Club Sale | It’s done!

[FujiVice]

Wow. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one for whom this is rather eye-opening.

Are most (top) football clubs made out of many different companies?

Its why Kenyon, Edwards and the Glazers since 1998 have said "it would confuse the market to have 'football club' on the badge, because Manchester United means different things to different people."

As if anyone on earth would look at the Man United badge and go "oh its that TV channel on my Sky Box."

 

[bosnian_red]

It's admirable that you are so optimistic but a lot of the optimism is based on 'if'. The focus point here should be that the Glazer family have no intention of letting go of their ownership until they have sucked money out of this club for another 10 years. The only path around this was the sale to the Qataris and a higher asking price of $6 billion which they know is ridiculous. I will remain pragmatic and stand firm that as long as the Glazer family have stake in this club; we will remain at the level we are. What I'm referring to is how this club is run at the executive level and not how we play. We may have some small instances of success in games here and there but the underlying truth is exactly what Ragnick pointed out:
- clean out the rot...which includes players, staff and ownership.

Well if Ratcliffe is taking control of sporting matters, then that whole direction is now changed. So we'll see how it goes.

 

[MancunianAngels]

The superrich which include the super sheikhs arent used to not getting what they want. I wouldnt be suprised at all for sheikh Jassim to buy a different club and pump in even more money just to defeat sir Jim on the pitch.

So a tinpot Premier League team becomes a state sponsored sports washing project. Who's arsed?

I also thought Jassim was a top red who'd go all out to rescue Man United? Why would he go near anyone else?

 

[Escobar]

So much money, so little to say. I doubt this will be a big turnaround event for the club

 

[greenoffpearson]

I think the only way this gets vetoed now is if there are massive protests against this ‘take over’. We need to get info on the deal before the next step happens

If it’s a 25% without guarantees I think the vast majority of fans will be against this deal.

It will be interesting to know the details of the deal.

If it was just us supporters then we would hear little, if anything, however they have a duty to shareholders and the exchange. You can't just change the structure of a company that is listed without details being relayed to the other owners.

The Glazers were happy to milk that cow so they have to engage with the people that have given them many hundreds of millions.

 

[Chesterlestreet]

I also thought Jassim was a top red who'd go all out to rescue Man United? Why would he go near anyone else?

Next time around they'll go for another figurehead/consortium, I'd imagine. They should go for someone with more than one promo pic.

(In all seriousness, though, it would look somewhat odd if, say, Leeds were bought by something called the "Nine Two Foundation".)

 

[berbasloth4]

It’s clear the glazers have had not intention of selling they were just trying to test the water.

man United don’t need Arab money they just need an owner who doesn’t take dividends we make enough Otherwise.

if jim is going in slow then forces full takeover when buys over 50% similar to how glazers did and it glazers out so be it.

if anything I’m glad our club isn’t going to be used for sportwashing

 

[ravi2]

Not the outcome I wanted but if Jim can come in and get rid of those two pricks Arnold and Murtough then it’s a good start. A proper structure will go a long way.

Fletcher as DOF needs to change as well.

 

[BluesJr]

Fletcher as DOF needs to change as well.

I do have faith he’ll make these changes. He’s not an idiot.

 

[George The Best]

Wow. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one for whom this is rather eye-opening.

Are most (top) football clubs made out of many different companies?

Yes, quite normal. As an aside you should look at the structure of INEOS. It contains hundreds of entities with Sir Jim named as a board member of each. Obviously he is not providing any form of hands on management for most of these, but what it does tell you (and I’m not an INEOS supporter in this deal) is that he’s very good at picking the right people to manage many of his businesses for him.

 

[lsd]

So many tears from the pro bluffer campaign.

People crying over this are really spoilt.

Sir Jim is a great outcome for us for so many reasons.

We actually know he has the money and will want to do all he can for the club to succeed.

There's no way on earth he is in this just to put money in the Glazer's pockets.

He will want them out as soon as it's possible and will succeed in that.

