General Glazer Discussion | To receive the majority of £11m stakeholder dividend today

[JPRouve]

Are you mad? Why were you ever in favour of it? No other football club pay yearly dividends. It's just not done.

It has be done at United since 91 or 92 and to the same proportion. Because I'm not the one owning shares and getting any money, I wouldn't mind if dividends weren't a thing at United but that's only an idea if you intend to sell the club. If you have no plan to sell your asset in the short or mid term you will get dividends, you are not going to act as a benevolent fool.

 

[Teja]

It has be done at United since 91 or 92 and to the same proportion. Because I'm not the one owning shares and getting any money, I wouldn't mind if dividends weren't a thing at United but that's only an idea if you intend to sell the club. If you have no plan to sell your asset in the short or mid term you will get dividends, you are not going to act as a benevolent fool.

Can you name a single other owner that isn't a benevolent fool?

If you want a dividend, you invest in Insurance or Utilities. Sports franchises (especially major ones like United) aren't a way to generate profits for owners.

To add to that, dividends are a way to return excess cash a business generates to shareholders. Football clubs are so unprofitable that there isn't any excess cash even at the best run clubs. Simply saying I want a 2% dividend every year as you're struggling to invest is not the way to go about dividends, if it was a regular public company there would be open revolt and an activist would've bought up a board seat and agitated for change.

 

[Massive Spanner]

The Glazer family is the only owners in the Premier League that takes dividends regularly. The only other club to take dividends is West Brom in 2015/2016 to the tune of £27m.

Other than that? Only Manchester United.

Glazer Family investment into Manchester United? £0

The only thing they have done, is allow the club to spend its own money on buying players, camouflaged as them caring.

The Glazers have said the dividends are "fair".

Yet are the only owners, again, in the Premier League to take money from the club. Our owners are financial parasites.

Yeeeh, that’s fecking depressing.

 

[JPRouve]

Can you name a single other owner that isn't a benevolent fool?

If you want a dividend, you invest in Insurance or Utilities. Sports franchises (especially major ones like United) aren't a way to generate profits for owners.

Any owner that intends to sell and make a profit(the likes of Boehly, FSG, Gerard Lopez, the Glazers and many others), it's fair to say that lots are benevolent and fools but they don't purchase a club worth billions, iirc the Glazers spent +300m of their own money to purchase the club and you can bet that they want their money back and then some because they are investors not patrons.

And I agree with you, I don't see Football as a business, I don't like the idea of Football being run like a business. Now the issue is that people are happy to claim that Football is a business when it suits them but complain about what Football being a business actually means.

 

[Adisa]

What position did he play tonight?

Are you mad? Why were you ever in favour of it? No other football club pay yearly dividends. It's just not done.

Why would you be okay with the owners taking dividends ever? This is not Tesco - football clubs are just not profitable. People don't get into football so they can leech off of dividends.

At best if they believe they can run the club well, they do that and sell the club for a profit but even that's a reasonable stretch.

Clubs are just marketing vehicles / bragging rights for super rich people.

The Glazer style takeover (saddling the club with debt, using the club's revenues as collateral to borrow money and pay themselves dividends) is ridiculous. The PL should force them to sell.

I have never been in support of dividend but I also didn't think it was the worst thing in the world.
It's a matter of principle, regardless of what industry. If I invest in a company that's generating a lot of cash, I expect dividends.
Now, we are not doing financially well enough to support it given the company requires a lot of capex.

 

[georgipep]

The Glazer family is the only owners in the Premier League that takes dividends regularly. The only other club to take dividends is West Brom in 2015/2016 to the tune of £27m.

Other than that? Only Manchester United.

Glazer Family investment into Manchester United? £0

The only thing they have done, is allow the club to spend its own money on buying players, camouflaged as them caring.

The Glazers have said the dividends are "fair".

Yet are the only owners, again, in the Premier League to take money from the club. Our owners are financial parasites.

How would you deal with a business you own? Would you look to extract as much value as possible, especially if the asset has very little initial investments and has significant and increasing resale value?

