Nurse hasn't reached 2005 yetA lot of crap sources in this thread recently. Please read the title again.
In other news; what are the odds that this entire process isn't going to be completed before the end of the season? I feel like the deadline for that has already passed, as the handover would surely take longer than three months?
Club Sale | It’s done!
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Exactly. With the amount of interest and dividends the club has paid out over the last 15 years - we could've self funded an entire new state of the art stadium. But we couldn't because the leeches took it for themselves.
We should've been the ones who went crazy in the summer of 2009 after losing a CL final - but we had to sit there and watch, as Madrid laid the foundations for their upcoming decade of success. It's mental how much we've lost cause of the current owners.
We are already one of the world’s elite clubs. Under Qatari ownership, or any other mammoth billionaire ownership, we will be under huge scrutiny - all of the time. Nobody will let another Man City fiasco happen again in this country. Probably one of the reasons Newcastle Utd haven’t gone nuts with the money since the Saudi’s became involved. They are even flying to Premier games on an Eastern Airlines turbo-prop plane - not exactly the height of luxury.
Who writes this crap? He has to buy United first. A lot of bullshit on media platforms, I still have doubts about the Glazers selling up, hope I’m proved wrong.
Castles loves talking down United at every opportunity. Wondered when he would have a go at the proposed takeover
Best thing is, if he wants you to shoot him then it's suicide
There is no reason for that to happen anyway. We are regularly the highest earning club from shirt deals etc.
But we have to tie ourselves down to unhealthily long deals (Adidas is 10 years) which end up uncompetitive because the owners need security for their heavily leveraged ownership of the club.
If they are in a 2nd stage of bidding and had multiple discussions, then it makes sense they have a plan for what happens after a winning bid.
Do you expect them to not make any plans until they are owners? That would be as bad for us this summer as another year with the Glazers
Make plans by all means but a lot of this talk means sweet FA.
If they were serious then after this second round of bidding and the Glaze4s turning it down they should offer the full asking price, call the Glazers bluff.
I hate those yank leaches with a vengeance but all this talk of doing this and that whilst not actually stumping up the actual cash to buy the club is just talk for the media and gullible supporters.
I agree. I was replying to a post that said we will become Madrid on steroids under Qatar ownership. I just don’t think we will burn more money on players than we can afford. If we are debt free we can re-invest profits in the team and be remarkably self-sufficient, we don’t need additional funding for that. Any additional outside investment needs to go towards the infrastructure, not Mbappe type signings on a million a week.
I wouldn't be against having Braga as a feeder team per se, takes us back to when we had clubs like Sporting we dealt with regularly and the likes of Antwerp we would send kids out to play regularly.
Nobody stumps up the asking price unless they consider it’s worth it. If the asking price is around the rumoured £6bn plus then most analysts believe that is over-valuing the business. If they really want to sell then they will have to negotiate at some point.
I don’t wanna be tied to any other club. I just want United to be United.
What does that mean? What do you think will happen?
Madrid could only afford so many galaticos and went something like 5 years after Ronaldo before they signed Bale. It’s the same now, a big splurge a few years ago on young Brazilians plus Hazard and they are financially stuck for another 4/5 years.
United could do that every summer under new ownership and this structure.
It’s not just Qatari owners but it’s coupled with the EPL overpowering everyone else that could make us unstoppable.
Great post mate, very interesting.A lot is pointing towards this process reaching its climax in the coming week or two. A few thoughts.
What is happening in the process?
Overall, evaluating the value of MUFC is not hard, nor does it require a due diligence from a broader point of view. The Manchester United plc reports using the IFRS standard which is established by the EU for all companies listed on a regulated market. Besides, financing agreements have also been made available. While a bidder of course will want to perform its due diligence and verify key aspects of the club as well as taking part of the latest up to date financials -- both Ineos and the Qataris have for a long time been able to evaluate the target of this process.
