anyone can start accumulating shares and then make an offer for the club.

How many people made such a move ? TWO

One was a skint yank who couldnt actually afford it but cottoned on to a way to get the fans to pay his debts for him

The other was the owner of the biggest TV firm in the worls who at the time had a 100% monopoly on football and still is basically the force that runs the premiership.

Other than that there was no other attempts to take over United.

fredthered

I believe the actual interest figures are more in the region of 80 million..

fredthered

It was purely paper talk. Hardly evidence of a firm offer.

Chris H

Hadn't seen that one. Know of a link?

devilish

Buying football clubs wasn't as popular then then it is now. Not to forget that at that time we were in a deadlock with three/four main owners refusing to sell their stake until the time was ripe. The time got ripe when SAF had his famous fight with two of the main shareholders. It was evident that the relationship between them had became so sour that the situation had to change. M & M sold Glazer their own shares, causing a domino effect that saw the Americans buying the club.

Whoever wants to buy the club now won't have the problems faced by the Glazers. I mean if a fee is agreed with the Glazers then the club would change hands rather quickly and with little beurocracy. Stating that Glazer won't sell unless he is paid top dollar from his investment which, will require time.

Manchester United can attract more owners now rather then at that time. I mean take yourself as an example. What would you prefer buy 100,000 for an entire house or else 5,000 for the lawn hoping that little by little all the owners of that house would sell their stake to you?

Julian Denny

Am I correct that United paid Red Football a dividend of £44m ? That's a shortfall of approx £14m on your estimate of the debt repayments. Does that mean Red Football deferred payment on the balance, re-scheduled or the Glazers financed it. Do we actually know what's going on in Red Football ? Is it correct to say United made a net profit of £1.6m because the holding company has a commitment of £58m ?

theimperialinn

I've just lifted these directly from the june 07 accounts:

group turnover £210m
operating profit £75m
depreciation £9m
amortisation of intangible asset £35m
amortisation of goodwill £24m
profit before interest and tax £19m
interest payable £43m
tax £1.5m
group loss for financial year £26m

So from this I think we can say that 43m is wiped off the operating profit by interest payable. 68m is due to accounting treatments of capital assets (depreciation/write off of goodwill/intangible assets) and obviously the 1.5m owed to the taxman.

I can't go into any more depth as I'm at work! But there's the facts from the accounts!

WeWonItTwoTimes

According to the Red Football Shareholder Limited accounts for the year to June 30 2007 net interest payable was c£81m:

c£41.5m was paid of that was paid using the net cash generated by the business.

c£14m of accrued interest was rolled up and added to the principal of the new PIK loan.

c£15m in early redemption penalties (caused by the refinancing of the original borrowings) was paid using some of the increase in borrowings secured from the refinancing.

A further c£10.5m of accrued interest in the first month and a half of the 06/07 year (before the mid-August 2006 refinancing when the original PIK loan was accruing interest at a very expensive rate) was paid using some of the increase in borrowings secured from the refinancing.

The interest bill for 07/08 I estimate will have been c£70m. Broken down as c£48m cash interest payments from the senior debt facilities and a further c£22m accrued interest on the PIK loan.

WeWonItTwoTimes

I would say that is debatable. I expect to see pretty much flat growth for 08/09 and 09/10.

Looking at the current financial year (08/09), for profit to increase even slightly the club will have to go very close to replicating last year's Champions League and Premier League success.

Ordinary matchday tickets were increased by an average price of c6.5% and I believe there were similar levels of increase on the executive/hospitality packages.

Therefore I see an increase in Matchday turnover of no more than £5m and to reach that figure the club will need to match the 29 home games of last season. 23 home games have so far been guaranteed for 08/09, six more is certainly very possible but far from a dead cert.

The TV and Sponsorship agreements are largely unchanged from the 07/08 season. Sponsorship agreements with Air Asia and Audi expired during the summer and have so far only been replaced by the Saudi Telecom deal. As a result I estimate there to be a £2m shortfall but this could obviously be arrested by new partnerships being struck.

The FA Cup prize fund and FA Cup TV appearance fees have increased in 08/09 thanks to the new Setanta/ITV deal. We earned just 220K in prize money from this competition last season and there is £3.8m available to the winners this time around.

Together with the modest rises in TV appearance fees and ticket revenue received from the semi-finals an FA Cup win could net the club an additional c£5m this season. The only expense to take out of that would be the player bonuses for winning the tournament. Say a total of c£2m so a potential profit of c£3m.

The World Club Championships are bound to bring in additional revenue, estimates that I've seen say £4m, take off £1m as I'd say its very unlikely we will be playing a one-off match like we did in Saudi Arabia last season.

Even if we win the treble, profit will only increase by a relatively small amount in 08/09.

Most of the exisiting contracts will still be in place for 09/10. The one major new contract for that season will be a new Champions League deal of which I'm yet to see the financial details.

