TheReligion
Abusive
I think irrespective of the figures the club needs a fresh start and the only way to achieve this is for the ownership to move on.
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The end game, realistically, is to sell - of course. Uncle Malc didn't acquire United because he admired Bobby Charlton. And his offspring don't care about football either.If someone offers you 4bn for something that's cost you feck all, you're interested in selling.
American owners (Fenway Sports Group) have also shown they are good at football management. I’m not sure the nationality of our owners has any correlation to whether or not they will do a good job.We actually don't need Saudi billions to save the club. What we need is proper football people and structure at the club to reform and bring us into modern era.
Sadly, Glazers/Ed are cnuts investors and bankers who only care about money and nothing else. They should be at Wall Street and not Man Utd.
Hence, we are left without choice but pray for a takeover. Middle Eastern onwers (City and PSG) have shown they are good in commercial as well as football management of the club unlike Glazers.
Glazers have stolen 1 bil from the club and hope the Saudis are successful in buying us over to stop the leech.
BloombergPlease cite your source. MarketWatch and a bunch of other outlets (that I can't cite with links due to Newbie status) cite the current EPS at $0.10 and therefore a P/E ratio of around 190. Nasdaq's vendor, Zacks Investment Research, expects the Feb, 2020 EPS to be $0.19. The point is that at these levels the current price is not explained by the current earnings.
Not only that, I have no confidence in them actually being competent owners. Sure they'd fire Woodward, which would be amusing enough, but anything led by an egomaniac tyrant is to be treated with suspicion of the highest order.I hate the Glazers. And it's depressing watching United slide into the mid-table with such pizzazz. But to watch its ownership move over to pretty much the most evil government/ family on the planet? Don't think i could stomach that
Well it the current deal expires in 2021 and selling the club without one of the major revenue streams guaranteed will surely affect the value. In the summer we are likely to have no CL football and a shirt deal expiring in the summer in addition to dissatisfied fans who are in revolt - things arent as comfy as any of them would like to portray.Looks like they are not finished the milking job yet. Avram Glazer is in Switzerland..
Fair enough mate but even tanking may be overstating it a bit. Yes we are are not where we would like to be right now but very few clubs are competing at the level they would like to be. With United at least theres a very good chance we'll be back to winning things in the relative near future.My reference to dying was in response to people who said they’d see our club go to shit/die/liquidated than have the Saudis take over. Currently we’re a long way from dying but we’re certainly tanking.
Yes but football goes in cycles and things can change very quickly. I’m not saying they will change for the better soon but it’s far from impossible either.Not to be dramatic, I know that its not going out of business. I just meant the club is on a downward spiral, and the people running it have no clue. The trajectory it’s on isn’t reassuring at all. I feel the owners won’t feel the urgency until the brand name Diminishes and at that point it could be a hundred times harder to bring united back to where it should be.
Deary me indeed mate.You think this is as bad as it'll get under the Glazers?
Deary me
I don't actually think the Glazers are bad either, just very passive. The problem is the guy they have running the club is not very good at doing it, at least on the football side of things. How many times have managers waited on Woodward to make a transfer? Look at how much our underperforming players a being paid aswell. No structure to it, no vision either. The way the club is set up currently, the manager does have a strong hand in identifying targets, but Woodward's role is to make sure those targets are gotten, at the right time for the right price and at the appropriate wage rate. This has not happened successfully during his run at the club. We have had issues selling inconsistent players ( which we are only now fixing) and replacing them when they need to be replaced. The Glazers gave him the money to spend on transfers, him squandering it time and time again on poor players and short term managers cannot be seen as their fault.Yes but football goes in cycles and things can change very quickly. I’m not saying they will change for the better soon but it’s far from impossible either.
The Glazers aren’t great owners but they’re not the worst either. Everyone is currently lauding Liverpool’s owners but they similarly struggled until Klopp came along.
Even at was United under Edwards a great setup? Personally I feel it wasn’t yet it didn’t stop Ferguson achieving great things despite financial constraints. And even under the Glazers we had the most successful period in the clubs history.