I don't get why people expect them NOT to get dividends. I, most definitely, would. It is just about shareholder value generation. I don't know how much has the corporate value of other clubs around increased, but compared to the regularity of our 'blue chip' dividends and associated low to no financial risks, it must be one sweet, sweet deal.

I wouldn't want the dividends to stop if I were a shareholder of Manchester United.

 

[Gordon Godot]

Any owner that intends to sell and make a profit, lots are benevolent and fools but they don't purchase a club worth billions, iirc the Glazers spent +300m of their own money to purchase the club and you can bet that they want their money back and then some because they are investors not patrons.

And I agree with you, I don't see Football as a business, I don't like the idea of Football being run like a business. Now the issue is that people are happy to claim that Football is a business when it suits them but complain about what Football being a business actually means.

Teh Glazers have already recouped their initial limited investment and more, from the inital IPO proceeds, subsequent share sales, fees and dividends. Everything else is icing on the cake for them, all upside

 

[Skills]

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We should be looking at increasing matchday income. The price freezes of the last 10 or so years are costly. If we kept the ticket prices in line with inflation, the dividends wouldn't even matter.

It's about time the fans out their money, where their mouths are.

 

[Gordon Godot]

We should be looking at increasing matchday income. The price freezes of the last 10 or so years are costly. If we kept the ticket prices in line with inflation, the dividends wouldn't even matter.

It's about time the fans out their money, where their mouths are.

A rather strange perspective when the leaches are draining money out of the club. Get the match going fans to make up the difference. Not sure that's a popular call

 

[JPRouve]

Teh Glazers have already recouped their initial limited investment and more, from the inital IPO proceeds, subsequent share sales, fees and dividends. Everything else is icing on the cake for them, all upside

Yes and it's the goal of any business, what do you guys think a business is supposed to do? What do you guys think the previous PLC were doing? Let's say it this way outside of a short period of time after the purchase by the Glazers, United has been a club that paid dividiends to his shareholders.

Anyone that is under 35 years old, has only known a club that distributes dividends. A large amount of fans are happy to brag about United being a business success but are also unhappy that this business success is treated as a business by shareholders.

 

[DWelbz19]

We should be looking at increasing matchday income. The price freezes of the last 10 or so years are costly. If we kept the ticket prices in line with inflation, the dividends wouldn't even matter.

It's about time the fans out their money, where their mouths are.

Yep yep. That’s what the issue is

 

[Skills]

A rather strange perspective when the leaches are draining money out of the club. Get the match going fans to make up the difference. Not sure that's a popular call

I think we should do both. Neither have done enough for the club. I'd like the ticket prices up 20% this season, and pause the dividends.

It's time both the owners and fans backed the manager - this time with something actually tangible, like their money.

 

[Rightnr]

We should be looking at increasing matchday income. The price freezes of the last 10 or so years are costly. If we kept the ticket prices in line with inflation, the dividends wouldn't even matter.

It's about time the fans out their money, where their mouths are.

Where's the facepalm emoji when you need it.

 

[Gordon Godot]

Yes and it's the goal of any business, what do you guys think a business is supposed to do? What do you guys think the previous PLC were doing? Let's say it this way outside of a short period of time after the purchase by the Glazers, United has been a club that paid dividiends to his shareholders.

Anyone that is under 35 years old, has only known a club that distributes dividends. A large amount of fans are happy to brag about United being a business success but are also unhappy that this business success is treated as a business by shareholders.

Why should MUFC be run as a 'business', whatever that means. The original IPO raised money to go into the club and dividends were fairly small. There was no debt, none. The club was bought in an LBO and now has remote and uninterested owners who just use the club as a cash cow, plus still £0.5bn of debt that is a millstone. It is possible to run the club commecially very well without having owners that are leaches. Just look at Liverpool or Chelsea from that front. The GLazers put the debt on the club just to finance the buy out. You are confusing many different things.

 

[Godfather]

We should be looking at increasing matchday income. The price freezes of the last 10 or so years are costly. If we kept the ticket prices in line with inflation, the dividends wouldn't even matter.

