Glazers are running out of rope.
Sir Jim appears tapped out. He probably could come in with a bid but ultimately is a businessman, in the true sense of the word, and without more time has realised, that at short notice, he can only look to the lenders of last resort and has baulked at the options.
Therefore the Glazers have lost one of their prime levers of leverage.
Next lever, the family disharmony.
The siblings don't all agree approach.
The underlying objective for the Glazer family is cash accumulation.
The siblings have been very fortunate, they had an industrious father who was a Sir Jim type businessman. Essentially self made man who could see a deal.
The siblings are financially fortunate, but less fortunate in other ways, as we can see, step forward Av.
However, these guys are not business people in the Malcolm/Sir Jim mode they have assets and must make the most of each asset, that is their primary focus.
Jassim is also fortunate, born into a family with money, from certain county at a certain time. However his mentality is different, he has opportunities coming from every direction, he does not have to focus on flogging one or two personal assets. He can make vast amounts of money with ease.
The Glazer siblings are not so fortunate, not natural business people but smart enough to know what they have and shameless enough to exploit any opportunity to extract everything from those assets.
They will probably not sell the Tampa Bay Bucs, they live in Florida, but regulations dictate that the club has to be run according to a stricter set of regulations, however the NFL is the ultimate cash register
United was the perfect asset for them.
Relaxed regulation, for some reason in this country we seem to have the ideology that business must be open and transparent to all, otherwise the UK won't be attractive, generally regardless of the asset.
This is ideal for the asset stripper, nothing is off limits. Even in the US the bastion of apparent free trade they regulate who can buy their sports franchises and how they can be financed and run.
The Glazer family, as we know, did what they did in buying United.
Before Malcolm died the club was listed on the NYSE, he sold 10%. That 10% was used to clear much of the interest heavy loans, I believe.
However following his death, his children have used United as a cash register.
They have sold off another 20%, raising hundreds of millions which they have used for themselves.
Now that option is gone.
They have about 3% which they can sell and that is it, finished, the cash register is then, literally, empty, for them.
They could sell more, but the magic 67% needs to be retained, otherwise it would be a tactical disaster, they would lose their total control over the club.
Obviously, in losing total control they lose much of the value of their shares.
Dividends have dried up, for the time being, and these siblings need more than a few million, they have lived off hundreds of millions, in recent years, and won't be able to return to the days when Malcolm controlled the cash register.
Simply they have to sell.
Jassim's team know this and that is why they aren't necessarily handing over 6 billion, they have seen the game from the start.
The Glazers, without Sir Jim, are playing their last card, family disharmony stopping a sale, but Jassim has that card marked, but he will be frustrated with all the cat and mouse games and the general delay and posturing and the Glazer's are hoping for one last mighty effort.
That said, the Glazers made the mistake of canvassing the club as an auction.
If they had not openly declared that they were seeking strategic finance and openly invited bids they could have gone down the private sale of their shares route and then they could have separated their sale from the Class A shareholders.
However once Jassim made the offer to buy out the whole club it appears that was fatal for the Glazer's options.
Now they can't choose an offer in isolation of the other shareholders, which they could have done if it was a private sale, but they put out a club statement and it was a whole club strategy and not a private sale:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ma...strategic-alternatives-to-enhance-club-growth
I suspect their advisors are having to explain themselves.
The only other way out, for the Glazers, is to fully withdraw from a full sale, however due to the empty cash register they must sell now or sell very soon, particularly in the absence of a European Super League option.
Conclusion, sale announcement in the next few days, the veil of secrecy is coming off, people have already started to squeal, they can't hold off much longer, NYSE requirements dictate they must be open, their strategies have now run their course.