So we may just need the right man in charge on the football side to turn things around.
But if the Glazers let an unqualified man sink the club to embarassment and do nothing about it as long as they get paid, they are poor ownersI don't actually think the Glazers are bad either, just very passive. The problem is the guy they have running the club is not very good at doing it, at least on the football side of things. How many times have managers waited on Woodward to make a transfer? Look at how much our underperforming players a being paid aswell. No structure to it, no vision either. The way the club is set up currently, the manager does have a strong hand in identifying targets, but Woodward's role is to make sure those targets are gotten, at the right time for the right price and at the appropriate wage rate. This has not happened successfully during his run at the club. We have had issues selling inconsistent players ( which we are only now fixing) and replacing them when they need to be replaced. The Glazers gave him the money to spend on transfers, him squandering it time and time again on poor players and short term managers cannot be seen as their fault.
Fantastic analysis. You two guys should get a room.... and do a podcast.This is a very erudite analysis, and highlights why the only prospect of a realistic buyer for the club, is a group whose strategic intent goes beyond a desire for ROI. United, as a brand, still provides a gateway to a number of international markets, and can make sense for a group looking to do an integrated expansion of a wider portfolio. There are multiple cross industry synergistic appeals, and from a branding perspective provides the opportunity for reputational rehabilitation. Hence the term “sports washing”.
All this said, there do remain opportunities for revenue growth through the proliferation of mobile broadcasting rights in emerging markets such as China; and the potential revenue boom from the creation of a long mooted European super league. My recollection of early analysis of the Glazer investment model, is that these were two of the four cornerstones essential to the long term growth of company value. The other two were (a) limiting expenses through the imposition of a salary cap, thus mitigating the greatest risk of accelerating costs I.e. player wages, and (b) the strict implementation of FFP regulations, thus suppressing the upward pressure on transfer fees brought about by the mega-rich state backed clubs. An assumption which was the basis for Woodward’s now infamous “We can do things in the market other clubs can only dream of. Watch this space.”
As we know, this latter aspiration became derailed, and the former looks unlikely to ever be ratified. Consequently, the Glazers are now facing a very real threat to their exit strategy as the club goes successive seasons without CL football. This will likely result in a 100m drop in revenues for the next annual financial results alone. All of their long term financial planning, investment strategy, and debt repayment strategy was predicated on the financial assumption that the club would, on average, achieve a QF finish in the CL every year. The lack of CL participation poses the biggest short term risk to their asset value, and something they likely never anticipated to be a long term concern. Sponsorship values will remain robust because the club has global appeal. It seems the most likely outcome that consistent failure to qualify for the CL, and the associated costs of building a squad capable of competing at the top table again, are the most likely drivers of a sale.
As painful as it is as fans to witness, it may be in our interests to sit out the CL for a couple more seasons and see the Glazers forced to sell before the asset depreciates significantly. There is a great deal of similarity to what happened to Liverpool under Hicks and Gillett. While United remain a far more robust economic entity, it still holds true that they are not immune to financial pressures. While these seem unlikely to ever threaten the survivability of the organization, they do nevertheless exist as significant drivers of potential change. In this case of ownership.
The bottom line is that the Glazers will never sell while returns are acceptable and asset value remains strong, unless they receive an offer which significantly exceeds market valuation. The sole domain of a handful of super rich or state entities. If value starts to significantly drop, such as through consistent failure to quality for the CL, and long term solutions such asa super league are effectively ruled out, then the club becomes a target for a wider group of investors, as there is growth potential in restoring it to previous glories.
I am fairly confident that these are the scenarios being weighed by the Glazers. And without being privy to the discussions of the larger European clubs, it is hard to say what the long term prospects and landscape looks like. From the outside, and a completely uninformed analysis, it would seem to me that in terms of the Glazer ownership model, the club has probably reached peak value and now would be the best time to sell. I just see too many sporting and financial challenges over the next 3-5 years; and there are considerable risks in tying an exit strategy to the rejuvenation of on field performances necessary to boost revenues. But I don’t have all the facts at my disposal, so I am just speculating.
