Club Sale | It’s done!

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Terry Chango

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It is a very good outcome. It's not a perfect outcome. Get your head out of your ass thinking that the perfect outcome was possible, it's not a perfect world. It's business, and the owners didn't want a full sale. What we got was a local guy, rather than being run by a murderous nation state. What we got was a lifelong United supporter who is the richest person in the UK (I think), to take full control over the sporting side of the club.

How can't you see that is a massive win from where we were? Don't forget, "dreams can't be buy". Take the (very big) positive and look forward to how we can improve from here.

Beyond pettiness of their name being here, the Glazers shouldn't actually stop us from improving. Yes, they might take out dividends now and then. It's such a miniscule amount compared to the big picture. Yes it's not ideal. But a competent owner should be able to just manage our own money without external injections, our yearly revenues, our wage budgets, our transfer budgets, and get us back to competing at the very top consistently. We don't need oil money. We need smart management because our revenues are already basically oil money.

When the start of the process was announced, they suggested partial investment or full sale. They didn't say one or the other. The reports that came out was they had a figure in mind for the full sale, and otherwise it was a partial investment. Nobody got close to the full sale target. So a partial sale with losing sporting control is literally the next best thing for us. I don't care about the specifics of majority or partial with future takings or whatever else. I wanted somebody else in charge of sporting matters. That is what will make the real difference.

And yes, my anti any nation state stance is so strong that I never wanted us to be bought by any of them. I was worried that this club would go down the shutter and become a political toy, a puppet for one of these murderous regimes, rather than remain a normal football club. I'd rather us remain a bit shit with the Glazers than go down the road of being bought out by a murderous (or any) state. That shouldn't be allowed in football, and just because it already is there doesn't mean my mentality will switch to "if you can't beat them, join them". I'm plenty fine to keep supporting a Manchester United that does things the right way even if we aren't winning the league every year.

It's a football club. All I care about is we do things the right way, we stay true to our values, we respect the community and we have a smart, functioning plan that we stick to for constant improvement, and we strive for this constant improvement. Luckily for us, we are more than rich enough to still do this and be successful even with some leeches taking bits of money out rather than investing into the club themselves. Smart management is needed. Not a sugar daddy.
Over one billion in dividends have been took out mate. One billion
 

TheReligion

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I’ve called this an improvement on what we had & would class myself as cautiously optimistic, as you describe. I’m simply not drinking the koolaid people are trying to spin that anything that dilutes the Glazers ownership is great as that is nonsense. The fanbase has been cucked so much in the past few years were meant to celebrate a ‘football structure’ ffs! aka a football club hiring football people to do their jobs. Whilst the club remains indebted & will continue to fall further behind in terms of infrastructure.

SjR has spent $1.6bil, of that $300mil will hit the club. That is not ‘great’.

Speaking of days off. . .

Edit: In answer to your final question. I’m not trying to stop people taking away positives, I have myself. I’m just tempering the rhetoric as this isn’t a great day for the club at all, it’s a step in a direction. The club is still fecked.
So I’m drinking kool-aid and trying to spin this as being good news?

I’m trying to work out who you have an issue with or if you’re arguing with yourself somewhat.
 

AFC NimbleThumb

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Well... Yes, Ratcliffe had to purchase his share first from the current owners so that he can then start investing and having control to make decisions. That is normal. If they spent 7 billion on the club for full control, that still wouldn't be 7 billion going to the club. It would be going to the Glazers.
I’m not sure if you’re attempting to be obtuse on purpose. I’m fully aware of that.

Read what was written again.

This is becoming tedious.
 

bosnian_red

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Over one billion in dividends have been took out mate. One billion
No... Almost one billion has been taken out on interest repayments AND the dividends. The interest repayments do most of the lifting. The dividends are like.. 10mil a year? It's not great, it's not nothing, but we are rich enough to handle that and still be a top club. That's not what is stopping us from competing at the top. Dumb management, dumb decisions are why we aren't good and in a mess.
 

Rojofiam

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It’ll be a disaster this, the Glazers are still calling the shots and have taken this guy for a mug. Sir Jim is already allegedly talking about bringing back Greenwood the wrong un’ sad times and desperate moments
Source?
 

AFC NimbleThumb

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So I’m drinking kool-aid and trying to spin this as being good news?

I’m trying to work out who you have an issue with or if you’re arguing with yourself somewhat.
You literally call the deal great in your post. I’m arguing it isn’t.

