Club Sale | It’s done!

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Garethw said:
I love how so many posters on here were so dead against Qatar that they are now trying to dress this whole shit show up as a positive.

This is literally the WORST outcome. No full sale and no investment in the actual club.

Thanks to Ratcliffe we are likely stuck with the Glazers for the next 10 years at least.

For those that reply to this post with “Sir Jim won’t agree to purchase 25% without a written agreement to buy 100%” need to wake up. A 100% sale likely ended when The sheik withdrew. Sir Jim wouldn’t pay £6 billion now so what makes you think he’ll pay £8-£10 billion 4-5 years from now?

The Glazers are going nowhere and we have “lifelong supporter” Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe FIChemE to thank for that.
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The people who were dead against Qatar would see a Jim Ratcliffe footballing control with route to full ownership in the near term as a positive.

We don't know for sure on what the route to full ownership is though, we need to guesstimate on that for now.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
INEOS expect Fitch-adjusted EBITDA to trough in 2023 at EUR1.7 billion, before increasing gradually to EUR2.5 billion by 2026. EBITDA contribution from P1 will become material from 2027 as the asset ramps up.

I suspect the groups recent large acquisitions in Asia and current P1 to be the reason they can’t/won’t spunk 10bn on United currently. Likely as we move closer to 2030 they’ll be in a much better position to acquire a larger share of the club.
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£65b turnover, £1.5b profit that’s a very low margin business. When you think about United is pound for found a better earner. I think we know why he hasn’t put INEOS shares on the stock market, they’d tank very quickly.

Just for comparison. Tesla have increased revenue significantly in 2023, around $80b per year based on average of $20b per quarter. With a profit of around $9b this year. Yet that’s viewed as low margin and has seen the stock sell off.
 
Garethw said:
I love how so many posters on here were so dead against Qatar that they are now trying to dress this whole shit show up as a positive.

This is literally the WORST outcome. No full sale and no investment in the actual club.

Thanks to Ratcliffe we are likely stuck with the Glazers for the next 10 years at least.

For those that reply to this post with “Sir Jim won’t agree to purchase 25% without a written agreement to buy 100%” need to wake up. A 100% sale likely ended when The sheik withdrew. Sir Jim wouldn’t pay £6 billion now so what makes you think he’ll pay £8-£10 billion 4-5 years from now?

The Glazers are going nowhere and we have “lifelong supporter” Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe FIChemE to thank for that.
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No, if that’s so you’ve got the Glazers to thank for it.
 
Rood said:
Beyond the purchase price and commitment to clear the debts & invest in the stadium, absolutely no further investment is required
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I partly agree, but I think we could benefit from more investment than that. The opportunity is there for the club to be the best in both mens and womens football, but it requires significant investment. Women's football is a fast growing sport that has considerable financial growth potential. The prize money will increase, the market is becoming larger every year, and the marketing opportunities are growing. Man Utd should aim for being the stadium used in the women's world cup final when UK inevitably hosts it, and we should make sure our football department (mens and women's) are the best in the world in both recruitment, coaching and the academy.

We can do all that if we invest heavily in the training ground complex, a modern performance institute and sports-medecine institute for both men and women, a world class academy for both boys and girls, and ensure that our recruitment department is both modernised and staffed with the very best. Everything about the club has been allowed to fall behind under Glazer watch, and their choice of not paying relatively small maintanance and improvement costs over the past decade requires bigger spending for us to catch up to the elite in world football. A small (compared to the stadium) investment would go a long way towards catching up to the current elite.

That said, we could probably do all of that more or less on our own without any outside investment what so ever, if we spent our money more wisely in transfer windows. The first priority of any owner should really be to absorb the debt and fix our recruitment to be less wasteful. Those two alone would allow us to invest on long-term success, if you can also add investment in a stadium and a £200M boost to Carrington - I think you could get very far, very quickly.
 
Has all the breadcrumbs of a pending disaster, atrocious if over the next month or so there's no credible statement about a view to full time ownership. As it stands it's just a minority investment. It's imperative that the match going fans protest and voice concerns because the Glazers under Ratcliffe have purchased the worst thing anyone could imagine and that's time. It's an absolute disgrace.
 
garelo said:
NUFC was never expected to challenge for titles. not getting relegated was enough.
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Yet they got relegated.


Chumpsbechumps said:
What do the glazers do well that fans benefit from their competency’s ?

I wonder what they could do worse when you factor in the size of the club and our financial advantage that has all but been pissed away by their mismanagement of things.

I don’t get people who think “well the glazers allow money to be spent”.

Ok, so who decides how the football side will be run? Who signs off on players/managers signings and contract extensions? Who appoints the people who signs off on these things? Who decides on infrastructure projects ? Who hires the people who decides on these things?