The scenes, they would be something to behold.Imagine the Saudis took over and decided to keep Woodward.
Where the Glazers have been at fault is negligence when they have let Woodward get away with poor decisions for far too long without consequences. Failure was understandable on the Van Gaal and Moyes disasters but how he handled the post Mourinho transition was nothing short of disgraceful.I don't actually think the Glazers are bad either, just very passive. The problem is the guy they have running the club is not very good at doing it, at least on the football side of things. How many times have managers waited on Woodward to make a transfer? Look at how much our underperforming players a being paid aswell. No structure to it, no vision either. The way the club is set up currently, the manager does have a strong hand in identifying targets, but Woodward's role is to make sure those targets are gotten, at the right time for the right price and at the appropriate wage rate. This has not happened successfully during his run at the club. We have had issues selling inconsistent players ( which we are only now fixing) and replacing them when they need to be replaced. The Glazers gave him the money to spend on transfers, him squandering it time and time again on poor players and short term managers cannot be seen as their fault.
I agree with you on this. By any metric, Woodward has failed over a 5 year period, and his position at the club would normally come under review. If the Glazers were more proactive in the club's affairs, maybe Woodward would not have been able to perform as poorly as he has, at the same time It could be worse. We could also have owners that are too active and make poor decisions on issues they don't have sufficient knowledge about. Their passive behaviour was perfect under the Gill and Fergie regime, but has proven to be consequential now. The truth is, if woodward had set up a hierarchy that involved a director of football, we would still be dominant. We either need to get woodward pushed out or have him reform.Where the Glazers have been at fault is negligence when they have let Woodward get away with poor decisions for far too long without consequences. Failure was understandable on the Van Gaal and Moyes disasters but how he handled the post Mourinho transition was nothing short of disgraceful.
After Mourinho we had the chance to right the wrongs of the past past five seasons but he went on to prematurely appointing an unqualified manager who we are going to inevitably sack at a great cost and back tracked on putting a proper sports management structure above the manager. Now we have poor coaches, poor scouts and a ridiculously thin squad that's going to cost hundreds of millions to put right when we have just wasted a hundred odd million on a couple of incomplete defenders.
Just there to assure everyone that he will do his best in keeping Utd’s carbon footprint low by keeping them out of Europe.Looks like they are not finished the milking job yet. Avram Glazer is in Switzerland..
I forgot to mention your post but very well put Simonhch. Totally share your view about the situation and Glazers possible next step.This is a very erudite analysis, and highlights why the only prospect of a realistic buyer for the club, is a group whose strategic intent goes beyond a desire for ROI. United, as a brand, still provides a gateway to a number of international markets, and can make sense for a group looking to do an integrated expansion of a wider portfolio. There are multiple cross industry synergistic appeals, and from a branding perspective provides the opportunity for reputational rehabilitation. Hence the term “sports washing”.
All this said, there do remain opportunities for revenue growth through the proliferation of mobile broadcasting rights in emerging markets such as China; and the potential revenue boom from the creation of a long mooted European super league. My recollection of early analysis of the Glazer investment model, is that these were two of the four cornerstones essential to the long term growth of company value. The other two were (a) limiting expenses through the imposition of a salary cap, thus mitigating the greatest risk of accelerating costs I.e. player wages, and (b) the strict implementation of FFP regulations, thus suppressing the upward pressure on transfer fees brought about by the mega-rich state backed clubs. An assumption which was the basis for Woodward’s now infamous “We can do things in the market other clubs can only dream of. Watch this space.”
As we know, this latter aspiration became derailed, and the former looks unlikely to ever be ratified. Consequently, the Glazers are now facing a very real threat to their exit strategy as the club goes successive seasons without CL football. This will likely result in a 100m drop in revenues for the next annual financial results alone. All of their long term financial planning, investment strategy, and debt repayment strategy was predicated on the financial assumption that the club would, on average, achieve a QF finish in the CL every year. The lack of CL participation poses the biggest short term risk to their asset value, and something they likely never anticipated to be a long term concern. Sponsorship values will remain robust because the club has global appeal. It seems the most likely outcome that consistent failure to qualify for the CL, and the associated costs of building a squad capable of competing at the top table again, are the most likely drivers of a sale.