I’ve been around this forum long enough to know you’re not that stupid & this is your usual play at subversion.

Let’s both agree to take a day off from this point as you’re not willing to discuss the post anymore so it will just go wayward from here.
 

DownRiver

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Can someone explain the significance of Trawler?

I guess the 300m is from Sir Ratfcliffe personally, so he set up Trawler to put in 300m by gaining shares. So after that investment, there will be INEOS, Glazers and Trawler with class B shares?

Why do this? Can they not just fund it from INEOS?
 

TheReligion

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You literally call the deal great in your post. I’m arguing it isn’t.

I’ve been around this forum long enough to know you’re not that stupid & this is your usual play at subversion.

Let’s both agree to take a day off from this point as you’re not willing to discuss the post anymore so it will just go wayward from here.
I think it’s great that the Glazers have diluted their ownership and lost control of footballing matters. That’s what I think is great. I’ve already said the deal itself wasn’t what we all wanted.

Stop being so angry. It must be tiring!
 

TwoSheds

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Can someone explain the significance of Trawler?

I guess the 300m is from Sir Ratfcliffe personally, so he set up Trawler to put in 300m by gaining shares. So after that investment, there will be INEOS, Glazers and Trawler with class B shares?

Why do this? Can they not just fund it from INEOS?
INEOS' other shareholders might have opinions or influence that Ratcliffe isn't interested in I suppose.
 

Spoony

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Surely the 240m quid towards the stadium won't be the end of it? I mean it's not as if they'll hand over the whole amount and get a receipt upon completion. Perhaps it will allow the club to get a massive loan for a complete rebuild?
 

Castia

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Hes investing 300m of his own money into the club already, and you're concerned with a hypothetical dividend? Good one.
That’s not a gift he’s getting more shares for that money

The club need billions and Jim has buttered people up with a measly 300m
 

IRELANDUNITED

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The beginning of a new era at Manchester United. We will be back to the top of football before too long, where we belong.
 

fergieisold

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I will be optimistic about this. Looking at it purely from a footballing point of view it appears on the face of it to be very positive and exactly what we have been crying out for. A complete overhaul of the football operations side.
 

ThatsGreat

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If Ratcliffe is in charge of football operations and has designs on owning the entire club, wouldn't it make sense for him to run it into the ground and pick the whole thing up for pennies to the pound. Will also leave him with more cash for transfers.
 

AFC NimbleThumb

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If at the start of the full sale process, this was proposed, would you have accepted it if Jassim was not part of the process? Is your absolute anti-Qatar stance so strong that you are now fine to go from “full sale only” to “majority ownership sale” to “partial sale with iron clad options to sell at a later date” to this final state of “buying 25% with no guarantee of ever getting the Glazers out”.
No point asking this question. Been asking it for months. You’ll get called pro-Qatar, a moaner & all things before anyone admits this is a steep climb down from what we’d all hoped for when the statement came out.
 

wolvored

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The thing is the parasites agreed a budget anyway that they fecked up by being too slow. If the same budget is agreed and given to Ratcliffe and his men then surely he will be quicker off the mark, without overpaying and giving stupid contracts
 

podurban2

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If Ratcliffe is in charge of football operations and has designs on owning the entire club, wouldn't it make sense for him to run it into the ground and pick the whole thing up for pennies to the pound. Will also leave him with more cash for transfers.
The club is run into the ground and the Glazers are still barely willing to sell a margin of their shares on a huge premium.
 

alexthelion

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Again, the debt has no real detrimental impact on the footballing side, it doesn't affect FFP, just as a full takeover wouldn't affect FFP.

This news can only be a good thing for the club in my eyes, today os not the day for moaning.
:lol::lol::lol:
 

Revan

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Over one billion in dividends have been took out mate. One billion
That’s not really true. They take around 25m/year and they started doing that in 2016. So it should be around 200m overall dividend payments.

Not insignificant, far from it, after all we could have bought Antony, Mount and Hojlund with that money, but not 1 billion as you claimed.
 

MadDogg

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Can someone explain the significance of Trawler?

I guess the 300m is from Sir Ratfcliffe personally, so he set up Trawler to put in 300m by gaining shares. So after that investment, there will be INEOS, Glazers and Trawler with class B shares?

Why do this? Can they not just fund it from INEOS?
INEOS won't own anything.