Every single decision at the club; from the tea lady, up to the manager and CEO, is affected by the glazers, even if they aren’t actually making any decisions , because they are empowering the wrong people.

Id argue that United the last10 years, have been a monumental failure of epic proportions. We were a far and away top 3 valued club , 2-3 times the value of our nearest rivals when SAF retired. The money in theEPL didn’t matter because we were so far away from our nearest rival we should of, on paper, been able to blow every rival apart for all the top players of the world.

And we signed Fellaini to make that statement of intent.

Since then one can argue we’ve always chosen the wrong manager, but we’ve also always let our managers down with the wrong signings or poor signings or no signings that derailed any progress.

The lack of success, relative to money spent, is a savagely damning Indicment of how bad the glazers actually are. They’ve broken the mould in making a super club into one of the clubs in the hunt for top 4. It takes some level of incompetence to do that, but they have achieved it.

and that’s not even looking at infrastructure in terms of the stadium and youth setup. I mean even spurs and arsenal were able to remain at decent levels (not far from us) and build up infrastructures we can only dream of:

i can’t think of worse oweners really because their mismanagement has left United in danger of becoming irrelevant. Newcastle were no worse off when Ashley left and at least they have a stadium that’s not falling apart. As bad as he was; they weren’t really doing any worse under him, certainly not like going from Barcelona levels in football to West Ham like Uniteds fall,
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I do have to ask if a writing such a long response to an obvious throw away comment was really worth the time.
 
VP89 said:
The people who were dead against Qatar would see a Jim Ratcliffe footballing control with route to full ownership in the near term as a positive.

We don't know for sure on what the route to full ownership is though, we need to guesstimate on that for now.
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Yet you have seem to have your head on the sand about this being pure PR and nowhere close to based in reality.
 
Redstain said:
Has all the breadcrumbs of a pending disaster, atrocious if over the next month or so there's no credible statement about a view to full time ownership. As it stands it's just a minority investment. It's imperative that the match going fans protest and voice concerns because the Glazers under Ratcliffe have purchased the worst thing anyone could imagine and that's time. It's an absolute disgrace.
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It's a minority investment and at terms they would have never dreamt of getting from the vulture funds they were courting like Elliot. I think the Glazers are overjoyed and can't thank their lucky stars enough for such a generous offer that leaves them with all the control and not a dent to their hold on the club. The, like on the IPO and various Glazer financing activities gets nothing whilst the Rat's minority holding doesn't give him any logic and motivation to pour in much needed funds. And like you said, with Joel Glazer's still in control of the final football decisions we won't even have the benefit of gaining from the exclusion of his incompetency. This is a disaster and can't believe a supposed childhood fan of the club is actively participating and funding the whole farce.
 
sglowrider said:
TBF with Brailsford onboard it's somewhat of a 'marginal gain' going forward -- despite ratcliffe spending £1.25billion.

So now we will have a dual-decision making committee, with a non-Glazer face involved.

Marginal gains at work once again.
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If we finish one point better than last season will that be classed as marginal gains?
 
Pexbo said:
Yet you have seem to have your head on the sand about this being pure PR and nowhere close to based in reality.
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What have you based this on?
I am in agreement nothing is officially announced, but if most journalists worth their salt are reporting it, how can you say that it's "nowhere close to based in reality"?

Also the PR argument is so fecking tiresome. If it were one outlet or one journalist known to peddle a narrative then of course sure. But you have Athletic, FT, Ben Jacobs among others all reporting it. And you coincidentally said I bury my head in the sand?
 
Garethw said:
I love how so many posters on here were so dead against Qatar that they are now trying to dress this whole shit show up as a positive.

This is literally the WORST outcome. No full sale and no investment in the actual club.

Thanks to Ratcliffe we are likely stuck with the Glazers for the next 10 years at least.

For those that reply to this post with “Sir Jim won’t agree to purchase 25% without a written agreement to buy 100%” need to wake up. A 100% sale likely ended when The sheik withdrew. Sir Jim wouldn’t pay £6 billion now so what makes you think he’ll pay £8-£10 billion 4-5 years from now?

The Glazers are going nowhere and we have “lifelong supporter” Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe FIChemE to thank for that.
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You're making a lot of assumptions here.

I would say the actual worst option would have been for the glazers to bring in a hedge-fund type investor, who would want a return on their money. Taking Barca type steps to raise revenue against future earnings. This could still happen.

Ratcliffe clearly wants the club. The only way to get it, it appears, is to take the slow path. It's been widely reported that some of the siblings want to remain and, with the way things have unfolded, it's looking very much like that's the truth. So what better option is out there? I don't see the point in all this vitriol directed at Ratcliffe while we really have no idea about the plan or the details.
 