As painful as it is as fans to witness, it may be in our interests to sit out the CL for a couple more seasons and see the Glazers forced to sell before the asset depreciates significantly. There is a great deal of similarity to what happened to Liverpool under Hicks and Gillett. While United remain a far more robust economic entity, it still holds true that they are not immune to financial pressures. While these seem unlikely to ever threaten the survivability of the organization, they do nevertheless exist as significant drivers of potential change. In this case of ownership.
The bottom line is that the Glazers will never sell while returns are acceptable and asset value remains strong, unless they receive an offer which significantly exceeds market valuation. The sole domain of a handful of super rich or state entities. If value starts to significantly drop, such as through consistent failure to quality for the CL, and long term solutions such asa super league are effectively ruled out, then the club becomes a target for a wider group of investors, as there is growth potential in restoring it to previous glories.
I am fairly confident that these are the scenarios being weighed by the Glazers. And without being privy to the discussions of the larger European clubs, it is hard to say what the long term prospects and landscape looks like. From the outside, and a completely uninformed analysis, it would seem to me that in terms of the Glazer ownership model, the club has probably reached peak value and now would be the best time to sell. I just see too many sporting and financial challenges over the next 3-5 years; and there are considerable risks in tying an exit strategy to the rejuvenation of on field performances necessary to boost revenues. But I don’t have all the facts at my disposal, so I am just speculating.
The specific terms will be laid out in the credit agreement and they will vary from deal to deal. The standard market practice in a change of control of situation (i.e. if Glazers were to sell to another equity holder), would be for the credit facilities to come due and thus they have to be repaid. Whoever is buying the asset can arrange financing that takes out existing debt facilities with new ones (new terms, new pricing, new covenants, new Events of Default, new structure etc) or if they're paying cash then obviously will take out debt and pay the equity.@dabeast @simonhch
I wonder if either of you can answer the question, what happens to the club debt in the event of a buyout? How would paying off that debt be handled with regard to FFP? I'm sure some new dodgy sponsorship deals would appear for silly amounts of money as seen elsewhere which might help.
Regarding whether it were to happen or not, fans need to contemplate that pretty much the only way the Glazers go is if someone like this buys the club. Its too expensive for anyone else that woulnd't be interested in a financial return like the Glazers are. Sure Bezos could buy it with the amount his worth increases every 20 days, but he and people like him are clearly not going to do it.
Didn't want the Glazers never did.Don't want the Saudies never have.
I get a little evil chub every time this thread is on the first page, it's not actually going to happen of course...I hate United that much at the moment that I’m starting to entertain the idea of these guys buying us out.
Think I need a break from football for a while...
No Saudis for me either. I’d rather go and support Salford.I’m not the moral police but from a personal standpoint, I could not support United if the Saudi’s takeover as I’m a journalist. After what they did to Jamal, I simply couldn’t be on board with their ownership.
Man Utd plc is about $500 mn in debt post the Glazer takeover. The club was largely debt-free before, so FFP shouldn’t have a problem AFAIK if new injections of equity on shares issued is used to pay it off.@dabeast @simonhch
I wonder if either of you can answer the question, what happens to the club debt in the event of a buyout? How would paying off that debt be handled with regard to FFP? I'm sure some new dodgy sponsorship deals would appear for silly amounts of money as seen elsewhere which might help.
Regarding whether it were to happen or not, fans need to contemplate that pretty much the only way the Glazers go is if someone like this buys the club. Its too expensive for anyone else that woulnd't be interested in a financial return like the Glazers are. Sure Bezos could buy it with the amount his worth increases every 20 days, but he and people like him are clearly not going to do it.