Ratcliffe is buying the shares himself (both the original 25% and the new shares issued for the $300m), not INEOS. He's doing that under the company Trawlers Limited, a company he set up (the name is a nod towards Cantona's old quote about seagulls following the trawler) which he owns 100% of. Effectively, Trawler = Ratcliffe. I presume it's just more tax effective to own them through a company rather than directly under his name.

So at the end of the day, the 6 Glazer siblings and Trawler/Ratcliffe will be the ones with Class B shares.
 

Stinkypete

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No point asking this question. Been asking it for months. You’ll get called pro-Qatar, a moaner & all things before anyone admits this is a steep climb down from what we’d all hoped for when the statement came out.
Basically anyone who doesn’t lap up the kool aid which SJR is giving is a kid who is throwing his toys out of his pram?

How about all the pro-SJR posters on here and their absolute belief that “Jim is a shrewd businessman who would never pump money into this without a guarantee of majority ownership”? How about them doing a 180 and saying that this is a great outcome.

If at the start of the full sale process, this was proposed, would you have accepted it if Jassim was not part of the process? Is your absolute anti-Qatar stance so strong that you are now fine to go from “full sale only” to “majority ownership sale” to “partial sale with iron clad options to sell at a later date” to this final state of “buying 25% with no guarantee of ever getting the Glazers out”.
Sorry to poke holes in your argument but it was never a full sale process.
 

Hughie77

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Only time will tell if its going to make any difference.. imo no it won't until the Glazers are gone altogether.
That is now a long way off, there just going to throw Ratcliffe under the bus now when it goes more pear shaped.

£300 million for the Staduim ? I've read 1 Billion on what else ? Let's see, I've got no excitement at all about any of the news until there are clear results on the pitch to show for it...that won't be for a while imo.
 

Revan

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Is Ratcliff any good? Being a supporter doesnt make one a Florention Perez by default.

He might be another Woodward with his oen idea
He is ultra successful and is a self-made billionaire. You cannot make a company of that size without being able to delegate to the right people, and that is all we need him to do. Hire experienced talented people.

I wouldn’t want him to do a Perez and decide what players we should sign. There are not many Perezs around.
 

MadDogg

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Is Ratcliff any good? Being a supporter doesnt make one a Florention Perez by default.

He might be another Woodward with his oen idea
The important thing is that he seems to be putting in place a good team to fill the important roles at the top of the football pyramid. Preferably he himself won't actually be making any further decisions (other than deciding to invest more money in), as chances are the people he is putting in charge will be better at that than he himself would be.

We won't know for sure for a couple of years, but the first 6 months or so should give us a decent idea.
 

RORY65

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Is Ratcliff any good? Being a supporter doesnt make one a Florention Perez by default.

He might be another Woodward with his oen idea
He may well be bad, his record in sports ownership is not very impressive, but he has at least shown a willingness to put serious people in to key positions. That's unlike Woodward whose ego meant he decided to cosplay as a key football figure for years before making Murtough the Director of Football seemingly for no reason other than that Murtough had threatened to join Phil Neville in Miami if he didn't get the job.

We will see who the appointments are and how they work out but Blanc as CEO and presumably a new Director of Football and potentially a new Head of Recruitment to come in gives us a better chance of being competent.
 

AFC NimbleThumb

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Sorry to poke holes in your argument but it was never a full sale process.
Sorry to poke holes in you poking holes but did you actually read my post? If so where do I say it was a full sale or do I say it’s a steep climb down from what people wanted when the statement first dropped.

The state of this place. Comprehension matters lad.
 
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Redjazz

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I agree, I understand people's concerns regarding the future control of the club, but I'm just glad for some change around how the footballing side operates and someone with at least high level sporting and football experience doing that.
If something isn't working, you have to change your approach even if there are no guarantees. How workable the proposed approach is remains to be seen.
The 300m dollar cash injection into the club is unreservedly a good thing.
The control issue is as yet an untold story; we have to see what changes have been made to the club's constitution in preparation for this deal. Changes to the AOA will be required to address the transferability of B shares and the power of B shares in the event of key decisions will have to be amended- prior to this deal, B shareholders could alter the voting ratio, from 10/1 upwards, to ensure that remaining B shareholders had at least 2/3 of the voting power for special resolution issues. Changes would have to be acceptable to all the major players.
We'll get to see that info soon enough.
 
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