So, you haven't a clue?
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So, you haven't a clue?
I can if we're playing silly dickhead imaginary scenarios, but I thought we were seriously debating.
No-one can know how much the consortium will need to borrow, so nobody knows the daft answers you're demanding to somehow prove it viable. It's as stupid as me saying that a new owners will match the 700m dollar naming rights of the SoFi stadium, and will get the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in history, and will be ITK about a future amazon streaming deal for the premier league and ITK about UEFA's planed super league.
It's daft, made up, and proves nothing.
I reread the article I saw and the source is shady. That being said, he's exactly the kind of person you'd hire to run a big club, he's brilliant.
No-one does, especially you, that's the point.
You've decided it won't make financial sense based on not knowing who the investors might be, what their wealth is, what equity they have to exchange, how the deal is structured, how it'll be financed, over what length or what any of the repayment terms of will be
You also keep saying 'US investors' as if you think nationality is relevant.
Jesus christ. What a silly comment saying 6 billion ain't that big. It is big. It will literally be around 2 billion more than the previous biggest football club sale which was Chelsea. That's around 40% more. It's a massive investment for someone who isn't super wealthy.
Well, we've see prices quoted for United around £6-7bn. The Athletic run with that. So that is the most reliable source, so, let's go with £6bn. Let's keep it conservative.
Now, answer.
Jesus Christ he clearly posted it isn't that big for "large scale corporate takeovers".
You asked for 5, now you want 6.
I'll answer then & play silly dickheads with you, a consortium with huge cash reserves will pay 75% of the purchase price.
Or, Steve Ballmer will buy us outright.
My biggest question is how is any US investor based consortium going to be any different? How are they going to do both?
Again, the most used words are ME investors or US consortium. So, I'm going off of that.
And, AGAIN, you are proving what I'm asking. No one is giving a viable business case for a US consortium.
It's a massive investment for someone not super wealthy.
A consortium such as?
No-one not super wealthy makes large scale corporate investments.
Steve Ballmer will do it, I just decided.
So, what will be his motivation? ROI or sports washing?
What’s the latest news on this then Caf?
Why is he even mentioning large scale corporate takeovers. Its buying a football club. Buying something as expensive as 6 billion still has to make financial sense. Now Apple or Amazon it somewhat makes financial sense as they are loaded. But it doesn't make sense if you aren't super wealthy. That's basically what a few of us are saying.
Don't think there is any latest. I'd guess the new year will bring more.
Perhaps the billionaires will be hoping United are discounted in the January sales
Perhaps the billionaires will be hoping United are discounted in the January sales
He loves sports innit.
He's stupidly loaded already and just fancies it, for the shits and giggles. He also believes UEFA will start an incredibly lucrative super league and that Amazon will change the game in football streaming.
Have I made a consortium viable now with my silly dickhead imaginary scenario?
I think your quoted post here gets to the crux of it though, I have no problem with an investor buying United for a ROI. If they think they can be part of a game changer and have United worth 20bn in 10 years, brilliant. You clearly want ME ownership, as it means money just being launched into the club completely carefree. It's why you desperately want to discount the idea of a rich consortium seeing a great ROI possibility.
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Yeah that's true. Your right. But thing is not every billionaire is super wealthy. The Glazers aren't super wealthy. FSG aren't super wealthy either.
Because buying Manchester United would be a large scale corporate takeover.
I now know what the tagline 'Full Member' means or implies. 
And plenty are. I'll reel off a shitload if you like, but maybe just best we stick with our scenario of one, Steve Ballmer.
Plenty of large US investors could drum up billions though, so of course it's viable. More likely though is that the Glazers will get more money from the ME and sell to them.
It needs to be someone super wealthy, otherwise there is a chance we will be saddled with a lot of borrowing and interest payments and dividends just like now. We need a colossal amount of investment. The only thing of value regarding OT at this minute is the ground it stands on. Yes it has lots of memories but memories don't pay for it's upkeep. You cannot just survive on memories especially when eventually those memories will fade with time and those memories only belong to certain generations who will be gone eventually to. That is before you start on the training ground and the squad.
