Club Sale | It’s done!

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Big Ben Foster said:
They pulled out a while back. I preferred Qatar too, but at this point they're no longer a viable option.
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Yeah exactly this is better than them still being in complete control of everything,there are plenty in this thread who are clearly not prepared to give a new structure a chance. He is the 7th Glazer in their eyes and they have wrote him off already.

Trying to see some positivity in this,however think there is not much of that around so getting hard to remain in the minority who have slim hopes.
 
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sglowrider said:
So the Glazers allowed Ratcliffe to have partial control/all of football ops of the club for all of £1.3billion? Or were they so desperate for some capital injection?
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They liked the deal because they never cared about the football side of things, and just saw the club as a commercial business for them to just raise their asset value and take their dividends. The way they see it, they still own majority of the club and can take their dividends or whatever, they no longer have to deal with that annoying and difficult to handle football side that gets them a bad public image, and they get 1 billion between them to relieve them of that burden. It's an easy win for them. As it was, they pretty much ignored the football operations. Now they gave it to somebody else to be responsible for all of it.
 
neon_badger said:
It's hard to see how this split will work, if it is decided that this will be the relationship between the two groups, surely one will inevitably effect the other to the extent that there's a fall out. You're not generating enough commercial revenue to sign the players we need vs you're not signing the players we need to generate enough commercial revenue.
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sglowrider said:
But t he CEO will still report to the Board. How many seats does Ratcliffe has there?
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This could very well be a poisoned chalice for Ratcliffe. Working with a pair of greedy rentier capitalists who only care about money is not going to make it easy to run the football side as a minority shareholder. Surely it's a temporary measure at best. Prising the Glazer tapeworm out of the clubs guts is going to be hard.
 
Hopefully we can see real changes to football structure soon. Need to get proper football people with track records in.

Finger crossed not another false dawn. This is the real light at the end of tunnel.
 
Yakuza_devils said:
Hopefully we can see real changes to football structure soon. Need to get proper football people with track records in.

Finger crossed not another false dawn. This is the real light at the end of tunnel.
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Our initial hopes with ETH ought to give us some expectations.
 
So the PLC board will still set budgets for transfers. No way Glazers were ever gonna give that part up.
 
What does this means?

If United is shit and needs say 300m new players. Where does the money comes from?

SJR decided to splash the cash. But the cash has to come from somewhere?

Who decided the transfer kitty? Who decided how many percentages of income goes to football? Can SJR says feck it everything goes towards buying player? Or glazer decided he'll have 100m and that's it?
 
AFC NimbleThumb said:
Sorry did I miss the part of the statement where the Glazers were no longer owners?

You can’t ask for positivity then blatantly lie. By all means talk this deal up on its merits but don’t call for something then purposefully lie.
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Obviously the new owners, not the old ones. The old ones are good enough for writing cheques, getting their dividends and watching the value of the club grow. I'm fine with that.
 
Sky1981 said:
What does this means?

If United is shit and needs say 300m new players. Where does the money comes from?

SJR decided to splash the cash. But the cash has to come from somewhere?

Who decided the transfer kitty? Who decided how many percentages of income goes to football? Can SJR says feck it everything goes towards buying player? Or glazer decided he'll have 100m and that's it?
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Ratcliffe seems in control of football operations for now atleast, so hopefully the Glazers trust him with it.

If he personally wants to sign a player through funding he personally injects into the club, the Glazers will be more than happy to let him sign Mbappe if he can pull it off. For spending cash United, the business makes, for me I think the Glazers would rather trust Ratcliffe (with skin in the game) than some rando exec (Woodward, Murtough etc.) who has blown through 1bn+ so far.
 
Red in STL said:
If Ratcliffe is able to turn it round with sporting control the vast majority of fans won't give a feck about the Glazers owning the club
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I noticed in the locked thread there was a suggestion for a poll on what people think of the minority stake. Maybe that's the best way forward for getting a proper indicator on views here.
 
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Sky1981 said:
What does this means?

If United is shit and needs say 300m new players. Where does the money comes from?

SJR decided to splash the cash. But the cash has to come from somewhere?

Who decided the transfer kitty? Who decided how many percentages of income goes to football? Can SJR says feck it everything goes towards buying player? Or glazer decided he'll have 100m and that's it?
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The money would come from United or would be borrowed by United as it always has done. The Glazers not spending a penny wouldn't be a change.

Presumably the cash comes from his other businesses or investors.

