People don't seem to grasp the difference between highly-paid rich and owns-large-companies rich.
Realistic buyers...
- Thread starter Rozay
- Start date
It makes a big difference if the intentions of that individual are right. If they install the right people to run the business, if they focus on football for the fans, if they invest their money in their asset(inc stadium). Jim Ratcliffe would run United with the right intentions, they may not always be the right thing to do but neither would a fan owned club.
Nobody nice has this sort of money. Take the Saudi money. If they're funding our transfers it's money not spent on wars and terrorism.
Its either a foreign government looking for a sport-washing project or a consortrium of investors at this point. The latter seems unlikely if our commercial performances are not worth that much an investment up front. Unless the UK government introduces some form of ownership rules, 50+1 seems unlikely.
Club claims to have almost a billion fans.
Gofundme page and a tenner a piece minimum donation. With 2 out of every ten going to charity.
Sorted.
Gofundme page and a tenner a piece minimum donation. With 2 out of every ten going to charity.
Sorted.
No one whose net worth under $100B will spend money on United.
We will cost around $5Billion. Who would spend a 1/4 of their net worth on a football club that will have its ups & downs or may even take a quick dip like the Dippers of Merseyside?
Then if you have institutions, they would expect better returns than what United can offer for $5billion -- unless we get some concession out of the SL debacle. Selling United matches direct to fans for example. Like $30/month to watch every United match live? Then the $5Billion will be a fantastic investment.
So we are left with vanity/trophy projects like an MBS.
We will cost around $5Billion. Who would spend a 1/4 of their net worth on a football club that will have its ups & downs or may even take a quick dip like the Dippers of Merseyside?
Then if you have institutions, they would expect better returns than what United can offer for $5billion -- unless we get some concession out of the SL debacle. Selling United matches direct to fans for example. Like $30/month to watch every United match live? Then the $5Billion will be a fantastic investment.
So we are left with vanity/trophy projects like an MBS.
Often time these player demands come about entirely because of the owners(structure). We seem to be sorting it out with bringing in players on sensible wages but we still have DDG, Martial, Rashford and Pogba on silly money that other players will demand they match.
If that's all he's done wrong, get him on board. He's squeeky clean compared to some of the other mentions.
You’re living in a yesteryear. These players are not on ‘silly money’, they are on market rate for top players. Players earning 4,5, 6 and 7 hundred grand a week are on silly money. Not £200k Manchester United players! How much do you expect our best players to earn?!
Well, crucially he'll look to run us for profit which is not that different to the Glazers.
I disagree. Whilst there are plenty of other around the world getting stupid money, who in the Prem is even close?
I believe there should be caps. Players like Maguire and Bruno have come in at fair salaries imo.
It's very different. Not all for profit businesses are bad are they?
Why would it be "very different"?
His recent actions of moving production to Asia from the UK (after advocating for Brexit), asking for tax breaks to produce ventilators and him living in Monaco exposes him as a hypocrite, profiteer and basically not much better than the Glazers.
The point is we have a chance for a reset, probably one-in-20-years, so you better do your due diligence before jumping in bed with just anyone.
Like american sports? You think that's a good idea?
TBF we are a PLC, the Glazers could put these shares up and a large consortium with different parties could buy up these shares without anyone really having over 50 percent. The problem with that is that you may have power struggles like Arsenal have had over the years, but due to noone having too much power, it creates an opportunity for the club to set rules in place that prevent the type of majority owner we don't want.
If anyone at this point, it would be Sir Jim Ratcliffe. Lancashire born boyhood United fan Billionaire. Think he also owns Nice of Ligue 1.
Some rumours he hates Fred and Ole though...
Some rumours he hates Fred and Ole though...
There you go, that's more of the same. Just being for profit, looking to increase a companies value though doesn't make it the same as the Glazers. There is a spectrum.
I don't care what it's like. I think caps are a good thing.
All the best players at the other top clubs in the PL. How much exactly do you think they are paying their best players? We don’t even have the highest wage bill in the league.
Messi, Bale, Neymar and co - they are on silly money. Our players, with the exception of De Gea, are pretty much on the market rate for top players at top clubs.
Bernard Anault of LVMH. Net worth 145 billion.
I remember a solid rumor prior to the pandemic that he was interested in buying Milan.
I remember a solid rumor prior to the pandemic that he was interested in buying Milan.
I thought Rashford was on more than he was to be honest. But yeah I think they are all on too much. Like I've said I think there should be caps. We have players like Martial being one of our highest earners, earning what double Bruno and Maguire? If they all rightly started demanding Martials salary we would be screwed.