It's about time the fans out their money, where their mouths are.

Yeah people all around Europe are struggling to pay their bills because of the current hyper inflation. But sure let's increase ticket prices so dividends to the owners of a business they are ruining can still be paid out in millions.

Are you on a WUM?

 

[horsechoker]

It's funny how the Premier league denied murdoch the chance to buy United because it was seen as a conflict of interest but allowed the Glazers to take over United.

Meanwhile City and Newcastle were approved to be taken over by oil states while Chelsea were taken over by someone in the inner circle of a bellicose dictator.

I know these decisions were made by different people at different times but it's funny that we've ended up on the losing side on multiple occasions

 

[JPRouve]

I think we should do both. Neither have done enough for the club. I'd like the ticket prices up 20% this season, and pause the dividends.

It's time both the owners and fans backed the manager - this time with something actually tangible, like their money.

I had a different idea. Which is to keep ticket prices where they are, english football fans pay enough and the shareholders can also keep their dividends as long as it's limited to 4% of revenues.

My plan would be very simple, reduce the wage bill by at least 50m, reduce the size of our squad to 18 contracts coming from players not developed at United, every player beyond that are United youth players so at least 7 at all time. We need to lean more on our academy and to me it makes sense because what exactly is the point in having the best infrastructures if you don't use them to develop players for the first team? United are good at developing decent PL players, we need to make good use of it and not spend transfer fees on squad players

 

[Teja]

Any owner that intends to sell and make a profit(the likes of Boehly, FSG, Gerard Lopez, the Glazers and many others), it's fair to say that lots are benevolent and fools but they don't purchase a club worth billions, iirc the Glazers spent +300m of their own money to purchase the club and you can bet that they want their money back and then some because they are investors not patrons.

And I agree with you, I don't see Football as a business, I don't like the idea of Football being run like a business. Now the issue is that people are happy to claim that Football is a business when it suits them but complain about what Football being a business actually means.

I agree but even if you do treat football clubs as businesses, any competent business won't pay dividends to shareholders when it's running at a loss and is struggling.

It's pretty common for struggling businesses to cut dividends and invest free cash flows into productive assets so they grow again. Something that our owners refuse to do.

And it's not just dividends, they sit on the United board and draw fat paychecks for their board seat. (1m+ / year for each Glazer - Avram, Joel, Bryan, Ed I think along with similar pay checks for Fergie and others).

Imagine paying a guy who does nothing 1m + a year. It's just fraud in my book.

 

[Withnail]

Teh Glazers have already recouped their initial limited investment and more, from the inital IPO proceeds, subsequent share sales, fees and dividends. Everything else is icing on the cake for them, all upside

That's what I'd thought too and this invested 300m bit is highly dubious. I don't recall ever hearing a figure close to that for what they put in.

 

[Withnail]

I think we should do both. Neither have done enough for the club. I'd like the ticket prices up 20% this season, and pause the dividends.

It's time both the owners and fans backed the manager - this time with something actually tangible, like their money.

The price freeze on tickets is one of the few good things they've done. Let's not gouge the match-going fans for the sake a few million.

 

[Skills]

The price freeze on tickets is one of the few good things they've done. Let's not gouge the match-going fans for the sake a few million.

Works out to be about 27m. The same amount of dividends we're complaining about.

Maybe go halves - raise the tickets by 13%, and the glazers halve the amount of dividends they take?

 

[JPRouve]

Why should MUFC be run as a 'business', whatever that means. The original IPO raised money to go into the club and dividends were fairly small. There was no debt, none. The club was bought in an LBO and now has remote and uninterested owners who just use the club as a cash cow, plus still £0.5bn of debt that is a millstone. It is possible to run the club commecially very well without having owners that are leaches. Just look at Liverpool or Chelsea from that front. The GLazers put the debt on the club just to finance the buy out. You are confusing many different things.