Thats the tricky part. Presumably there'll be haggling over how much should be spent or made available. Honestly we don't need to spend as much as we have done already if we just start spending competently.
 
croadyman said:
Take it that's a bit of xmas sarcasm
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No, just some truth. Delighted that we have new owners bringing in a new structure that won't involve slaves or sportswashing. Absolutely wonderful news. The champagne has been out and all :)
 
Reapersoul20 said:
No, just some truth. Delighted that we have new owners bringing in a new structure that won't involve slaves or sportswashing. Absolutely wonderful news. The champagne has been out and all :)
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Think the trouble is Jassim's view for the club made many get starry eyed,INEOS seemed a popular option until they decided to move from 51% to 25% ownership. The lack of clarity on certain things is definitely fuelling frustration too
 
sparx99 said:
The transfer budgets have never really been a problem. It’s been bad spending.
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Well, we have been hamstrung by Glazers at times as well. As long as SJR pumps his own money in, shouldn't be a problem.
 
Whatever happens I'm optimistic that this is, at least, something of an improvement. A shake up, a restructure, some investment, whatever. Just something to begin a change in direction
 
Ibi Dreams said:
Whatever happens I'm optimistic that this is, at least, something of an improvement. A shake up, a restructure, some investment, whatever. Just something to begin a change in direction
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Some were definitely hoping for a sheikh up
 
sglowrider said:
Our initial hopes with ETH ought to give us some expectations.
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ETH would have much better chance of success if he had a competent DOF and football structure supporting him.

As of now, he made many mistakes that a proper football structure would have prevented it in the first place.
 
Teja said:
Ratcliffe seems in control of football operations for now atleast, so hopefully the Glazers trust him with it.

If he personally wants to sign a player through funding he personally injects into the club, the Glazers will be more than happy to let him sign Mbappe if he can pull it off. For spending cash United, the business makes, for me I think the Glazers would rather trust Ratcliffe (with skin in the game) than some rando exec (Woodward, Murtough etc.) who has blown through 1bn+ so far.
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This sort of arrangement will spill conflicts of interest all over.

SJR would probably want to take a 500m loan to fix the club while the glazers would probably only sanction 200m

In the event of dispute who holds the decision? Havibg full footballing control without the finance would be half the work.
 
Inappropriate Behavior
Wumminator said:
I absolutely love this news and as a conclusion to this thread I could not have dreamed it would be this positive. We’re going to thrive from here and we’re doing it with a local owner. UTFR
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Yeah man, If it ain't white, it ain't right!

Next, let's win the War on Christmas. Merry X-mas!
 
Ibi Dreams said:
Whatever happens I'm optimistic that this is, at least, something of an improvement. A shake up, a restructure, some investment, whatever. Just something to begin a change in direction
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It simply can't be worse than owners staying in America and has zero interest in football at all. The parasite only interested in money and more money. Refused to even spent a penny ot their own money. Instead milking it every opportunity they have.

SJR seems to be a proper owner who loves the club. A local lad with vast experience in football. He is also known to put good people in the football structure. Also, spent more than a billion of his own money. Committed more money for future. Promised to revamp the football structure.

Hope this is the light at the end of the tunnel.
 
Sky1981 said:
ETH is a shit judge of potential and current ability. He wont be successful with such a flaw.
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I respectfully disagree. They squad he assembled is a combination of his and the football structure failure. Even Klopp don't get all the players he wants. It's the structure decide and get him the players
 
Yakuza_devils said:
I respectfully disagree. They squad he assembled is a combination of his and the football structure failure. Even Klopp don't get all the players he wants. It's the structure decide and get him the players
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Except ETH gets most player he wants and they're all crap. Even the players he coached before which he should have known inside out already by now
 
Just seen a post on another forum saying Ratcliffe should have walked away too as it would have forced them to sell to Jassim. How can that have happened as he wasn't willing to meet the asking price set by those leeches.
 
croadyman said:
Just seen a post on another forum saying Ratcliffe should have walked away too as it would have forced them to sell to Jassim. So what if they both walked then would have had no hope of a proper structure
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If both walked away, we are stucked with Glazers, Arnold, Murtough and ETH. God no!
 
Yakuza_devils said:
If both walked away, we are stucked with Glazers, Arnold, Murtough and ETH. God no!
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Yeah a truly nightmare scenario but clearly some believed Ratcliffe shouldn't have budged on his offer to buy at least 51%. He did it because desperately wanted the club,however wasn't getting anywhere trying to get a majority share
 
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The worst outcome of this whole charade was Glazers keeping full control and things remaining the way they are at the present. With Jimmy Brexit's 25% buy and full control of football operations we have achieved one better than the worst outcome. That's a positive I guess.

Although, his dabble into sports doesn't paint a picture of success. There is no way he can be worse than the Glazers, who in my opinion have to be one of the worst, if not the worst, billionaire owners of a football club. The way they have squandered close to gbp 1.5b over the last 11 years by making the worst of the worst people in charge of our football operations is mind boggling. It's surreal the way the last eleven years have transpired. It's a precautionary tale of mismanagement on which books should be written.

Not very hopeful that he is going to make us a top football club and help modernize our club by improving the facilities for both the players and the fans, but hope springs eternal!
 