Bruno would soon start demanding Martial’s salary, because that’s what the market pays top players. Bruno came here at 25 from Portugal’s third biggest/best team and was paid commensurate to his standing at the time. Regardless of what Martial is or isn’t paid, Bruno would be stupid not to demand a salary on par with the better players in the PL. and that is between £200k and £300k. Across the league.
And that is exactly my point and why it is not sustainable. The players are right to demand that as it is. That is why there should be caps imo.
Jose with his Spurs pay-off?
The issue is always going to be that we're not actually that attractive as a proposition, at this stage. Many owners that look at it from the investment point of view may believe that much of the organic growth that was coming through sponsorship and TV deals have come to fruition, which the Glazer family will be the beneficiaries of. Much of European football is now looking at operating costs, the current model and wondering how they can actually get back onto an even keel, nevermind make vast returns on an investment.
It does leave us very much at the mercy of individuals with incredible wealth that are not going to baulk at any of this. In realistic terms that is a very small pool of individuals. The realistic hope would be some kind of consortium, but then you're at the whims of many egos rather than just one or two.
It does leave us very much at the mercy of individuals with incredible wealth that are not going to baulk at any of this. In realistic terms that is a very small pool of individuals. The realistic hope would be some kind of consortium, but then you're at the whims of many egos rather than just one or two.
The club claims a lot of things.
We all want the Glaziers out, but Saudi money ? No we dont want that, we would just become everything that we hate about other clubs.
I j
I just followed him. I wish I was a billionaire too to buy MUFC. This has been my dream since kid.
5 billion is actually not a huge number in the world of corporate finance. The partners create a fund with a general partner and a slew of limited partners. They probably come up with, say, a billion or so. The rest of the acquisition is financed. The goal is to create, say, 8-10% dividends for the LPs and general partners. When you have Goldman Sachs financing the acquisition at 4-5% interest, it ends up just being math.
‘Of course, you need to continue to make money and since we have a very strong commercial marketing operation, it isn’t a stretch to project revenue growth in those areas.
My guess is that the general partner entity or person would need to be worth 1-2 billion to get it done.
I doubt that the Saudis could pull it off politically.
You're right back at where this whole thing started. You can't get financed at 4-5% interest when you're leveraging 4x to buy an asset. That's why the Glazers were paying ~15% on the PIK notes when they bought the club.
Then no one is buying a football club with an expectation of just a 8-10% IRR. It's one of the most volatile businesses there is, with fixed costs over the short-term but variable revenues. I use an 8% IRR when I'm looking at the stock of Microsoft, and even then I actually expect to make better returns than that.
I agree they earn probably the going rate for top players, the only problem being they arnt top players. Their performances don't match their wages, I'm pretty sure Ole will be looking to offload all mentioned at some point and get value for wages in new players.
The pandemic has actually made these clubs a buying opportunity due to the reduced revenue. I think the Caf has always looked at United ownership in a very narrow way — a single rich guy/gal purchasing the club. The fact is that these types of conventional deals are going to be less frequent. There has been a trend where sovereign funds, hedge funds, venture capital funds and ownership groups are buying these clubs.
The next step is potentially media companies buying clubs. Just imagine Netflix owning United with all of the additional content they could pump out -- how many fans would subscribe to Netflix to watch matches and extra content? Film practices?
Our biggest problem is that United is a public company with a tiered share system. Control of the company is in the voting shares, any offer to purchase those voting shares would have to happen and the Glazers will ask for a fortune.
Can some start a go fund me and we will all chip in? I'm sure we will reach the £1.5 billion we need for a 50+1 in no time
Let's not quibble over the deal structure -- 5%, 9% dividends, who cares... It's not important. You're missing the point. The LPs want to walk up to Old Trafford, sit in the owner's box and say they are a United owner. 100m to them is insignificant. You are assuming that the only thing they want is return on investment and that they play in only one game. They can be an LP in United and ALSO buy Microsoft, invest in real estate, buy a basketball team, etc.
The dividend + sale of asset is the IRR -- you are right, if you are looking at a 5-7 year horizon, you may expect the club to double in value from 5b to 10b, so the IRR would be much higher.
All of this is math, and I'm just emphasizing the fact that the Caf tends to look at this in a really simplistic manner. The number of potential buyers of the club is much higher than we think.
Think it was based off some survey or other. Anyway, I looked up gofundme, some lad set up one to buy Sancho, raised 429 quid out of 108m
Probably a non runner.
Could always try to get 500,000 people to take out loans of 10k each. That's enough to buy the club and pay off the debts. Obviously you cant control who people borrow off.
But it would be funny to see someone from from one of those repo tv shows rock up and put a Phil Jones wrapped in bubble wrap into the back of a transit. Or some loan sharks going down to break a few legs looking for money back.
I’d rather the Saudis.
This would be the best option. Old Jim is apparently a United 'fan'.
Elon Musk 