Dividends were around 4%-5% of revenues which is exactly where current dividends are. In 2002 United paid 8m£ in dividends and 2001 5.2m£, respectively out of 146m£ and 129m£ revenue. If you look at 2020 United paid 23.2m£ in dividends out of 509m£ revenues, I didn't use 2021 because the dividends were only 10.7m which isn't representative.

 

[JPRouve]

I agree but even if you do treat football clubs as businesses, any competent business won't pay dividends to shareholders when it's running at a loss and is struggling.

It's pretty common for struggling businesses to cut dividends and invest free cash flows into productive assets so they grow again. Something that our owners refuse to do.

And it's not just dividends, they sit on the United board and draw fat paychecks for their board seat. (1m+ / year for each Glazer - Avram, Joel, Bryan, Ed I think along with similar pay checks for Fergie and others).

Imagine paying a guy who does nothing 1m + a year. It's just fraud in my book.

United aren't struggling, at least not financially. I would get your point if United were struggling financially but it's not the case.

 

[Skills]

I had a different idea. Which is to keep ticket prices where they are, english football fans pay enough and the shareholders can also keep their dividends as long as it's limited to 4% of revenues.

My plan would be very simple, reduce the wage bill by at least 50m, reduce the size of our squad to 18 contracts coming from players not developed at United, every player beyond that are United youth players so at least 7 at all time. We need to lean more on our academy and to me it makes sense because what exactly is the point in having the best infrastructures if you don't use them to develop players for the first team? United are good at developing decent PL players, we need to make good use of it and not spend transfer fees on squad players

That pretty much works the way it does now no? Glazers take something like 4%, and ticket prices have been frozen for a while.

The issue, like what you're implying is how badly we use the resources available to us - rather the amount of resources we have at hand. The investments we do make are really poor value for money.

We're awful at developing or improving players, and we're poor at identifying good players. Until we improve that, even if we had another £50m in revenue a season we'd still be shitting the bed.

 

[stw2022]

When were we last owned by someone or an ownership structure who didn’t take dividends out of the club exactly?

 

[JJ12]

Yes and it's the goal of any business, what do you guys think a business is supposed to do? What do you guys think the previous PLC were doing? Let's say it this way outside of a short period of time after the purchase by the Glazers, United has been a club that paid dividiends to his shareholders.

Anyone that is under 35 years old, has only known a club that distributes dividends. A large amount of fans are happy to brag about United being a business success but are also unhappy that this business success is treated as a business by shareholders.

Fans are happy that united are a business success when the product on the pitch is in line with the business end. It’s now used to beat the glazers with a stick - rightly in my opinion.

 

[stw2022]

Fans are happy that united are a business success when the product on the pitch is in line with the business end. It’s now used to beat the glazers with a stick - rightly in my opinion.

Yeah but if they’re beating them with an old dividends certificate or poking them with a Shareholders United badge and complaining about businessmen in football then it’s a bit hypocritical too

 

[JPRouve]

That pretty much works the way it does now no? Glazers take something like 4%, and ticket prices have been frozen for a while.

The issue, like what you're implying is how badly we use the resources available to us - rather the amount of resources we have at hand. The investments we do make are really poor value for money.

We're awful at developing or improving players, and we're poor at identifying good players. Until we improve that, even if we had another £50m in revenue a season we'd still be shitting the bed.

They don't seem to have any control of our expenses, what kind of club goes from a 210m wage bill to 330m in 24 months? One year of that nonsense costs the equivalent of 5 years of dividends and we had nothing to show for. By limiting the amount of players coming from the outside you create a situation where it's a lot harder to accumulate drosses.

 

[Noc-Z]

I'm not a fan of the Glazers at all. But why would you own a football club...a business, and not aspire to make money from it?

We have invested millions in players, just very poorly. Where I see the Glazers biggest failings are not having a clue how to run or structure a football club, not appearing to care enough about on field success and making all the wrong appointments leading to the wrong people in the wrong positions ultimately leading to dire team performances.

But as for taking 11M out of the club for themselves, I'm not sure I really care tbh. Have I got this wrong? Should I be outraged?

