Club ownership | Senior management team talk

acnumber9 said:
Yes. Which is why it’s silly to lavish praise on them for investing it: it wasn’t extra money on top of buying equity.
Click to expand...


I didn't lavish praise.

Do we not think it's maybe far to say that Ineos overpaid for their shares then to allow this money to come in?

To make it out that the Glazers gave something up to benefit the club out money that could have been there own is not right.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
I didn't lavish praise.

Do we not think it's maybe far to say that Ineos overpaid for their shares then to allow this money to come in?

To make it out that the Glazers gave something up to benefit the club out money that could have been there own is not right.
Click to expand...
You’re not the only person I’m referring to in my posts. What about anything INEOS have done makes you think they paid more than they had to? They were desperate to buy in. And if the Glazers wanted to pocket it, then they could’ve done so.

They didn’t have to overpay for shares. They could’ve just invested it at any stage they wanted to.
 
Berbaclass said:
The Glazers would have to agree to them buying more up.
Click to expand...
The Glazers agreed to give up shares in return for money for them and investment in the training ground. That’s the long and short of it. INEOS haven’t invested above and beyond what they needed to to buy in.
 
acnumber9 said:
The Glazers agreed to give up shares in return for money for them and investment in the training ground. That’s the long and short of it. INEOS haven’t invested above and beyond what they needed to to buy in.
Click to expand...
Because they still need the Glazers to agree to it...
 
Sunny Jim said:
What if we are not part of the super league? Then what?
Click to expand...
As shit as we are right now, I don't see any scenario where we don't get an invite to the Super League.

But just to entertain that thought: it would likely be disastrous for the club's valuation and our revenue streams would probably take an enormous hit.
 
acnumber9 said:
You’re not the only person I’m referring to in my posts. What about anything INEOS have done makes you think they paid more than they had to? They were desperate to buy in. And if the Glazers wanted to pocket it, then they could’ve done so.
Click to expand...

Clearly Ineos were desperate to buy, but it's also fair to say given what we know now the Glazers also had to sell/get investment.

What I am saying is that the Glazers couldn't have just taken the £50 million for Carrington for themselves as the share price wouldn't have been as high if they did.

Inoes aren't idiots, they didn't just want to buy in and then have no cashflow to spend on the things that needed doing, so to say that the Glazers gave something up to let this happen I just don't believe.
 
Giggsyking said:
We are not a slime evil corporate either. Cutting funding on old retired footballers who served the club is pure corporate evil that save no fecking money but express the true face of our new co-owners INEOS.
Click to expand...

If you want Qatar, we'll become far worse than 'evil corporate slime'.

As for the funds being cut, this is for the likes of Bryan Robson and Denis Irwin. Both legends and both loaded anyway. Makes sense considering people on far less than they are laid off.

I'm not enamoured with Ineos or the Glazers, but we really need to get a sense of perspective here.
 
acnumber9 said:
You’re not the only person I’m referring to in my posts. What about anything INEOS have done makes you think they paid more than they had to? They were desperate to buy in. And if the Glazers wanted to pocket it, then they could’ve done so.

They didn’t have to overpay for shares. They could’ve just invested it at any stage they wanted to.,
Click to expand...
If they hadn't Woodward et-al would still be here and we'd still be fecked by PSR, probably by even more than we are now

The shares INEOS bought off the Glazer's weren't publically traded shares that they could just buy, INEOS could have bought all the publicly traded shares and they would have no power to do anything because of the voting value of the Glazer shares
 
Red in STL said:
If they hadn't Woodward et-al would still be here and we'd still be fecked by PSR, probably by even more than we are now

The shares INEOS bought off the Glazer's weren't publically traded shares that they could just buy, INEOS could have bought all the publicly traded shares and they would have no power to do anything because of the voting value of the Glazer shares
Click to expand...
Am I right in thinking that if INEOS wanted to invest further it would be converted to equity?

If so then there is almost nothing in that transaction for the Glazers is that correct? eg. they don't get any cash out of it?
 
Red in STL said:
If they hadn't Woodward et-al would still be here and we'd still be fecked by PSR, probably by even more than we are now

The shares INEOS bought off the Glazer's weren't publically traded shares that they could just buy, INEOS could have bought all the publicly traded shares and they would have no power to do anything because of the voting value of the Glazer shares
Click to expand...
None of that relates to anything I said in that post.
 
Berbaclass said:
Yeah, and to my understanding there is no benefit to the Glazers by allowing this?
Click to expand...
There’s no benefit to the Glazers in somebody else investing money to improve the business they own for nothing in return? If somebody offered to renovate my house and asked for nothing in return I would consider that I have benefitted considerably.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
Clearly Ineos were desperate to buy, but it's also fair to say given what we know now the Glazers also had to sell/get investment.

What I am saying is that the Glazers couldn't have just taken the £50 million for Carrington for themselves as the share price wouldn't have been as high if they did.