Laurencio said:
I partly agree, but I think we could benefit from more investment than that. The opportunity is there for the club to be the best in both mens and womens football, but it requires significant investment. Women's football is a fast growing sport that has considerable financial growth potential. The prize money will increase, the market is becoming larger every year, and the marketing opportunities are growing. Man Utd should aim for being the stadium used in the women's world cup final when UK inevitably hosts it, and we should make sure our football department (mens and women's) are the best in the world in both recruitment, coaching and the academy.

We can do all that if we invest heavily in the training ground complex, a modern performance institute and sports-medecine institute for both men and women, a world class academy for both boys and girls, and ensure that our recruitment department is both modernised and staffed with the very best. Everything about the club has been allowed to fall behind under Glazer watch, and their choice of not paying relatively small maintanance and improvement costs over the past decade requires bigger spending for us to catch up to the elite in world football. A small (compared to the stadium) investment would go a long way towards catching up to the current elite.

That said, we could probably do all of that more or less on our own without any outside investment what so ever, if we spent our money more wisely in transfer windows. The first priority of any owner should really be to absorb the debt and fix our recruitment to be less wasteful. Those two alone would allow us to invest on long-term success, if you can also add investment in a stadium and a £200M boost to Carrington - I think you could get very far, very quickly.
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With the debt cleared and no interest/dividends there would be ample extra budget for the Women's team, extra facilities etc - even under current business model the Women's team have got a brand new training facility and their player budgets are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things at the moment
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67133463

The 92F bid had already committed £1.25bn for stadium and infrastructure improvements - where the money will come from for this under an INEOS minority investment deal is the biggest worry of the lot
 
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At this stage I think the Glazers are just trolling United fans and giving them the middle finger. How the proposed £1.4bn for 25% is seen as a better deal than what Jassim was proposing is just a pisstake. Accepting the bid then not heavily investing in United and its infrastructure will be the last straw, I think.
 
Flying high said:
You're making a lot of assumptions here.

I would say the actual worst option would have been for the glazers to bring in a hedge-fund type investor, who would want a return on their money.
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The worst thing to ever happen to United is Glazers then the debt. Pre 2005 those two aspects were not there.

Infrastructure development could have come anyway as we wouldn't stay with the same old infrastructure.

Surprise surprise, 2023 after strategic review, Glazers and the debt still remains. Anything not chasing Glazers away or clearing the debt is in category RED.

Jim or hedge fund investors have no difference, it's just sound bites. If Jim had cleared one of the two issues then logically speaking we would say he is better than hedge funds.

Abeg even hedge funds are better to some because they will demand high quality supervision and KPI because they need their money back in short term not like an investor who comes in for a long haul.
 
Don’t get your hopes up, nothing good will come from this. This entire thing was a farce from the beginning.
 
Licha-Vidic said:
The worst thing to ever happen to United is Glazers then the debt. Pre 2005 those two aspects were not there.
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In terms of ownership, yes.

Licha-Vidic said:
Infrastructure development could have come anyway as we wouldn't stay with the same old infrastructure.
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I'm not sure what you mean here.

Licha-Vidic said:
Surprise surprise, 2023 after strategic review, Glazers and the debt still remains. Anything not chasing Glazers away or clearing the debt is in category RED.
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As I said, what's the alternative?

Licha-Vidic said:
Jim or hedge fund investors have no difference, it's just sound bites. If Jim had cleared one of the two issues then logically speaking we would say he is better than hedge funds.
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But we don't know yet what the plan is. A minority investor is hardly going to clear the debt on behalf of the majority owners, unless that was part of the deal to gain his share. Except the glazers are primarily interested in the money, so there's no chance of that happening.

Licha-Vidic said:
Abeg even hedge funds are better to some because they will demand high quality supervision and KPI because they need their money back in short term not like an investor who comes in for a long haul.
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What are you trying to argue here? That some people(you?) would prefer it, despite the obvious downsides? Are you just assuming that whoever takes over won't take steps to improve anything?
 
SAF is the GOAT said:
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Trollface_non-free.png

Goat Troll
 
Rood said:
With the debt cleared and no interest/dividends there would be ample extra budget for the Women's team, extra facilities etc - even under current business model the Women's team have got a brand new training facility and their player budgets are pretty insignificant in the grand scheme of things at the moment
https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/67133463

The 92F bid had already committed £1.25bn for stadium and infrastructure improvements - where the money will come from for this under an INEOS minority investment deal is the biggest worry of the lot
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We have to wait for the full details of the deal to come out. If Ratcliffe has a route to a majority in the near term, it's probably fine.
 