Look I am not necessarily thinking it will be middle eastern. I just think it will be someone super wealthy. Whether it’s middle eastern or not. But at the moment we don't know as it’s really quiet.
Probably hoping for us to be free in a cereal packet eventually.Don't think there is any latest. I'd guess the new year will bring more.
Perhaps the billionaires will be hoping United are discounted in the January sales
I mean I will be honest. I don't know all of the people in the world who are super wealthy. Arab states like Dubai i know. And companies like Apple and Amazon. And yes I recall Steve Balmer is loaded. But beyond that I have no clue. But I think the club will be sold to the middle east as they will bid the most. And thought from the start the Glazers will accept the highest bid.
Fair enough.
However, if I generalise, which isn't out of turn if I look at football owners in England, majority of the US consortiums have purchased a club with profits in mind, and ME investors with sportswashing.
The way the deals have been structured for their respective clubs are very different. Manchester United are currently losing around £2m a week. It's very difficult how this is turned around, without significant investment.
So, after purchasing the club for £6bn (which most of it will be borrowed), it becomes very difficult to see where they would borrow the extra cash needed to invest into the club. Borrowing against the club will be almost impossible, especially as the value of the club, on paper, wouldn't be of what it was purchased for.
So, as you can see, a model which relies very heavy on borrowing, becomes less and less plausible. Can it happen? Of course. Just very unrealistic to see how.
That's all.
There's possibly some broad truth to this idea - a general inflation of football clubs as an asset. For sure that exists.
The simple question that I've posed dozens of times and never seen a solid answer to is this: what is a 'good return' for an institutional investor? As in, not a vanity project, not a sportswashing exercise. I could see a football club being an uncorrelated asset, so that in of itself requires less return. Let's call it 5% - which is probably too low for anyone to seriously care, but easy maths. A 5% return on the lowets figure - $6bn - is $300m per year. Pure profit, return to shareholders. No football club (I don't believe a sports franchise anwhere) has ever come close to regularly posting that kind of return. Wage inflation is simply too closely correlated with revenue increases.
So the ONLY other reason to do it is if you believe the asset itself will increase in value. Which is very true if you can get a distressed deal, like LFC at $300m, or an up and coming club at <$100m. It's entirely feasible that you could buy a championship club for $100m and spend $100m to get them into the premier league, at which point they'll be worth closer to $300m. Or better if things go well. That's sensible.
But this is Manchester United. It's market cap was about $2bn 10 years ago. It's market cap is about $2bn today. Of course, it's worth what someone will pay ($6bn?!) so maybe you say buy it at $6bn with the hope some even richer entity - no longer businsess-focussed - will want it for $10bn one day. Maybe. But how do you 5x the value of a football club that is already at the top of the pile? It's not awareness. You can't 5x ticket sales. You can't 5x kit revenues. You can't really 5x anything - we're already massive.
And here's the worst bit - some good ole Porter MBA goodness: Look at the competition. Realistically, United is competing with nation-states. They don't need to make a profit. They don't make a profit. And if you want to be top dog, that's who you have to outspend, to catchup and then match.
Anyway, TL
R - from where I sit and knowing a reasonable amount about these things, there's no way you buy MUFC at $6bn because you think it's a good return on your capital, relative to other options. You do it for some other reason.Agreed.
My thoughts from the start has been the middle east will bid the highest and they will buy it. Because they can easily outbid rival investors. And the Glazers will accept the highest bid.
There's possibly some broad truth to this idea - a general inflation of football clubs as an asset. For sure that exists.
The simple question that I've posed dozens of times and never seen a solid answer to is this: what is a 'good return' for an institutional investor? As in, not a vanity project, not a sportswashing exercise. I could see a football club being an uncorrelated asset, so that in of itself requires less return. Let's call it 5% - which is probably too low for anyone to seriously care, but easy maths. A 5% return on the lowets figure - $6bn - is $300m per year. Pure profit, return to shareholders. No football club (I don't believe a sports franchise anwhere) has ever come close to regularly posting that kind of return. Wage inflation is simply too closely correlated with revenue increases.