The man didn't get this far by putting up with fools

 

[SAF is the GOAT]

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[FujiVice]

Ben Jacobs on twitter space now saying why didnt Jassim just up the money if he had the money? Seems to be suggesting that there was a ceiling, and it went past it and he didnt have the money to buy us. That Sheikh Jassim bid has seemed very fishy. Also goes on to say the Dad clearly wasnt keen on it.

 

[BluesJr]

Ben Jacobs on twitter space now saying why didnt Jassim just up the money if he had the money? Seems to be suggesting that there was a ceiling, and it went past it and he didnt have the money to buy us. That Sheikh Jassim bid has seemed very fishy. Also goes on to say the Dad clearly wasnt keen on it.

I really didn’t think those guys would be so ‘sensible’. Seems very short sighted by them just not to go all out and get it done given the value increase if we got back on track.

 

[Judas]

Henry Winter at this point is too smart and intelligent to be known as a football journalist, as pompous as some might find him, he's seemingly the last of a dying breed.

 

[FujiVice]

Henry Winter at this point is too smart and intelligent to be known as a football journalist, as pompous as some might find him, he's seemingly the last of a dying breed.

Always remember in 2007 in the title race and he was asked who he wants to see win the league and he said Man United, because they play wonderful football and win matches, where as Chelsea only did one of those things.

 

[Dr. StrangeHate]

So, basically.. the Glazers borrowed £800m to buy Utd and got Utd to pay that back themselves. Then loaded to club with a mountain of debt while letting facilities start falling apart... while pocketing tens of millions in dividends... and are now being given £1.7 billion, but will still own the club.

feck me, from a machiavellian perspective, you have to take your hat off to them.

They are like wizards, they create money out of nothing.

 

[Cloud7]

If Big Jim has full footballing control then that’s as good a starting point as we could hope for really, since that’s what we need, someone on an ownership level who actually cares about the sporting side of things

 

[Greck]

So Glazers and more debt. What a letdown. People saying INEOS takes the debt need to know it doesn't necessarily matter who owns it. Several of the technical mechanisms that allow INEOS to move around the debt among their subsidiaries usually also allow lenders to pursue the asset. Or lenders would get scammed quite frequently. The club is the whole point of funding

 

[buchansleftleg]

So effectively this deal equals debt doubled...with no material benefit to the club.

And without having removed the cancerous lumps of Malcolms spawn.

How anyone can be positive about this deal is beyond me.

 

[Cassidy]

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Well said

 

[kaku06]

They thought Ratcliffe was the Wealdstone raider and they decided they didn’t want some or him to give it them.

Wealdstone has a message for you Ronnie.

 

[Cassidy]

If Big Jim has full footballing control then that’s as good a starting point as we could hope for really, since that’s what we need, someone on an ownership level who actually cares about the sporting side of things

Whilst the stadium continues to rot and our facilities continue to be sub standard

 

[gaffs]

If you paid 25% of your mortgage off would The bank spend that money renovating your house?

The money is going straight into the Glazers pockets. It’s ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

We dont know yet.

If the Glazers are holding on long term in order to sell later, there could be benefits for reinvestment.

 

[gaffs]

They couldnt have stayed in control indefinitely without minority investment to prop them up

Easy. Just reduce budgets. Dont spend 200mil each window.

 

[Greck]

So effectively this deal equals debt doubled...with no material benefit to the club.

And without having removed the cancerous lumps of Malcolms spawn.

How anyone can be positive about this deal is beyond me.

Makes you wonder. Do these guys even care about the club or they just want to be able to brag at their country club. This could really skint us. Stupid glazers put us in this situation and would rather double the problem than leave.

 

[horsechoker]

Can Ratcliffe put any debt on the club, according to what u could find he said he wouldn't put any debt onto the club.

 

[VP89]

Can Ratcliffe put any debt on the club, according to what u could find he said he wouldn't put any debt onto the club.

Hel put debt onto Ineos.