VP89 said:
What have you based this on?
I am in agreement nothing is officially announced, but if most journalists worth their salt are reporting it, how can you say that it's "nowhere close to based in reality"?

Also the PR argument is so fecking tiresome. If it were one outlet or one journalist known to peddle a narrative then of course sure. But you have Athletic, FT, Ben Jacobs among others all reporting it. And you coincidentally said I bury my head in the sand?
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True, but they are only reporting what they are being fed by INEOS - that’s the point.
 
JediSith said:
I keep hearing about INEOS £65b yearly turnover. Why didn’t they just buy 100% if they are that committed and passionate.
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Because Olde Jim Brexit just Loves the club too much to do that.

He knows, deep down, that the struggle of dealing with the Glazers and watching the club sink is character building for us as a fanbase.

Just as he Loves dear old Blighty so much that he helped ensure Brexit became a reality. He knew it was for the best of the humble man.

It definitely wasn’t for his own personal gain - he’s 70 after all, and as we all know, people who’ve risen to the top by being ruthless, greedy, duplicitous, self-serving snakes experience a dramatic personality change at the age of 70 and suddenly become warm, altruistic, charitable Santa men - hell bent on ‘creating a legacy’, and ‘giving something back’.

So relax, trust the PR, and accept the club’s fate with a placid, docile smile.
 
RedPed said:
At this stage I think the Glazers are just trolling United fans and giving them the middle finger. How the proposed £1.4bn for 25% is seen as a better deal than what Jassim was proposing is just a pisstake. Accepting the bid then not heavily investing in United and its infrastructure will be the last straw, I think.
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Most reports had Jassim's bid giving the club an enterprise value of £5B (or a whisker over $6B). This means the ~$600M net debt is included. Ratcliffe's bid values the 25% equity stake at $1.5B (exclusive of the $600M net debt). In comparable terms to Jassim's bid, it would give the club a present EV of $6.6B, which is greater than Jassim's. Not only that, but given how this has all played out, it seems like a fairly safe assumption that some (if not all) of the Glazer trust fund babies prefer to hold most of their shares and sell for more in the future, which Jimbo's bid will allow them to do and potentially stipulate binding min/max prices on future deals with INEOS. I have a (purely speculative) suspicion they end up raising the capital for the Old Trafford renovation by selling new shares to INEOS within the next 1-2 years.
 
JediSith said:
I keep hearing about INEOS £65b yearly turnover. Why didn’t they just buy 100% if they are that committed and passionate.
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Because they don’t want to sell 100% obviously.
 
George The Best said:
True, but they are only reporting what they are being fed by INEOS - that’s the point.
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For the 100th time, this makes sense if it was the same outlet known to be affiliated with INEOS saying it. But that's not the case. Multiple credible reporters are saying it. When have so many journalists been wrong? How often? 1 out of 10 times? 1 out of 100 times?

When does it stop becoming PR? You're at a stage where you may as well pack up and not discuss anything, not listen to anything being read etc.
 
manichester said:
The way E.T.H speaks it looks as though the transfer decisions are part of his contract, is that a possibility?
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Yes. It was reported that it was one of the stipulations in his contract. Otherwise, it would have been a deal breaker.

I think he is the only manager we have had that has that clause, post-Fergie
 
sglowrider said:
Yes. It was reported that it was one of the stipulations in his contract. Otherwise, it would have been a deal breaker.

I think he is the only manager we have had that has that clause, post-Fergie
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Do you have the report which states this?
 
We all understand and accept that the owner of an asset has a reasonable expectation of extracting revenue from that asset as it appreciates over time, but at the risk of coming across as naive about it I do t understand how an owner of that asset would allow the performance of that asset to deteriorate.

There is nothing that I see in the Ratcliffe gambit that materially changes downward trajectory of United as a competitive force on the pitch, which I trust most of us on the caf care about as the only thing that really matters.
 
SAF is the GOAT said:
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In all honesty the only manager you can really trust for this level of responsibility is Pep and even he works under Begiristain to successfully integrate players into the first team. The notion of the manager controlling recruitment has failed with every manager the club has hired post SAF and if things don't change as the trajectory suggests it will ultimately be to another managers demise.

If Ratcliffe comes in and has any strategic acumen he will have a conversation with the manager to let him know that recruitment will come from the hierarchy down (including the recruitment roles) with deliberation to the coaches and not the other way around. Ratcliffe supposedly questioning the signing of Casemiro is exactly what this club needs. I don't want to see another scenario in the summer where Erik and his close ties with a management agency are controlling the club's stakes with player investment. That needs to fall on its head and hard.
 
At least it should be easier to pry the likes of Tadic away from Fenerbahce
 
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