Having said all of that the increases in profit secured during the 07/08 year are more than sufficient to ensure financial stability for the club and Red Football. I estimate MU Limted EBITDA to have been £100m-£105m in 07/08 with a pre-tax profit of £80m-£85m. Net cash inflow from football operations of £110m-£115m.

manux399

Sheikh Rashid is an ardant United fan, he's got his own team who play in United's kit and it was he who brought them out here three years ago. Emirates wanted to buy United and had the offer on the table but Kenyon binned it before he went to Chelsea (The offer was on the table)..! I expect that an offer will come in especially as Abu Dhabi have moved for City, time will tell..!

Tabata

devilish

Liverpool takeover: Sheikh Mohammed ditches DIC to make solo bid for club
By David Maddock 11/09/2008

Sheikh Mohammed will step up his bid to buy Liverpool by using his own money to invest in the club.

The oil-rich Arab leader of Dubai has ditched DIC - the investment arm of his government - as the buy-out company he will use if he gets the chance to purchase the Anfield club from Americans Tom Hicks and George Gillett.
Instead, he will dip into his own wealth to get his hands on the Premier League outfit, with insiders suggesting that will allow him to invest far more money into Liverpool.
DIC's charter states the government company must "maximise long-term shareholder value", which in effect means it should turn over a big profit as soon as possible.

But the current financial climate wouldn't allow that with Liverpool, and instead the Arab billionaire is ready to sink his own money into the club to build a new stadium and invest heavily in the team.

Sheikh Mohammed wants to rival the Abu Dhabi owners of Manchester City, and now sees Liverpool less in terms of a pure investment. But despite being among the wealthiest men in the world, he still refuses to pay over the odds to the Americans.

The Mirror understands that Hicks and Gillett are prepared to sell, but only at £300million above the Arab's valuation of around £450million.

devilish

http://archive.gulfnews.com/articles.../16/90378.html

"Manchester United will visit Dubai soon, I have a very good relations with United boss Peter Kenyon and they know that I support them," he said.

Sheikh Rashid was speaking to the media during celebrations when his team clinched the Prime Cup in Al Ain recently. He added that Manchester United was the only club that he loved in the world.

"I have supported them since I was a child. They perform excellently and have very skillful players." Sheikh Rashid also hoped that star midfielder David Beckham would not be transferred to any other club in Europe.

"Beckham is a gifted player and I hope he continues with United. However if the club's board decide to transfer him it is up to them and they know whether the transfer will affect the team or not."

Tibs

If the Dubai group wanted to buy us, then can do, only with the condition the club is ran in the same way it is now (ie - Fergie at the top)

Wibble

Have you told them that they have your permission?

Chris H

I'm not clever enough to be estimating United's debt repayments out of thin air. The £58m figure is not mine, it comes directly from the article to which I provided a link, with the words coming out of Peter Gill's mouth.

One possibility for the discrepancy is that Gill was talking about debt repayment as it stands today, with the payments for this year estimated to be £58m. But the figures they released showing the club's income are from the 2006/07 season, when the repayment could easily have been a bit different because of the way things were restructured. The £1.6m figure - that one I did make up. But it is a rough estimate of what the owners could expect given reported income/orofit, and the amount of service required by the debt.

WeWonItTwoTimes

Where in that article does Gill mention £58m interest payments?

The MEN have got their figures wrong. For a start the PIK loan was never as low as £110m, it was £138m after the refinancing. The senior debt was £514.5m at June 30 2007, not the £550m figure claimed in the article.

I've explained how the interest was paid in an earlier post on this page.

Chris H

Right about here...Ambiguous as to whether the source of the £18m figure is Gill, I admit. But still. Sorry for delayed response, I'm not on here as much as I used to be.

WeWonItTwoTimes

Gill is definitely not the source of the £18m figure. Both that figure and the £110m figure are totally incorrect, with the correct information available in the accounts.

They would have quoted Gill on the figures if he'd mentioned them and I somehow doubt he'd give out information which could be disproved a few months later in publicly available accounts.

Simon Adebesi

When will Red Football Shareholder Limited publish its accounts again? Will we get accounts to June 30 2008 at some point? Or has something changed in the last year that means they no longer have to disclose it?

theimperialinn

You get 9 months to file them at companies house so they will be due on
31st march

Twisted_Woody

I wonder what the market crash is going to do to the books......this could end badly I fear.

ralphie88

It's been pretty quiet regarding interest in United recently as far as I know.

It was depressingly quiet during the takeover as well, despite unsubstantiated rumours at the time.

Escobar

Mainly due to the shareholders (McMagnus and the other geezer) who promised that they will not sell the share to the Glazers... Well, the rest is history.
I dont like these kind of ownerships where the owner isnt really a fan but wants to generate money or have a plaything. But I'm a bit worried because of the market situation, hopefully it wont affect us too much

Sivahari

did a tread on this myself before, got hammered left and right for that and realized for myself that it wa full of ballocks.

WeWonItTwoTimes

The accounts have to be filed at Companies House by April 30 2009.

In the previous two years Red Football's accounts have been filed in the last week of April and have become available for public viewing in the first week of May.

WeWonItTwoTimes

It won't do anything to the June 30 2008 books.