Even if the board don't ratify the deal today, I suspect they will be told some more details and those will be leaked to the press by directors who may have an agenda / suspect they will be replaced by Jimbob Squarepants people.
Club Sale | It’s done!
- Thread starter JB08
- Start date
- Status
You think the Glazers turned their noses up at billions because they hate Qatar?
Who were the 'right' people?
I am only happy that a fascist autocratic country's state backed company doesn't own my favorite team. That's all. I long for the day when dictatorships cant compete on our democratic markets.
I would say that transfer budgets are the most important thing in a football club. If Ratcliffe doesn’t get control of that then what does “control over footballing matters” even mean. Does he get to fire the manager. Does he get to appoint a new DOF without interference from the Glazers?
That is why i am saying the news about Ratcliffe getting footballing control is bullshit.
No sane businessman will cede control of the most important operations of a company to a minority investor.
Last edited:
You realise wealth doesn't equal cash.......right?.......right?
Any change is a gamble, but most fans are ready for literally any new option since it's been a decade of mismanagement.
With INEOS there is some track record to look at with Nice & Lausanne - unfortunately it's not too good but maybe they are learning from mistakes.
If you want to talk about cronyism then just look at how Jim put his brother in charge of football operations at INEOS!
92F obviously have no track record but it's not necessarily an issue, the new owners at Newcastle have started annoyingly well for example but at the same time you see the absolute mess at Chelsea.
Probably irrelevant at this point but I'd have been happy to see the likes of Beckham or Neville back at the club in some capacity, I think the major problem was actually having too many non-footballing people (Glazers, Woodward etc) making football decisions.
But that information came from the Muppeteers, who seem to be gloating as they clearly have a leak from INEOS, right now I’d wait until we have all of the actual data. I also don’t think they are a credible source and have a biased agenda.
The stronger rumour was the bid was £5.6bn which was made last week but it came too late and that after the debt was paid the Glazers would get about £5 billion nearly double the market value, however still less than INEOS 25% bid who had offered £1.5bn for 25% yes £1.35 bn is being quoted, however there is an additional £150m to be invested to help with immediate cash flow problems. Lots of small print, lots of contract agreements to be included, Jimmy deal is incredibly complexed, I think it will happen now as there no one else in the room to bid against, however from the Glazers point of view the last thing they want right now with only one bidder in the room, is for Ineos group to think they’ve bid £1 billion more ?
What’s to stop Ineos from now going in with a lower bid or demanding 51% and more control, nothing is signed yet!
The third option of the Glazers staying is still very much on the table!
Unless the real deal is a full sale for X billion pounds, or a number of pre-agreed put-calls, but in order to avoid legal issues with minority stake holders the agreement is specifically designed to give the appearance of a minority sale, while functionally being a majority sale. I have a sneaking suspicion that it's a full sale for Glazer only shares that is being dressed up as a convoluted minority share aquisition.
I wasn't saying a top DoF was saying it all starts at the top by hiring the right DoF. Aka get the right people in the right positions from top to bottom.
You realize that the glazers abd ratcliffe are opening themselves up to a deluge of lawsuits if as you say its a majority sale dressed up as a minority stake sale. Also put and calls are just that they give you an option to buy rather than an obligation to buy. I mean how stupid does somebody have to be to believe that buying 25% will give you control over the most important operations of a company. If that were the case then i would buy the stake in any going concern and then take terrible decisions to devalue the club into nothing and then buy it for pennies.
If any of this has legal implications regarding lawsuts it will take years to sort out.
That depends entirely how they go about it. Your other points are valid, but given that they reportedly seem to be giving him full operational control, 25% of the voting power (and thus the power to stop special resolutions) and INEOS seem to be confident that they will have full control before 2026 - Glazers are either incredibly naive and giving INEOS the power to do what you just suggested, or something else is going on.
Disappointed it won't be ratified for weeks now. Want to hear the details of the deal
Some details will probably leak out of the board meeting today. Hopefully enough to give us a sense of what will happen over the next few years.
No I think they turned their noses up because they didn’t offer enough money. But people seem to think they can decide what price is acceptable to another individual.
My point around politics was that negotiations from the outside seem to have been a lot more straightforward than with Qatar.
But as utd7 pointed out below who else do you think will buy us if we're worth £8b+? The only bid for 100% has pulled out because the cnuts are taking the piss with the valuation and thought it was too much!
An NDA doesn’t stop you moaning about the process or how it was handled. Just the detailed data/numbers/sensitive stuff.
I would have assumed that there will be definite leaks about the process soon.
Psst... Don't burst his fantasists bubble.
It's been quoted or sourced that it won't be discussed in today's board meeting
92F have their mess at psg. Of course, they are completely different people running that club, only it isn't.
Neville and Beckham have become non-football people, the former is a media figure whereas the latter is a common celebrity who was on a bidder's payroll.
