the debt will be taken into consideration in the valuation of the club. How a new owner wants to do with it is entirely down to them.
I think it important to note that debt is not a bad thing in itself if structured correctly and can be financed. Not all debt is bad. Investors like to see capital invested and a return. (ROCE - return on capital invested) - in fact, it f you don’t, you are essentially worth less in investors eyes. Nobody can accuse FSG of not investing wisely when you look at it from
Investors eyes (fans would be a different story).
However, now the playing field is changing again; Funds to some clubs are endless and FSG need to adapt or their investment will devalue. What that change is remains to be seen exactly but at least they acknowledge that. My guess is that, if they can, they’ll sell a stake in the club to reinvest. Why would they do this has been asked. Simple, the average value of a PL team is way lower than that of an NFL team but their fan base and thus, marketability is much higher…so PL teams…all football teams are undervalued when compared to other sports teams….throw in the exchange rate and that magnifies this….this is why the Americans are all sniffing around european football.
so, FSG sell a 49% share in the club for say, $1.5b, issue dividends to their shareholders for 2/3rds of that, vastly more than they invested and they keep a stake in the controlling shares in the club and the club get £500m to invest.
In 10 years time, the club is worth £8b, the controlling shares just over £4b and hey presto you’ve had you’re money back in spades and the value of your shares is worth more than what you received when you sold just less than half of the club. It’s a no brainier but who would invest £1.5b without wanting a say? Nobody.
so if nobody can be found, they will, reluctantly imo, sell up completely to the highest bidder. If anyone thinks that FSG will care who takes over if this happens, think again. It’s all about the money.