 

[simonhch]

A lot of people saying they had no intention to sell the whole club etc., but that just fails to understand the situation. The Glazers were always going to do what’s best for them, and only them. Jassim wanted to buy 100% of the club for about 5.2 or 5.3bn. The Glazers own 69% of that (forget voting rights for a second). That offer valued the Glazer’s shares at about 33 each. The fact the offer had another 1.5bn for infrastructure etc., was of immense interest to fans but none to the Glazers, who are looking at the share price offer.

Jim has put in an offer that values their shares at 45 each. That’s a massive premium over Jassim. He’s paid that premium to assume sporting control, and will have an agreement in place to buy remaining Glazer shares at a pre-agreed price, or price window, a condition which is probably time barred and also perhaps influenced by overall financial performance.

The Glazers didn’t sell all their shares yet, but with Jim’s offer they’ve established a club value of around 6bn, which is considermore than the 5.2bn Jassim was offering. They’ll now eventually sell up at a price probably between 35-45 per share, I don’t think it’ll be as high as the initial stake because you can’t sell sporting control twice, but it’ll still be higher than the 33 per share Jassim was offering.

And that’s what it all comes down to. How much they get per share. Jassim was miles off Jim’s offer, and all the other stuff like infrastructure investment etc., was completely irrelevant to them. They give zero fecks about the club when they own it. Laughable to think they would care one jot about what happens to it after they sell.

If Jassim wanted it, he was always going to have to pay 6-6.5bn. This was said right at the beginning and it remained the case to the end when they secured a partial sale at the valuation they always stated they wanted.

Jassim was banking on them needing to sell, fan pressure, the lure of investment etc; but he was a billion short of the price. He evidently thought the price would go down, but clearly underestimated how stubborn and patient these leeches are. I am actually quite surprised at the naivety of the Qatari approach.

At the end of the day, this is the first step towards getting the Glazers out. But it’s going to take another 3-7 years to accomplish I reckon. No surprised there. They’ll drain every penny possible. But I’m quietly relieved it’s not Qatar. Whatever anyone says Jassim was just a front for Qatari state. And that’s not who should own United.

We now have 25% owners who will manage the sporting side, who actually care about the club and will provide it with so much more direction than the vacuum the Glazer’s left. Let’s see what happens over the next few years. More questions than answers at this point; but we are better off than we were yesterday, when we were fully under the Glazers.

 

[Heinzesight]

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit the Glazers move the goalposts on the INEOS deal. I’m convinced they’ll just keep fecking us over one way or another.

 

[MDFC Manager]

Wouldn’t surprise me one bit the Glazers move the goalposts on the INEOS deal. I’m convinced they’ll just keep fecking us over one way or another.

Yeah there could be more twists to come, though Qatar are surely gone imo. Let's see how the market reacts tomorrow and if we hear anything from the institutional investors.

 

[Gabriel Djemba-Bebe]

United fans will not boycott the club. They've had eighteen years to do this, and haven't got started.

They'll most likely shout 'Ratcliffe Out!' after paying for their season ticket.

Lovely little jibe at the matchgoing fans who are trying to push for a change of ownership without abandoning the club they've been supporting since they were kids. FYI, if those protesting fans didn't buy a season ticket, then their seats would be taken by people who are ambivalent towards the Glazers and would therefore be more inclined to spend money at the megastore on a matchday.

But hey, at least your comment was less painful to read than this car crash of a post that you presumably ran through ChatGPT:

Benjamin Sesko sounds like captain material. A defiant player who'd give our opposition the runabout. Would play a deep space false nine like role.

He is such a gem, hadar scouts only seen him sooner. There's no quark to his game, we'd be Miles better with him and would soon Bashir nerys competitor.

 

[Berbaclass]

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[WYVERNUNITED99]

This is the end
Hold your breath and count to ten
Feel the Earth move and then
Hear my heart burst again
For this is the end
I've drowned and dreamt this moment
So overdue, I owe them
Swept away, I'm stolen

No Jasim no money
No money No honey.
Here comes another decade or decades shit shows.

 

[simonhch]

It has been rumoured for a long time that they aren't keen on a full sale (or at least that Joel and Avram aren't). Why not? Presumably because they think the value of the club will keep rising.