Neither have any qualification in running a serious football club. Neville's tenure as manager of Valencia (granted to him by his mate Peter Lim) was an absolute disaster. Qatar's bid is massive signings, jam tomorrow and the boy's are back! All a bit Woodward.
You raise a good point about Ratcliffe's operation, though, and it's obviously more pertinent. He seems to have a select squad in mind, tried and trusted staff who have produced mixed results elsewhere. A good reminder Ratcliffe is not any silver bullet.
Still as nervous about our next move as I was months ago.
You could say the same about Sheikh Jassim.
Correct
There's already been leaks about the process from the Qatari side and it screamed off them throwing their toys out the pram as they didn't get the deal that suited them.
I presume it's being able to choose the CEO and/or DoF (or possibly install himself as CEO). He wouldn't by himself be able to decide how much the club is spending, but he could decide what percentages of it get allocated to what areas. Stuff like that. I certainly hope it wouldn't be more involved than that, as there's no reason to think he'd be any good at being hands-on.
Obviously the Glazer's would have to agree with that, and there's only two ways that would happen. Either they are of the belief that he would be better in that role than they or the people they trust to do it currently are (and therefore we'll have more success which will make them more money), or his offer is completely reliant on them giving him that power and they consider the offer worthwhile.
No idea if it's true or not, but I expect that'd be the way it would happen. Even if it is true it'd obviously have conditions to it.
This type of delusion is what makes people in the rest of the world make fun of the 'West'.
Not to mention that it's the leaders of these so-called democracies themselves that invite the autocrats into the countries they're elected to govern.
Unless you find a source of reliable renewable energy, the West cannot isolate itself from the countries that hold the keys to their economy. And we know the population won't vote for getting poorer, so it's just one huge hypocritical circlejerk.
If it's 50% class A and 50% class B like rumoured then that would rule out class A stakeholders having a claim they have been cut out.
Yes, that appears to be the position.
However we are told/not told that they still have not come to a definitive agreement and therefore we don't know, although you would assume that they have canvassed the bigger A class investors.
What is still unclear is that if Sir Jim is seeking to purchase the whole club then that agreement would need to be part of the text and they, Sir Jim/Glazer's, would need to consider the issue of dissent.
Why? The law protects all A class shareholders. They can’t just buy some form Joel Glazer and side step it all
United already spend a ton in the transfer market. That’s what I meant.
Once again the Glazers aren’t involved on in the day to day running of club. I’m not sure how many times this needs to the said. The board may vote on a DoF if they go that route but that’s about it.
From what I read, Radcliffe would be the largest individual shareholder.
Nobody here is saying the board of directors will get together to vote every time the club wants to sign John Smith for 100M, or when the cleaning lady wants to change the brand of soap in the bathroom dispensers.
But over the years there have been many reports from various sources that the Glazers, which is to say Avram and especially Joel, personally sign off on pretty much everything the club does. That has been cited as one of the reasons why everything takes ages in this club. Me, and many others I believe, are skeptical they will now relinquish this kind of control to someone else. Particularly someone who still has a long way to pay for that kind of privilege. I very much doubt Ratcliffe will have any actual influence until he takes over... if he takes over. The whole "control of football operations" is just window dressing.
It's more that the legal challenges appear to be coming from certain sections of Class A shareholders so SJR is offering those a premium on those shares and getting his foot in the door by taking some Class B's as well.
My guess is he would then try and tank the value of the remaining Class A's and pick them up on the cheap while still acquiring the Class B's at a pre-agreed amount.
Transfer budgets at United have rarely been a problem, the readies have been made available, the most important thing is how it's spent, in United's case poorly, fix that and a lot of issues go away
I don't like the way PSG are run and I don't think it's the same people, but I'd say they have been relatively successful in recent times - better than us based on CL anyway.
Don't agree on Nev and Becks at all - both are firmly involved in football (literally both own actual football clubs) and successful business men. I'd happily take them back at the club in some capacity.
Sir Jim is far from a silver bullet but at the moment it appears he's our last hope of any real change and even that is far from guaranteed, a sad situation for sure.
Not really. People buy minority shares all the time. Show me the law where you have to leagally buy all shareholdings rather in one go rather than buying in this example 12.5% from the NYSE?
I only have a moderate interest so if you're an expert in business law please feel free to share relevent links as I would be interested to see.
None of this will happen IMO - where does the rumour that his 25% will be 50/50 Class A/B even come from? I think it's unlikely to be that way, although all is possible
The most likely is that SJR is buying 25% straight from the Glazers
It's an interesting one as the share price only rocketed because of the SJ statement about buying 100% of the club, which they shouldn't have made, as they were under a NDA and 100% of the club wasn't for sale, only the Glazers seeking "strategic alternatives".
Great. So, now it's actually nothing, but many weeks from now maybe it'll be something. Of some sort.
I don’t think anyone seriously thought that this would be done by the January Window. I wouldn’t even hold my breath for the summer.
- Status