Inoes aren't idiots, they didn't just want to buy in and then have no cashflow to spend on the things that needed doing, so to say that the Glazers gave something up to let this happen I just don't believe.
Click to expand...
It’s not really a case of whether you choose to believe it or not. It’s an established fact. They agreed to a deal that included investment in the training ground and facilities and gave up equity for it.
 
acnumber9 said:
It’s not really a case of whether you choose to believe it or not. It’s an established fact. They agreed to a deal that included investment in the training ground and facilities and gave up equity for it.
Click to expand...

So they overpiad to allow this investment to come in, it's all the same thing.
 
acnumber9 said:
There’s no benefit to the Glazers in somebody else investing money to improve the business they own for nothing in return? If somebody offered to renovate my house and asked for nothing in return I would consider that I have benefitted considerably.
Click to expand...
Well it would be converted into equity so it wouldn’t be for nothing in return would it. It just wouldn’t equal cash going to the Glazers.
 
acnumber9 said:
There’s no benefit to the Glazers in somebody else investing money to improve the business they own for nothing in return? If somebody offered to renovate my house and asked for nothing in return I would consider that I have benefitted considerably.
Click to expand...
Their ownership stake gets diluted so it's not exactly "nothing in return"
 
Losses have been high in the last four years, primarily because of Covid impacts and the one time hit of the equity sale. Take those numbers out and things don't look so bad. Then attention has to be turned to cutting costs. The layoffs and other cost cutting measures were low hanging fruit, the real progress will come in the re-shaping of the squad. In recent years, United have spent a fortune signing overpriced or past their peak players, who often came in on huge wages. I imagine the following will happen, but it will take another 2 years or so to properly accomplish:

1 - A move towards signing players who are pre-prime, on lower wages, with the potential to become stars or top class players.
2 - Primarily signing players at a price point and age where they will have resale value and appeal.
3 - Reducing the average basic wage of the squad and making contracts much more heavily incentived. Thus reducing costs, reducing the propensity for complacency, and making it easier to move players on.
4 - Trimming from the squad the very highest earners, who by and large are not performing, and setting a loose max wage cap/salary structure.
5 - Not signing players over the age of 26 unless for heavily reduced fees, in the final year of their contract, or on a bosman. Whilst still observing the salary structure.
6 - Mitigating risk by not signing players for more than a total of 50-60m in structured fees. (Possible exceptions, but I would take this as a general rule that we will avoid mega transfers moving forwards).
7 - Reducing/eliminating the United tax by demonstrably negotiating harder for signings, and/or publicly walking away from deals when prices are too high.

In real terms, the likes of Casemiro, Eriksen, Rashford - will all go, to reduce the wage bill and free up finances for future windows. Their exit will trigger a reset of the salary structure, to pull basic wage down significantly. We will, I believe, be looking to return to a sub-50% of wages to turnover ratio, as we accomplished for many years.

In the summer we signed Yoro (18), Ugarte (23), De Ligt (25), Zirkzee (23), and Mazroui (27), all players who have growth potential - aside from maybe Mazroui - and significant resale value. All came on reasonable salaries. The highest paid is De Ligt on 195K, but I am not sure how much of that is incentivised. This summer shifting out Casemiro (350k), Rashford (300K), Eriksen (150k), Mount (250k), Antony (150k), Lindelof (120k), and Evans (65K) will free up 1.4M p/wk in wages on players that make little to no appearance or impact on the field. Mount is a shame because it's largely injury driven (Luke Shaw could be added to that list), but we have to be ruthless. Sancho at 300k has already been shifted. That's (not counting Sancho) 73m a year in wages saved.

Many of those would have to be replaced. And in the first couple of years, once you took amortised fees into consideration, the savings would be negligable; but ultimately if those players were replaced with pre-prime players between 18 and 24, hungry, talented and with high potential, they would likely run as at about half the salary costs of the outgoing players, and leave us with a much better balanced squad, with plenty of resale value, on wages that made it easy to move them on if it didn't work.

It's a big task, but the objectives are actually quite clear and simple. We will see more signings like Yoro and Ugarte. Dorgu is a perfect example of that. It's a longer route back to the top than buying a squad of ready made. elite players, but that is borderline impossible to do with the historical fee amortisations still playing into PSR calculations. Antony, for example, I think still has 2.5 years left of book value to write down, so about 50m. Lets say we sell him at the end of the season for 20m, we'll bank a loss of 20m on the books. The two year salary savings will be 15.6m, so total loss will be 4.4m, before replacement. And even if we get around the economics, I am not sure there is even enough cash on hand, without further borrowing, to invest the 300-400m needed in this squad to make it instantly a top, top team. So a longer term approach is needed, and ultimately it will be one that is much more sustainable than anything we have seen since the Fergie era ended. Hopefully, leaving us with a stable squad in about 2 years time, requiring only 2-3 players going, and 2-3 coming in per summer, with nothing in January's - except the odd exceptional target.

