It’s all a bit ****ing daft. It’s not like these owners will use their personal wealth for the clubs. Look at Ashley - wealthier by far than many, wouldn’t spend a ****ing penny on the club.
Yeah but at the same time it'll be exciting to see what the financial prospects of the club can be with a bit of ambition and a WILL to make the club decent at all levels (financial and on the pitch). Something Ashley probably understood but didn't want to do: Spend money to make money - these owners are business savvy and understand you have to speculate to accumulate - look at their recent purchases this month 1B on an oil company and nearly 0.5B into a cruise liner company. We are their cheapest purchase this year.
Ashley was never into us for the footballing side of things, he just wanted to make and thought he could make a ****-tonne of money out of us. I don't believe that is the motive for the Saudi investors, nor the Reubens for that matter.
They are a sovereign wealth fund - the whole point of their being is to invest and make money out of those investments for the benefit of Saudi Arabia. However hopefully they will do this through increasing the value of the club. As an example Abu Dhabi Inc bought City for UKP210million in 2008, they have then spent around UKP1.2billion on transfer fees, plus purchased stakes in numerous other clubs in various countries and spent a significant amount of money on training facilities, the academy etc. However late last year they sold a 10% stake in the whole thing to an American investment group for UKP389million, which values the group at nearly 4billion. So they have enjoyed tremendous success on the playing side while also increasing the value of their investment. Sure it needed cash to do it but that's one thing our new investors are not short of.
This is true. But aswell as increasing the value of the club it also acts as a means to advertise their other brands. Ashley had that part right. The thing is he didn’t pay anything for it and there was just one brand. This fund has many very big wealthy companies as part of its portfolio so they have a mechanism to inject cash which increase the turnover and also expose the companies to the globe via the premier league. Win win
