It makes sense what you write about the Glazers distinct lack of love for the beautiful game however with interest rates about to spiral and the debt at nearly £1bn, the hedge fund who decides to buys a minority stake with venture capitalist money would demand a significant board presence and have a say in day to day financial runnings.
Let’s play devils advocate and say it happens, If they are buying 20% voting share rights for let’s say 1/5th of the value demanded for voting shares so they want £6bn and will collectively relinquish 20% of voting and shares now giving them a 49.5% stake while the new VC own 20% at £1.2bn.
The VC investing, will have a 7 year plan to get a ROI of at least 20% back on £1.2bn invested so will want £1.5bn back when the club sells for say hypothetically £8bn in 2030.
Here is the realistic obstacles ;
1. The servicing of the debt currently at £600m (forget amortised Transfer debt that’s a completely different line ) currently £20.5m per year and about to rise very quickly. It makes sense that VC will have Accountants and IT number crunchers all over the business, trust me when our £250m per year company was bought by Sun life, we had a meeting every day, just to do forecasts and financial projections. The first thing they will do is try and manage and renegotiate the debt, pay off half so they can apply a 7 year forecast through club projection software program, incorporating p and l to pay off the other half of £300m.
That means the club would need to make a profit of £45m per year that could not be used in buying new players or paying dividends but instead pay off the debt, so they can reduce the liability of the business and be part of a sale which would be ultimately debt free. The interest payment would still be £10m per year to service the debt and now after these decisions, there would only be £900m left of £1.2bn invested for a minority stake.
2. Squad improvements, contrary to popular belief who ever buys us with FSP coming into play we still have to sell to buy, however after the club pays their credit card bill of £200m off, let’s say some of that is revenue generated but £100m is still needed from VC investment, which now decreased to £800m
3. We then go buy Harry Kane, which is £100m upfront no payment plan but the club can amortise the figure over 4 years in their accounts and we agree to another £200m in player transfers, the Glazers will throw the book at transfers just to keep the fans from burning the place down, we will amortise the other signings and offset then against player sales however we might have to pay £40-50m in back payments from the £300m we owe to other clubs, just to keep Uefa off our back. The £800m is now down to £600m.
4. Training Ground upgrade at Carrington , they might spend and build a cheap 7,500-10,000 stadium for women and youth but that’s now highly unlikely as there is not much growth in revenue from this area of the club in their bigoted opinion so they maybe just spend £50m to keep ETH happy and put some modern recovery pods in training complex, rather than £250m Qatar would spend, Capital now reduces to £550m
5. We know already that Glazers and Elliot’s were looking at one stand extension and a cheap stadium refurb, a big screen etc which was recently quoted at £280m so a cheap refurb probably to start next season 23/24 and be completed 24/25 season, all parties would want this as that gives the club an extra 14,000 Season tickets and increase revenue, however no guarantee the roof or the toilets are fixed, who cares the Glazers won’t be turning up anytime soon!
This leave the club with cash funds of probably £250-270m in the bank as working capital however, part of the deal agreed by VC would be no dividend payments unless the club made in excess of £75m of profit one season and all parties must work towards new marketing deals and increasing Turnover, Revenue and Net profit. If the club can reduce the debt quicker, all parties must agree and no dividends can be paid out.
This new partnership would need CL football every season, they would have to win a couple of PL or a CL in the next 7 years and hope that PL clubs can soon stream their own games at 3pm on Saturday for this to work. The club turnover would have to increase to £800m by 2025/26 and at least another £100m of the debt paid off so the club had now reduced debt to £200m.
I can see the appeal because Avram and Joel think they can carry on as usual with someone else’s money because they own the Crown Jewels of soccer clubs, just because their Daddy Malcolm willed it to them!
They are living in dreamland to think that any Venture Capitalists won’t be watching their every decision, sabotaging and contradicting their every move waiting to pounce and show them how a real business vulture or shark acts. I don’t believe the Glazers are that stupid however if they are, you know what, more and more I’m warming to it, because it only ends up one way, them bankrupt and the VC buying the club for peanuts, then selling it to the Arabs in 3 or 4 years for £5-6bn which they could have got this year !
However I suspect it’s more deliberate leaks to the media in order to get a certain SJ to bid £6bn and then it’s over, either way I don’t care anymore and nor should you, as long as we support the team, the manager and we finish the season strongly that’s the most important thing right now not this sideshow that endorsed by the worst owners in football history !