As for their actual deal with Jimbo, who knows? But it seems unlikely that they will settle on a fixed share price and in effect agree to sell all their shares to him in increments, as it were, at that fixed price. If that were the case, you could legitimately ask why they can't just sell up right away.

I have no idea, honestly - maybe they (or again: at least Joel /Avram) don't plan to sell all the shares, only enough for Jim to gain full control after, say, 3 or 5 years (or whatever it might be).

To what extent it makes sense - financially - is not for me to answer. Ask the ponytail, I guess.

It’s as simple as securing the share price they want. They’d have sold it all if they got that across the board. Jassim offered 33 a share, which was a billion short of their valuation. Been known since the start. Jim offered 45 per share, which was their valuation, but he wasn’t prepared to do that for 100% of the club. And there was a lawsuit issue if he bought all 69% of the glazer holding at that price and didn’t match it for the other class of shareholders. Hence the 25% deal for now.

Jassim should’ve bought up the 31% on the open market, which he could probably have gotten for $20-25 a share, and then settled in to buy the Glazers 69% out at a premium. He could’ve gotten much closer to matching their valuation if he’d done that.

 

[mu4c_20le]

We're in the endgame now

 

[Cantona’s Kung Fu Kick]

A lot of people saying they had no intention to sell the whole club etc., but that just fails to understand the situation. The Glazers were always going to do what’s best for them, and only them. Jassim wanted to buy 100% of the club for about 5.2 or 5.3bn. The Glazers own 69% of that (forget voting rights for a second). That offer valued the Glazer’s shares at about 33 each. The fact the offer had another 1.5bn for infrastructure etc., was of immense interest to fans but none to the Glazers, who are looking at the share price offer.

Jim has put in an offer that values their shares at 45 each. That’s a massive premium over Jassim. He’s paid that premium to assume sporting control, and will have an agreement in place to buy remaining Glazer shares at a pre-agreed price, or price window, a condition which is probably time barred and also perhaps influenced by overall financial performance.

The Glazers didn’t sell all their shares yet, but with Jim’s offer they’ve established a club value of around 6bn, which is considermore than the 5.2bn Jassim was offering. They’ll now eventually sell up at a price probably between 35-45 per share, I don’t think it’ll be as high as the initial stake because you can’t sell sporting control twice, but it’ll still be higher than the 33 per share Jassim was offering.

And that’s what it all comes down to. How much they get per share. Jassim was miles off Jim’s offer, and all the other stuff like infrastructure investment etc., was completely irrelevant to them. They give zero fecks about the club when they own it. Laughable to think they would care one jot about what happens to it after they sell.

If Jassim wanted it, he was always going to have to pay 6-6.5bn. This was said right at the beginning and it remained the case to the end when they secured a partial sale at the valuation they always stated they wanted.

Jassim was banking on them needing to sell, fan pressure, the lure of investment etc; but he was a billion short of the price. He evidently thought the price would go down, but clearly underestimated how stubborn and patient these leeches are. I am actually quite surprised at the naivety of the Qatari approach.

At the end of the day, this is the first step towards getting the Glazers out. But it’s going to take another 3-7 years to accomplish I reckon. No surprised there. They’ll drain every penny possible. But I’m quietly relieved it’s not Qatar. Whatever anyone says Jassim was just a front for Qatari state. And that’s not who should own United.

We now have 25% owners who will manage the sporting side, who actually care about the club and will provide it with so much more direction than the vacuum the Glazer’s left. Let’s see what happens over the next few years. More questions than answers at this point; but we are better off than we were yesterday, when we were fully under the Glazers.

Where’s the evidence that Ratcliffe cares about the club or the sporting side of it? Could well be just a financial transaction for him. All this does is put even more money in the Glazers’ pockets.

 

[The Hilton]

So many tears from the pro bluffer campaign.

People crying over this are really spoilt.

Sir Jim is a great outcome for us for so many reasons.

We actually know he has the money and will want to do all he can for the club to succeed.