They wouldn't.Imagine the Saudis took over and decided to keep Woodward.
im sure they’d need a brew boyImagine the Saudis took over and decided to keep Woodward.
I don't necessarily disagree with your assessment of Woodward mate. But Edwards especially and to an extent Gill were often similarly unsuccessful at getting the players Ferguson wanted every summer. You only have to read Fergies books to see he was often left frustrated with the clubs unwillingness to spend money on certain players or pay wages at a level to compete with those on offer at our rivals Pre Keanes 2000 contract.I don't actually think the Glazers are bad either, just very passive. The problem is the guy they have running the club is not very good at doing it, at least on the football side of things. How many times have managers waited on Woodward to make a transfer? Look at how much our underperforming players a being paid aswell. No structure to it, no vision either. The way the club is set up currently, the manager does have a strong hand in identifying targets, but Woodward's role is to make sure those targets are gotten, at the right time for the right price and at the appropriate wage rate. This has not happened successfully during his run at the club. We have had issues selling inconsistent players ( which we are only now fixing) and replacing them when they need to be replaced. The Glazers gave him the money to spend on transfers, him squandering it time and time again on poor players and short term managers cannot be seen as their fault.
I reckon the players would play well if there was a takeover. Otherwise they’d go missing from the team hotel and never seen againSaudi Arabia sports minister HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Turki Al Faisal has not ruled out a potential takeover of Manchester United. The Middle Eastern country’s royalty have been linked with a takeover bid for United over the last year only to largely rebuff those claims.
Anything is possible towards future," he said, speaking at the Diriyah Arena which will host Anthony Joshua’s rematch against Andy Ruiz Jr this weekend.
Now we are focused on developing the local scene and we have invested a lot of money in football clubs within the kingdom."
The Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud has been the man chiefly linked to the acquisition of United with Red Devils fans disgruntled with the current regime at the club.
https://www.express.co.uk/sport/foo...-takeover-news-Saudi-Arabia-bid-Glazer-family
Not sure if they chop feet off as a punishment, but we’d certainly get less handballs.I reckon the players would play well if there was a takeover. Otherwise they’d go missing from the team hotel and never seen again
Are you actually serious? Because it definitely would explain why Joel glazer is so bothered about us now.Well I heard Joel is taking over, buying the other 4 out with Avram second in charge. Ed is currently on board but will be voted out of power in summer.
It's what people are telling me by various sources of information. No way I'm in the know or anything like that. But I've been saying it for the best part of couple of months. And bow surely but slowly it's coming out in the media. People can have a look back at my posts in here to see what I've been saying.Are you actually serious? Because it definitely would explain why Joel glazer is so bothered about us now.
I'm sorry, but what is coming out?It's what people are telling me by various sources of information. No way I'm in the know or anything like that. But I've been saying it for the best part of couple of months. And bow surely but slowly it's coming out in the media. People can have a look back at my posts in here to see what I've been saying.
Yes but football goes in cycles and things can change very quickly. I’m not saying they will change for the better soon but it’s far from impossible either.
The Glazers aren’t great owners but they’re not the worst either. Everyone is currently lauding Liverpool’s owners but they similarly struggled until Klopp came along.
Even at was United under Edwards a great setup? Personally I feel it wasn’t yet it didn’t stop Ferguson achieving great things despite financial constraints. And even under the Glazers we had the most successful period in the clubs history.
So we may just need the right man in charge on the football side to turn things around.
I know there are ups and downs. But football doesn’t go in cycles because teams suddenly become good or miserable. There are exceptions of course.Yes but football goes in cycles and things can change very quickly. I’m not saying they will change for the better soon but it’s far from impossible either.
The Glazers aren’t great owners but they’re not the worst either. Everyone is currently lauding Liverpool’s owners but they similarly struggled until Klopp came along.
Even at was United under Edwards a great setup? Personally I feel it wasn’t yet it didn’t stop Ferguson achieving great things despite financial constraints. And even under the Glazers we had the most successful period in the clubs history.
So we may just need the right man in charge on the football side to turn things around.