The Raine Group has performed three rounds of bidding, first the indicative bid and then two de facto bids. These bids are made for the Glazers' shares of the club (more on that later). All -- three -- parties are advised by top advisers and are more or less on equal footing in these negotiations. There have been talks about the Glazers playing the bidders, threatening keep the club, and what not. Those aspects should perhaps not totally be disregarded -- but not far from it. If you engage JPM or Goldman Sachs or players like that for a multi-billion transaction -- you won't be pushed around in the negotiations. What is the point of a third (fourth) round of bidding? The next point is probably pointing at the highest bidder, and telling the other side that they will be out of the running in 24h if they do not counter that offer. After that, you should have a preferred bidder.
What remains after a preferred bidder is appointed?
Whomever buys the club needs to be approved by the PL. That process can be started before a takeover is executed.
Ultimately, buying the Glazers' shares can be done through a simple transaction note. There will be no meaningful reps and warranties given that it is a public transaction. The buyer will undertake to replace the Glazer siblings on the board, not much more. Hence, the club could potentially have a new owner within weeks.
But what about the remaining 31%? Well, it is here it gets a bit tricky -- and this is a topic that ultimately will depend on Cayman Island cooperate law. First of all, must you buy those shares if you buy the Glazers shares? No. In the UK and all of the EU, anyone acquiring more than 30% of the votes in a company must make a so called mandatory bid for the remaining shares. The reason for this is that anyone buying a share in a listed company should be able to assume that the company will be run in a way that is best for all shareholders. If someone comes in and buy a controlling share, the minority owners must be given an opportunity to exit their investment in light of the new circumstances. This is -- not -- the case on the Cayman Islands.
So why buy the remaining shares of Manchester United plc -- if you don't have to, and since you would controll the club anyway by just buying the Glazers' shares? That is a good question. There are no guarantee that Ineos for example would want to buy those shares. Why not invest that money into the club instead? There is however one big advantage of buying the minorities' shares. If you own all shares of a company, you can wheel 'nd deal with it anyway you want. Lets say you want to lift land owned by the club out of the club and develop it in a separate entity -- its just a little paper work if you own all shares. If there are 150,000 minority shareholders, you better make darn sure that you pay market value for any asset you transfer from the club to another company. And even if you do all you can -- you could still see some litigation. It is impossible to know how the parties would act, but from my view point it is natural to assume that the Qataris would want 100% of the shares while I don't quite see the upside for anyone with Ineos sucking up the shares listed at NYSE.
But anyway -- if you want to buy the minority shares listed at the NYSE -- how is it done? Well you cannot get each and every 150,000 (just picking a random number) minority owner to sell their shares to you. Hence there are mechanisms in place to enable taking a company private. As I understand it, we could either see (a) a public tender offer to the minority (someone sends out a press release and say 'If you want to sell your MUFC plc shares, fill out this form, and we will buy them'), and if bidder owns 90% of the shares after the tender offer, it gets the right to redeem the outstanding shares, or (b) through a take private merger. Given how majority owner friendly Cayman Island law is, I think (b) would be the method used. Ineos or the Qataris create a BidCo (Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)). That BidCo proposes to merge with Manchester United plc. In the merger, the owner of the BidCo gets 100% of the shares in Manchester United plc and the current shareholders of MU plc gets 100% cash. Takes say a month or two to execute. If a minority shareholder in the club thinks the terms of the merger were worthless -- they can take it to court and ask for more pay. Some surely would. If you want to acquire 100% of the shares -- is it better to first acquire Glazers's 69% and then merge or does it make more sense to also acquire the Glazers' shares through a merger? This could impact the arguments of the minority owners going to court asking for more pay. I can't provide any input on if it would matter, but I would bet on that given how flexible Cayman Law is, it doesn't.
What happens to the debt?
As soon as someone takes control of the Glazers' shares of the club -- it will trigger the so called Change of control-clauses of the plc's debt agreements. This means that within stipulated time frames, that debt becomes immediately repayable. So in terms of the actual debt agreements, the Glazers debt will not survive a takeover. The buyer can either (a) pay back the debt, (b) refinance the debt in the name of the club, or (c) refinance the debt in a company higher up in the buyers' group. When Ineos say that they won't put any new debt on the Manchester United plc -- I think it would sound odd that they would engage JPM and GS to issue a bunch of new bonds in Manchester United plc. I think they would do that higher up in the Ineos group. But there is some uncertainty there.
