Chief, show me one private equity owned club that needed to fix the infrastructure and didn’t take out a loan to do it. Private equities are there to make investments and exponential growth on it. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but when the core asset needs investment of its own, the play book is to get the bankers involved. It’s a natural playbook. Now, I’d love to see this turn out otherwise. But that is a hopeful outcome than a certain one given the forces at play.
Pretty bland set of financials for the club for this last quarter has done nothing to shift the share price. The share value of the club has fallen almost 12% in just this last month - and 24% from this time last year. The Glazers are losing money hand over fist at this rate - I wouldn't be surprised if Ineos are having second thoughts about the value of their share offer too.
Some good news, hopefully.... Reports that the Ineos sale will proceed in the next few weeks and that in addition to his 25% share acquisition, he will be injecting a further £245m into the club to improve infrastructure. This additional funding will comprise of personal finance from JR, rather than any additional borrowing against the club.
He'll be borrowing that extra £245m against any share he acquires in the club, so technically it's not borrowing against the club but his own shares. Still not ideal imo.
He has stated for the record that it will be his personal money, no borrowings involved, bringing his investment closer to £1.5bn
I think he's worded it very carefully. INEOS are known for leveraging. Technically by putting the debt on his personal shares he isn't borrowing against the company. I may be wrong, we'll see.
The Ratcliffe deal looks to be sorted imminently. Hopefully the football side of things also now gets sorted.
The sale/review announcement was made on 23rd Nov last year, so it would be just like these dickheads to announce the outcome round about then. A whole ****ing year of unnecessary uncertainty and instability just for the sake of trying to hike up the sale price - which they were never going to get. In the last year the club has lost 23% of it s share value, unparalleled losses in the commercial world for a global business. Hopefully JR is looking for a 2/3 year majority staged takeover and we will be rid of these bloodsuckers for good.
Arnold is now gone. That’s most likely Ratcliffe shaking the tree. He hates how we have wasted money on transfers and salaries, and clearly holds the CEO accountable.
Surely, at last, a milestone week ahead for the club. Wednesday marks a year to the day since the Glazers announced their ownership 'review' and it looks inevitable now that Ineos will assume 25% ownership at some point this week, too much has been happening behind the scenes for it not to happen. So many things need to be addressed, from transfer policy to stadium refurb and a complete restructuring of the football operation. Hopefully the Glazers will **** off eventually as part of the deal, but for now I'm sure they will just creep back into the shadows and leave all the hard work to JR and his team while they reap the financial benefits, in effect, the days of the Glazers having any dealings with the club are over. Something to celebrate.
@glazerfodder explain the A shares which Ratcliffe is looking to acquire on the stock exchange as part of the deal which will give him 10 times the voting rights of the B shares?
Those who own class A shares, which trade lower as a result, do not attract a regular dividend, and class B shares have ten times the voting power of class A shares, so anyone holding just 11% of class B shares (mostly owned by the Glazer family) will retain the majority vote. JR has bought 25% of both class A & B shares in return for two voting seats on the board. The deal has to be ratified by the New York Stock Exchange where the shares are traded (JR has to be deemed a fit and proper person) as well as the London Stock Exchange who will want to ensure that JR's holding in the club doesn't conflict with other shareholdings, lastly, the Premier League will complete their fit and proper person checks - all straightforward, but might take a few weeks into January.
I thought it's been reported the 25% is class B only? Still don't understand how the Class B shares work. How much of the 11% class B shares do Glazers own and how much will Ratcliffe own? And will Ratcliffe have decision making powers on who we buy and sell?
Here is a link to a decent explainer - https://theathletic.com/4463364/2023/04/28/manchester-united-sale-news-glazers/ As for JR's acquisition, the deal would appear to give him exclusive control of every aspect of the playing side - transfers, manager, support staff, Carrington and he will inject capital from his own funds (not borrowed or loaded onto the club) to invest in playing infrastructure. Essentially, JR manages the club while those appointed by the Glazers will have the final sale on sponsorships, ticket prices and anything else that generates off-field revenues.,
