Dividends paid to the Glazers are not in line with those public investors, they hold a different class of shares and thus can pay whatever the hell they like on their Class B shares, regardless of what may or may not be paid on the Class A shares.
This is irrelevant to the point though, which is the one of the things most hated about the Glazers is the money they bleed out of the club, so to see people now being absolutely fine with the idea of Ratcliffe taking them is the pretty wild.
There seem to be a large number of people who have gone “all in” on Ratcliffe, and are taking the ostrich approach to the various red flags.
Ah, I see the misunderstanding. No I 'm not fine with the Glazers in any shape or form. Nor am I fine about them maintaining majority control. However, the Qataris offered a valuation they wouldn't accept. Would I have been fine with them? Not sure, I haven't explored that. I was planning to consider that more deeply if they took control - which I honestly thought they would. I was more or less resigned to being state-owned. That never happened though.
The problem is that the Glazers were exploring alternatives to a sale in the form of minority investment. Or let's call it what it really was, a plan to sell away our future through their own version of Barca's "levers" to US media companies and hedgefunds. The Glazers have an insane valuation - and they clearly don't want to fully sell right now. Reports from the US suggest they were scared of becoming laughing stocks for having sold out of football right before a golden age of football valuation. Everything points to them having after the WC in 2026 as their "exit-date". They needed minority investment to get there, and we all know they would gladly have sold away our future to make an extra billion.
With that in mind I think Ratcliffe's offer is a million times better than the US option. There have been numerous reports that suggest Ratcliffe wants control of the company, and that he wants a path to majority ownership. He's paid a premium for the 25% he's getting - far more than they would get from anywhere else, which suggest it's not just a normal minority investment. People are free to disagree on this, but that's what I see as most likely with the reports from reputable sources. He seems to be getting considerable influence over sporting control. He's reportedly getting to appoint the entire management team, which is huge, and sources close to the Glazers in the US suggest Joel is quite happy to be running the commercial aspect (which he supposedly thinks he's very good at).
Add to that the news that Ratcliffe is making 300M available for investment, with the majority of the funds being available within the year, for infrastructure projects, that none of it increases the debt burden of the club, and that he wants to invest considerably more at a later date - but that they are playing it close to the chest how much and when - are quite positve news in my eyes.
My concerns with the deal are how does the Joel/Ratcliffe partnership work in terms of transfers and major sporting decisions, how long are the Glazers going to be sitting on majority ownership, and how will the debt + stadium be handled. Absorbing the debt makes sense, but building something like a stadium without debt is probably a fantasy without state backing and 0 interest loans.