So the ONLY other reason to do it is if you believe the asset itself will increase in value. Which is very true if you can get a distressed deal, like LFC at $300m, or an up and coming club at <$100m. It's entirely feasible that you could buy a championship club for $100m and spend $100m to get them into the premier league, at which point they'll be worth closer to $300m. Or better if things go well. That's sensible.
But this is Manchester United. It's market cap was about $2bn 10 years ago. It's market cap is about $2bn today. Of course, it's worth what someone will pay ($6bn?!) so maybe you say buy it at $6bn with the hope some even richer entity - no longer businsess-focussed - will want it for $10bn one day. Maybe. But how do you 5x the value of a football club that is already at the top of the pile? It's not awareness. You can't 5x ticket sales. You can't 5x kit revenues. You can't really 5x anything - we're already massive.
And here's the worst bit - some good ole Porter MBA goodness: Look at the competition. Realistically, United is competing with nation-states. They don't need to make a profit. They don't make a profit. And if you want to be top dog, that's who you have to outspend, to catchup and then match.
Anyway, TL
Sorry, your post makes too much logical sense.
You will be accused of working backwards (whatever that is supposed to mean), and be told that you a blinded by wanting ME investors.
The problem is the bolded:
a) you've already added an entire billion onto the original figure you wanted us to consider
b) you have know idea how much would be borrowed, none of us do.
Me, too. And I've never had a preference of where the owner comes from. Would I like them to be "sportswashing" us? No, definitely not. However, can I see another actual viable option? No to that as well.
This is why I'm lead to believe ME investors. I'm open to being wrong and be told of another logical solution.
£6bn isn't that much money.
If we exclude the top 400 richest business people on the planet the 401st to 403rd have a combined wealth of nearly $20bn
The starting point of £6bn being some ginormous fee that will put of all but the oil states isn't true to begin with. Its no more than a small to medium sized company in the context of the corporate world.
Okay, fair enough. No one really knows how much will be borrowed.
But you stating how much of a different 1bn is, I am saying the same. The purchase of Chelsea compared to us is double. So money involved is very important.
Your mate earlier was saying that moat, if not all, of the money used would be borrowed. So, on that basis, you are borrowing £5/6bn, how much is the service charge of that? Who will be paying that? How would that even be manageable?
Well that isn't true.
It was 2bn in 2012, today even in a recession it's down from a high of 4.31bn to 3.67bn.
With streaming and the Super League that will come, even if it's a UEFA Super League, along with the general inflation of football clubs, and a better more successful run club and absolutely you could be looking at a significant return on your investment, hell pre-pandemic our market cap had increased by more than double in just 6 years, despite those 6 years being utter shite as a club on the pitch.
I've already mentioned that stadium naming rights in the states went for a record 700bn dollars. There's is still significant money to be made by purchasing football clubs, even those at the very top.
Boehly's purchase and the interest in Chelsea, a much smaller club, is telling, hell, Ballmer paid 2.4bn for the LA Clippers in 2014 and they needed significant investment, didn't stop him though.
I think too many are too short sighted to see anything other than ME money as a viable option.
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United are valued at about 1% of the total value of the Saudi oil fund.
If they're the only people that could possibly afford to buy us if valued at £6bn then why are we not all constantly perplexed that £300k houses are possibly afforded by those with less than £30m in the bank?
House next door is up for £370k. It's either going to be Ed Sheeran or Ronaldo moving in isn't it?
If they're the only people that could possibly afford to buy us if valued at £6bn then why are we not all constantly perplexed that £300k houses are possibly afforded by those with less than £30m in the bank?
House next door is up for £370k. It's either going to be Ed Sheeran or Ronaldo moving in isn't it?
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