We are making a mess of the transfer window, dwelling too long on De Jong, not making any other moves, if we do bring in players it'll be late on and we won't have time to integrate them. That annoys me. But not the 11M. We will buy players, we will spend money. Eventually.

 

[JPRouve]

Fans are happy that united are a business success when the product on the pitch is in line with the business end. It’s now used to beat the glazers with a stick - rightly in my opinion.

They should be critized for being piss poor business managers not for making money out of their business. There are two obvious situations where you will criticize the managers of a business, when the business doesn't bring money to the shareholders and when the business is ran in an inefficient way. The Glazers failed at the second part and we should criticize them for it.

 

[manichester]

Not paying the debt of is the biggest offence.

 

[Someone]

Arguably the worst owners at the top level currently. Just think for a sec of where this club would be if we weren't saddled with debt and bankers running the club.

Breaks my heart that we can't do anything about it. They're shameless.

 

[Josep Dowling]

I'm not a fan of the Glazers at all. But why would you own a football club...a business, and not aspire to make money from it?

We have invested millions in players, just very poorly. Where I see the Glazers biggest failings are not having a clue how to run or structure a football club, not appearing to care enough about on field success and making all the wrong appointments leading to the wrong people in the wrong positions ultimately leading to dire team performances.

But as for taking 11M out of the club for themselves, I'm not sure I really care tbh. Have I got this wrong? Should I be outraged?

We are making a mess of the transfer window, dwelling too long on De Jong, not making any other moves, if we do bring in players it'll be late on and we won't have time to integrate them. That annoys me. But not the 11M. We will buy players, we will spend money. Eventually.

They are poor owners because they show no interest in how the club succeeds on the pitch. There has been money to invest most seasons but it has been wasted by poor board level management. The fact they take £10m in dividends a year is a fraction of what has been wasted by Woodward & Co. They purchased the club to make money, most other owners don't need the money and use the clubs as vanity projects for their interest in the sport. For that United have got very unlucky with the people who acquired the club.

There needs to be more of a push to get them to sell the club. That is the only way the club moves forward now. Even if they sell the club for £2/3billion given their initial investment was mainly loans put on the club itself the return on investment would be huge for them.

 

[MUFC OK]

Forget whatever happens on the pitch. Getting rid of the glazers should be the number 1 priority of every United fan. The slide won’t end whilst they’re here.

 

[JPRouve]

They are poor owners because they show no interest in how the club succeeds on the pitch. There has been money to invest most seasons but it has been wasted by poor board level management. The fact they take £10m in dividends a year is a fraction of what has been wasted by Woodward & Co. They purchased the club to make money, most other owners don't need the money and use the clubs as vanity projects for their interest in the sport. For that United have got very unlucky with the people who acquired the club.

There needs to be more of a push to get them to sell the club. That is the only way the club moves forward now. Even if they sell the club for £2/3billion given their initial investment was mainly loans put on the club itself the return on investment would be huge for them.

Is it a lack of interest or a lack of skills? Also would you say that the Edwards family had no interest in the club on field success?

 

[Tom Cato]

How would you deal with a business you own? Would you look to extract as much value as possible, especially if the asset has very little initial investments and has significant and increasing resale value?

I don't get why people expect them NOT to get dividends. I, most definitely, would. It is just about shareholder value generation. I don't know how much has the corporate value of other clubs around increased, but compared to the regularity of our 'blue chip' dividends and associated low to no financial risks, it must be one sweet, sweet deal.

I wouldn't want the dividends to stop if I were a shareholder of Manchester United.

You can ask that same question regarding why other american club owners have NOT taken dividends from their respective clubs, for example Arsenal and Liverpool.

I get what you are saying, but there is a big practical and cultural difference when it comes to a professional football club in Europe, vs. a company that only exists to create a service and cash surplus for investment.

Companies are in their right to not pay out dividends. And quite frankly they very often choose not to, be it in times of financial hardship, general underperformance or a need for shareholder investment that makes paying dividends in the short term a very bad optics move.