There's no way on earth he is in this just to put money in the Glazer's pockets.

He will want them out as soon as it's possible and will succeed in that.

The man didn't get this far by putting up with fools

The idea that the only people asking questions about this are spoilt, or pro Qatar, is tribalistic nonsense.

I'd love for you to be right with your optimism, but your only accurate statement at the moment is that "there's no way on earth he is in this just to put money in the Glazer's pockets".

Knowing he has the money is something we can't claim, as we know he can't afford to meet the Glazers' full valuation, and the same goes for him succeeding in getting them out - if he could afford to, the deal would be to buy them all out.

My main concern is that, other than sporting control, it's hard to see what the benefit is for United in this deal. The Glazers are the ones getting paid, the debt remains, and it looks like it would be against SJR/INEOS interests to invest any money in the club, as that would increase the valuation and make it more difficult for them to take over.

It's possible that this deal comes with an agreed route to a full takeover that INEOS can afford, which would be great, but short of that, it doesn't seem to improve out situation at all - it solidifies the Glazers' valuation, and we'd have a minority investor who can't afford to meet that valuation at the moment, and the Glazers would be under no obligation to sell.

 

[Overhaul FC]

Who makes up the United Board?

Could they reject the bid in favour of a bid like Sheikh Jassims that would leave the club debt free instead?

Wonder if that's possible.

 

[Drz]

A lot of people saying they had no intention to sell the whole club etc., but that just fails to understand the situation. The Glazers were always going to do what’s best for them, and only them. Jassim wanted to buy 100% of the club for about 5.2 or 5.3bn. The Glazers own 69% of that (forget voting rights for a second). That offer valued the Glazer’s shares at about 33 each. The fact the offer had another 1.5bn for infrastructure etc., was of immense interest to fans but none to the Glazers, who are looking at the share price offer.

Jim has put in an offer that values their shares at 45 each. That’s a massive premium over Jassim. He’s paid that premium to assume sporting control, and will have an agreement in place to buy remaining Glazer shares at a pre-agreed price, or price window, a condition which is probably time barred and also perhaps influenced by overall financial performance.

The Glazers didn’t sell all their shares yet, but with Jim’s offer they’ve established a club value of around 6bn, which is considermore than the 5.2bn Jassim was offering. They’ll now eventually sell up at a price probably between 35-45 per share, I don’t think it’ll be as high as the initial stake because you can’t sell sporting control twice, but it’ll still be higher than the 33 per share Jassim was offering.

And that’s what it all comes down to. How much they get per share. Jassim was miles off Jim’s offer, and all the other stuff like infrastructure investment etc., was completely irrelevant to them. They give zero fecks about the club when they own it. Laughable to think they would care one jot about what happens to it after they sell.

If Jassim wanted it, he was always going to have to pay 6-6.5bn. This was said right at the beginning and it remained the case to the end when they secured a partial sale at the valuation they always stated they wanted.

Jassim was banking on them needing to sell, fan pressure, the lure of investment etc; but he was a billion short of the price. He evidently thought the price would go down, but clearly underestimated how stubborn and patient these leeches are. I am actually quite surprised at the naivety of the Qatari approach.

At the end of the day, this is the first step towards getting the Glazers out. But it’s going to take another 3-7 years to accomplish I reckon. No surprised there. They’ll drain every penny possible. But I’m quietly relieved it’s not Qatar. Whatever anyone says Jassim was just a front for Qatari state. And that’s not who should own United.

We now have 25% owners who will manage the sporting side, who actually care about the club and will provide it with so much more direction than the vacuum the Glazer’s left. Let’s see what happens over the next few years. More questions than answers at this point; but we are better off than we were yesterday, when we were fully under the Glazers.

I share your assessment.
The only thing we can be sure of with Glazers is their greed, so it was always going to come down the price of the shares they own and ultimately how much money they can walk out with.
I think the Qatari's misplayed their hand, whilst Jim was pandering to the Glazers they were pandering to the public.
I do feel we gave up on fan ownership too early.