People need to get comfortable with the scale of the job and how long it will take to make this club one of the elite again. A coach could perform miracles, and get us playing great, successful football inside two years, but it would be a case of exceptionalism, rather than the realisation of a well thought out plan. And when that coach left, we'd be in the same state as we quickly were after Fergie and Gill left. Realistically, if success comes about as the result of careful, logical, data driven reshaping of the squad, and recruitment, then I believe to get to a place of economic sustainability/profitability, allied to the forefront of competitiveness for all the major trophies, is going to take nothing short of 4 years. This has been over two decades of decay behind the scenes, and now we find ourselves with all the baggage of historically bad decisions, but with none of the short term upsides of any of those decisions (the expensive bets we've made on players have all now faded or turned into busted flushes).
 
Big Ben Foster said:
Their ownership stake gets diluted so it's not exactly "nothing in return"
Click to expand...
Which is the very point I’m making. Berbaclass is the one claiming the Glazers wouldn’t benefit if INEOS invested in return for no equity.
 
Last edited:
Berbaclass said:
Well it would be converted into equity so it wouldn’t be for nothing in return would it. It just wouldn’t equal cash going to the Glazers.
Click to expand...
You replied to my post saying INEOS haven’t put money in for anything other than equity in return. I was responding to somebody saying INEOS deliberately overpaid. They had no need to. They paid for equity. Why overpay when you can just agree to invest the money? It’s not like the Glazers would stop them.

The Glazers agreed to some of the money being invested on infrastructure. They didn’t have to do that.
 
Thinking about the millions wasted to hire and fire Ashworth plus the money wasted to sack a manager they had just extended.

INEOS only have themselves to blame, quite impressive how they managed to follow the Glazers and make it worse!
 
RuudTom83 said:
Thinking about the millions wasted to hire and fire Ashworth plus the money wasted to sack a manager they had just extended.

INEOS only have themselves to blame, quite impressive how they managed to follow the Glazers and make it worse!
Click to expand...
I totally lost faith in INEOS when Ashworth was sacked. They action told me they don’t understand football.
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
They so clearly did though.

It's a very odd stance you have on this.

The Glazers are the bad guys here.
Click to expand...
They paid what they had to get that stake. Explain the benefit of overpaying versus just investing it when they acquired their stake?

Both parties are the bad guys here.
 
Berbaclass said:
What is in it for the Glazers if INEOS wants to make further investments?
Click to expand...
I’ve answered it multiple times. There was and is nothing stopping INEOS from investing what they like. Any investment they make being in exchange for further equity only strengthens the point I’m making. They have only put money in to the club in exchange for a bigger stake. They haven’t decided to invest hundreds of million in infrastructure because they’re really kind.

Are you able to comprehend that?
 
acnumber9 said:
I’ve answered it multiple times. There was and is nothing stopping INEOS from investing what they like. Any investment they make being in exchange for further equity only strengthens the point I’m making. They have only put money in to the club in exchange for a bigger stake. They haven’t decided to invest hundreds of million in infrastructure because they’re really kind.

Are you able to comprehend that?
Click to expand...
My question is why would the Glazers let them do it (presumably they would have to allow it) if it wasn't in their interest? Is that comprehensible for you mate?
 
acnumber9 said:
They paid what they had to get that stake. Explain the benefit of overpaying versus just investing it when they acquired their stake?

Both parties are the bad guys here.
Click to expand...

My explanation is that SJR is a United fan, is invested in the club for the right reasons, and willingly overpaid to see off Qatar and to fulfil a lifelong ambition, he also fully expects to own the club outright fairly soon, so overspending on the initial purchase to be able to invest right away makes sense.

Maybe you could explain why the Glazers would give up any money they could take for the themselves for the good of the club, when only the opposite has been true since the 2005 takeover?
 
Last edited:
Berbaclass said:
My question is why would the Glazers let them do it (presumably they would have to allow it) if it wasn't in their interest? Is that comprehensible for you mate?
Click to expand...
Why would the Glazers allow INEOS to invest without equity in return? Why wouldn’t they? Your posts are incomprehensible. I don’t think you even understand what point you’re trying to make.

If INEOS invest money, it’s to get something in return. They haven’t invested in infrastructure because they were feeling generous.
 
acnumber9 said:
Why would the Glazers allow INEOS to invest without equity in return? Why wouldn’t they? Your posts are incomprehensible. I don’t think you even understand what point you’re trying to make.

If INEOS invest money, it’s to get something in return. They haven’t invested in infrastructure because they were feeling generous.
Click to expand...
If INEOS invest it would dilute the Glazers ownership no? Without them receiving cash?
 
C'est Moi Cantona said:
My explanation is that SJR is a United fan, is invested in the club for the right reasons, and willingly overpaid to see off Qatar and to fulfil a lifelong ambition, he also fully expects to own the club outright fairly soon, so overspending on the initial purchase to be able to invest right away makes sense.

Maybe you could explain why the Glazers would give up any money they could take for the themselves for the good of the club, when the only the opposite has been true since the 2005 takeover?
Click to expand...
But why overpay instead of paying the going rate and investing the extra are they’ve acquired their stake? Explain the logics

I don’t know their motivation. Possibly because they think the extra money invest will grow the asset further. Whatever the motive, it’s an unequivocal fact that they gave up equity for the all the money that was invested.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.