While the Glazers are in their right, technically, to extract dividends from the clubs profits, the optics are god awful, and the damage to the club itself, their asset, is big.

Firstly, taking dividends from the clubs cashreserve directly impacts the clubs ability to negotiate the transfer market, invest in infrastructure without adding extra loans and generally anything else you can do with £11 million pounds in the short term.

Manchester United is strongly in the category of "generally underperforming". A good club owner would provide both financial leadership and provide a will to invest in the club. The Glazers have not invested a dollar into Manchester United.

The moreover important takeaway from the Glazer family taking dividends while no one else does is the message it displays to sponsors, fans, players, and really anyone involved in the club: The owners do not give two shits about you. Its business first, and sporting results last. Unfortunately dividends impact sporting results in the long and short term, and you can make a simple argument that taking dividends at the current situation is incredibly reckless.

Other club owners invest massively in their clubs and generate income through their extended corporate portfolio by assosciation, not directly removing money from the clubs they own. The reason they dont is that A) It shows they dont need money. Billionaires generally like to flex muscles in their competing market. The Glazers taking money out every year to spread among the Glazer family shareholders first and foremost is indicative of a weak owner who relies on the comparatively small money vs club value that they need to get the cash for their private holdings.

Everyone would be significantly better off with the Glazers attempting to unload to club to Sir Jim Ratcliffe or a collection of partners that are willing to take the clubs in its current financial state.

Lastly, its about tradition and values. Siphoning money from clubs is simply not something football club owners do. Except for ours. Instead of "expecting them to" take dividends, let us rather consider why no one else does. Its certainly not because they are not able to.

When Daniel Ek placed a £2bn bid for Arsenal, Stan Kroenkes answer was "No, I dont need money". - Its a shame the parasites awarding themselvs dividends in our club are not as financially strong.

 

[Wednesday at Stoke]

They don't seem to have any control of our expenses, what kind of club goes from a 210m wage bill to 330m in 24 months? One year of that nonsense costs the equivalent of 5 years of dividends and we had nothing to show for. By limiting the amount of players coming from the outside you creates a situation where it's a lot harder to accumulate drosses.

True, all that logic would matter to a businessman who intends to do it well. These sorts of people live on lines of credit and they are happy walking from one burning building to another as long as a new bank is willing to give them a credit line, presumably with a business as collateral. They have no intention of running a good football club, just tag it along to use as collateral, borrow Peter to pay Paul and so on. This is also why they won’t sell the club. It’s more use to them as an asset than as cash because cash has concrete value.

 

[ATXRedDevil]

People do know that 1/3 of the dividends go to the Class A shares not held by the Glazers right? Not suggesting I'm a fan of the dividends, but it's inaccurate to suggest they're getting 11 million pounds in dividends today.

 

[JPRouve]

True, all that logic would matter to a businessman who intends to do it well. These sorts of people live on lines of credit and they are happy walking from one burning building to another as long as a new bank is willing to give them a credit line, presumably with a business as collateral. They have no intention of running a good football club, just tag it along to use as collateral, borrow Peter to pay Paul and so on. This is also why they won’t sell the club. It’s more use to them as an asset than as cash because cash has concrete value.

I wouldn't say that they no intention of running a good football club because it's easy to forget that most clubs underachieve in relation to investment made and most owners even extremely wealthy ones never find the solution. I have mentioned it several times and people don't really care, this applies to the Edwards family and Manchester United.

It's fair to criticize the Glazers and point the fingers at their shortcomings but it's not fair to act as if success in Football was a given, that money was the only thing needed and competency easy to find because it's not. United found success with SAF who was extremely competent, he did it with shareholders that were taking the same proportion of dividends and had a more stringent wage structure, before that United went nearly two decades without actual success or at least had similar results then we currently have.

To me is pretty clear that they are clueless, the only question that I have and it has been rumoured is whether they are as useless as real estate investors, the rumour is that Malcolm competency wasn't passed to his offsprings.

 

[Blood Mage]

Those leeches can rot in hell for what they've done to this club. That is all.