The Qatari would probably cash the debt. I think the talk about Qataris only using "cash" is a bit irrelevant. Qatar's GDP to debt ratio is 40% which is low for a country. Ineos' debt ratio is probably a few times its turnover, which is normal/on the higher side for the average company, but not high for a company with a M&A strategy.
Who will win the bidding?
I want to add one word of caution here, if anyone is absolutely convinced that the Qataris will win the bidding. A group of people in Qatar is driving this project. Right? No matter what anyone says, its common sense that they don't have £5bn burning a hole in their wallet. The bid will be financed with funds which the royal family controls. Hence, someone is setting a budget for the bid. We don't know what that budget is. It could be 10bn. It could be 5bn. I don't think its far fetched to speculate on that someone gave the green light to the entire project -- as long as the price wasn't crazy. You can have 8bn, 5bn for the club and 3bn for the work after getting it. If they want 100% of the shares, and Ineos would settle for 69% -- Ineos wouldn't have to pay absurd money.
I have said from day 1 that the Qataris are the favorites. I would still bet on them if I had to bet, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.
What about Zilliacus?
The only way he has a shot is if he is fronting the Saudis.
And sadly common sense isn't too common.
Feels like if we’re tied to PSG we lose a bit of who we are. I know that we lose who we are regardless if Qatar come in as owners, but that just seems like the start of a slippery slope to being part of a conglomerate of football teams. Being alongside of PSGs standing is just a weird one for me.
Great work as ever. Thanks for your insight.A lot is pointing towards this process reaching its climax in the coming week or two. A few thoughts.
What is happening in the process?
Overall, evaluating the value of MUFC is not hard, nor does it require a due diligence from a broader point of view. The Manchester United plc reports using the IFRS standard which is established by the EU for all companies listed on a regulated market. Besides, financing agreements have also been made available. While a bidder of course will want to perform its due diligence and verify key aspects of the club as well as taking part of the latest up to date financials -- both Ineos and the Qataris have for a long time been able to evaluate the target of this process.
The Raine Group has performed three rounds of bidding, first the indicative bid and then two de facto bids. These bids are made for the Glazers' shares of the club (more on that later). All -- three -- parties are advised by top advisers and are more or less on equal footing in these negotiations. There have been talks about the Glazers playing the bidders, threatening keep the club, and what not. Those aspects should perhaps not totally be disregarded -- but not far from it. If you engage JPM or Goldman Sachs or players like that for a multi-billion transaction -- you won't be pushed around in the negotiations. What is the point of a third (fourth) round of bidding? The next point is probably pointing at the highest bidder, and telling the other side that they will be out of the running in 24h if they do not counter that offer. After that, you should have a preferred bidder.
What remains after a preferred bidder is appointed?
Whomever buys the club needs to be approved by the PL. That process can be started before a takeover is executed.
Ultimately, buying the Glazers' shares can be done through a simple transaction note. There will be no meaningful reps and warranties given that it is a public transaction. The buyer will undertake to replace the Glazer siblings on the board, not much more. Hence, the club could potentially have a new owner within weeks.
But what about the remaining 31%? Well, it is here it gets a bit tricky -- and this is a topic that ultimately will depend on Cayman Island cooperate law. First of all, must you buy those shares if you buy the Glazers shares? No. In the UK and all of the EU, anyone acquiring more than 30% of the votes in a company must make a so called mandatory bid for the remaining shares. The reason for this is that anyone buying a share in a listed company should be able to assume that the company will be run in a way that is best for all shareholders. If someone comes in and buy a controlling share, the minority owners must be given an opportunity to exit their investment in light of the new circumstances. This is -- not -- the case on the Cayman Islands.
So why buy the remaining shares of Manchester United plc -- if you don't have to, and since you would controll the club anyway by just buying the Glazers' shares? That is a good question. There are no guarantee that Ineos for example would want to buy those shares. Why not invest that money into the club instead? There is however one big advantage of buying the minorities' shares. If you own all shares of a company, you can wheel 'nd deal with it anyway you want. Lets say you want to lift land owned by the club out of the club and develop it in a separate entity -- its just a little paper work if you own all shares. If there are 150,000 minority shareholders, you better make darn sure that you pay market value for any asset you transfer from the club to another company. And even if you do all you can -- you could still see some litigation. It is impossible to know how the parties would act, but from my view point it is natural to assume that the Qataris would want 100% of the shares while I don't quite see the upside for anyone with Ineos sucking up the shares listed at NYSE.
But anyway -- if you want to buy the minority shares listed at the NYSE -- how is it done? Well you cannot get each and every 150,000 (just picking a random number) minority owner to sell their shares to you. Hence there are mechanisms in place to enable taking a company private. As I understand it, we could either see (a) a public tender offer to the minority (someone sends out a press release and say 'If you want to sell your MUFC plc shares, fill out this form, and we will buy them'), and if bidder owns 90% of the shares after the tender offer, it gets the right to redeem the outstanding shares, or (b) through a take private merger. Given how majority owner friendly Cayman Island law is, I think (b) would be the method used. Ineos or the Qataris create a BidCo (Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV)). That BidCo proposes to merge with Manchester United plc. In the merger, the owner of the BidCo gets 100% of the shares in Manchester United plc and the current shareholders of MU plc gets 100% cash. Takes say a month or two to execute. If a minority shareholder in the club thinks the terms of the merger were worthless -- they can take it to court and ask for more pay. Some surely would. If you want to acquire 100% of the shares -- is it better to first acquire Glazers's 69% and then merge or does it make more sense to also acquire the Glazers' shares through a merger? This could impact the arguments of the minority owners going to court asking for more pay. I can't provide any input on if it would matter, but I would bet on that given how flexible Cayman Law is, it doesn't.
What happens to the debt?
As soon as someone takes control of the Glazers' shares of the club -- it will trigger the so called Change of control-clauses of the plc's debt agreements. This means that within stipulated time frames, that debt becomes immediately repayable. So in terms of the actual debt agreements, the Glazers debt will not survive a takeover. The buyer can either (a) pay back the debt, (b) refinance the debt in the name of the club, or (c) refinance the debt in a company higher up in the buyers' group. When Ineos say that they won't put any new debt on the Manchester United plc -- I think it would sound odd that they would engage JPM and GS to issue a bunch of new bonds in Manchester United plc. I think they would do that higher up in the Ineos group. But there is some uncertainty there.
The Qatari would probably cash the debt. I think the talk about Qataris only using "cash" is a bit irrelevant. Qatar's GDP to debt ratio is 40% which is low for a country. Ineos' debt ratio is probably a few times its turnover, which is normal/on the higher side for the average company, but not high for a company with a M&A strategy.
Who will win the bidding?
I want to add one word of caution here, if anyone is absolutely convinced that the Qataris will win the bidding. A group of people in Qatar is driving this project. Right? No matter what anyone says, its common sense that they don't have £5bn burning a hole in their wallet. The bid will be financed with funds which the royal family controls. Hence, someone is setting a budget for the bid. We don't know what that budget is. It could be 10bn. It could be 5bn. I don't think its far fetched to speculate on that someone gave the green light to the entire project -- as long as the price wasn't crazy. You can have 8bn, 5bn for the club and 3bn for the work after getting it. If they want 100% of the shares, and Ineos would settle for 69% -- Ineos wouldn't have to pay absurd money.
I have said from day 1 that the Qataris are the favorites. I would still bet on them if I had to bet, but I wouldn't bet the house on it.
What about Zilliacus?
The only way he has a shot is if he is fronting the Saudis.
Fair enough, I hadn’t thought of it that way. I guess being closely linked to PSG would be a bit weird, especially when we’ve spent years mocking them.
What about Malaga? They are Al-Thani owned too.
I doubt that very much under FFP and the immense scrutiny we’d be under.
So we've stopped pretending its not a state-backed bid now? That's new
Qatari bid is better for the club overall. Say for example we build a new stadium that has a capacity of 100k, that will also need huge investment into the local infrastructure to handle an extra 25k fans on matchday (25k stadiums all over the country cause chaos in terms of people management and traffic), and this will be 25k on top of the record number of people we have at OT every week.
I can't see a businessman man like Ratcliffe bankrolling the local infrastructure spend around OT so that it could handle that sort of throughout. It's feck all for the Qataris as long as they can stick their name on these local projects.
I can't see a businessman man like Ratcliffe bankrolling the local infrastructure spend around OT so that it could handle that sort of throughout. It's feck all for the Qataris as long as they can stick their name on these local projects.
It's just a network, we have had it before with Sporting, Antwerp and a Brazilian club back in the day but I can't remember which it was.
There is no evidence that the Qatar will be better. They're only giving you dreams of signing superstar football players.
As I keep saying, don't trust any of them. Demand more.
Isn’t it the same as being besides Nice with the other bid?
Seems different with how close our Qataris would be with their Qataris (pretty much the same entity if we’re being realistic) though.
Why hasn’t there been any decent news on this today? I’m getting furious and confused.
I don’t really have a preference over the bids but I just get a bad feeling about the linked tweets above about the potential football club partnerships.
I’d feel the same about Nice if we were t start cycling players through there etc. Seems a bit cheap and something that’s irked me about City and their football group.
Unless Jorge Mendes is running the deal, Castles is absolutely useless. They haven't bought the club yet but have already prepared their empire, mhm.
Easy, we will be their farm team
I agree with the majority of that but again two sides to a sword.
How can you say we shifted our focus to top 4 when we competed for the title every season until SAF left.
You are bigging up our stature in Europe but whilst SAF was making rash decisions like selling Stam and buying Blanc.. Nesta was moving to AC Milan. If the internet was what it was now… people would be screaming how are we just signing Brexit Rio when we could be getting Nesta to partner him at the back. You also have to remember how many European titles we won in that time. Under Glazer ownership we out done anything before that with regards to Europe.
My main point is there is no direct answer to becoming more successful. But it edges a lot more to having the right manager than it does having the best in class above him and I wish more people would realise this.
Why? If the deal goes through we are officially separate entities, what can anybody do then? Has anybody stopped the Sesko deal between the two red bull clubs? Or when City got Lampard on loan from their American club?
Say we are taken over this summer, what stopping Utd signing Kane with PSG signing Ferguson to develop him for a move in 2/3 years? As long as we pay market rates then what can be done? Hell wait until contracts are run down and sign pre contracts since they’re in different countries and that can be done at Christmas.
We could sign Mbappe for 150m then sell Fred (who they’re linked to with a big move anyway) and maybe Lindelof and Dalot for 100m odd back to them. Where does FFP bite us?
Edit as soon as he two clubs rule is gone then there no pretending anymore
Nice pun
I think it would be great to have reliable clubs to send loan players to. That would surely benefit both clubs involved.
The answer is very simple, the players are the ones preventing it. That's why the link between clubs that are part of the same portfolio isn't as close as people tend to imagine. Liefering, Salzburg and Leipzig are the most connected and even then players are ultimately the ones choosing where they go.
It would see the club lose any remaining element of its cultural identity.
However, we'll win the league every year so who cares?
Agreed. Ten Hag is proving it this season. Yes he’s added a few of his own men, but he’s also got a lot more out of pre-existing squad members too. That’s nothing to do with the DoF or CEO.
Likely a hollow and meaningless victory, cheapened by the fact it wasn’t ‘earned’.
That's an interesting take, how would the club lose any remaining element of its cultural identity. That identity remains with the local fans, clubs don't lose their cultural identity that easily unless that identity is weak.
Big surprise huh? I always thought you made a billionare adquisition to change absolutely nothing.
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