NK86 said:
So now people do not care that there is no defined path to majority ownership (let alone a 100% one), and they are happy with this outcome? Basically indifferent to the fact the Glazers can stay on indefinitely, no idea about what will happen to the crippling debt, how will new investment happen? All because we are now partially owned by a “local lad”?

I was fine with SJR beating Qatar as long as he had a defined path to at least majority ownership. However people treating this as a win and thinking since he has control of the footballing side would mean the whole Board will be focused on making us a footballing powerhouse again are just deluding themselves. Glazers will always put commercial over football and they still own 72% of the voting rights, thus can basically do as they please at the Board level, including deciding our transfer kitty every window.
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I saw this coming. The mental gymnastics that were being made to support Jim as he kept lowering his bid and offered to keep the glazers in made it obvious that there’s a % whose support for the Ratcliff bid is not based on rationality or merit.
 
Plant0x84 said:
Where are these figures from? I’ve only seen it reported as 25% B from the Glazers and up to 25% A shares from the market if people accept his offer. Admittedly the maths here fries my brain.
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George The Best said:
Not quite. The only real power he holds is the 17.25% of B class shares, Glazers will still own over 51% of those important shares so still have full power of ownership
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I think there's two very different ways of looking at it. I'd appreciate if anyone who is more knowledgeable confirms or corrects this.

Financially
The shares are split between Class A and Class B. Financially I don't think there is any real difference, they both pay the same dividends and are (theoretically) worth the same amount. 69% of the total amount of shares are Class B (owned exclusively by the Glazers and maybe fractional amounts by others like Woodward) and 31% are Class A (which are owned by numerous other companies and individuals, including a small amount by the Glazers). Therefore Ratcliffe buying 25% of the Class B shares is 17.25% of the total shares, and buying 25% of the Class A shares is another 7.75% of the total shares, bringing him up to 25% of the total amount.

51.75% - Class B shares owned by the different Glazers
23.25% - Class A shares owned by various
17.25% - Class B shares owned by Ratcliffe
7.75% - Class A shares owned by Ratcliffe

Which makes up 100% of all the shares.

Voting Power
Class B shares have 10 times the voting power (effectively control of the club) than Class A. So we end up with roughly:

71.72% - The voting power of the different Glazers together
25% - The voting power of Ratcliffe (his class B shares combined with Class A shares)
2.32% - The voting power of various others (the Class A shares not owned by Ratcliffe)

That only comes up to 99% so my numbers are slightly off, but it's roughly what will happen now from my understanding.

It's very different from what DSG posted previously and he seemed experienced and confident with what he posted, but I'm not sure where he's got his figures. Maybe there's something that I've missed.
 
croadyman said:
Just seen a post on another forum saying Ratcliffe should have walked away too as it would have forced them to sell to Jassim. How can that have happened as he wasn't willing to meet the asking price set by those leeches.
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:lol: never gets old. Glazers would then be forced to sell.
 
sglowrider said:
So the Glazers allowed Ratcliffe to have partial control/all of football ops of the club for all of £1.3billion? Or were they so desperate for some capital injection?
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You have to remember that most of the Glazers have no interest whatsoever of the football side of things. If they believe that Ratcliffe being in charge will make them more money than Joel/Avram making the decisions, chances are they'd absolutely be for it. And Ratcliffe will now own roughly the same amount of shares as Joel and Avram put together.
 
MadDogg said:
I think there's two very different ways of looking at it. I'd appreciate if anyone who is more knowledgeable confirms or corrects this.

Financially
The shares are split between Class A and Class B. Financially I don't think there is any real difference, they both pay the same dividends and are (theoretically) worth the same amount. 69% of the total amount of shares are Class B (owned exclusively by the Glazers and maybe fractional amounts by others like Woodward) and 31% are Class A (which are owned by numerous other companies and individuals, including a small amount by the Glazers). Therefore Ratcliffe buying 25% of the Class B shares is 17.25% of the total shares, and buying 25% of the Class A shares is another 7.75% of the total shares, bringing him up to 25% of the total amount.

51.75% - Class B shares owned by the different Glazers
23.25% - Class A shares owned by various
17.25% - Class B shares owned by Ratcliffe
7.75% - Class A shares owned by Ratcliffe

Which makes up 100% of all the shares.

Voting Power
Class B shares have 10 times the voting power (effectively control of the club) than Class A. So we end up with roughly:

71.72% - The voting power of the different Glazers together
25% - The voting power of Ratcliffe (his class B shares combined with Class A shares)
2.32% - The voting power of various others (the Class A shares not owned by Ratcliffe)

That only comes up to 99% so my numbers are slightly off, but it's roughly what will happen now from my understanding.

It's very different from what DSG posted previously and he seemed experienced and confident with what he posted, but I'm not sure where he's got his figures. Maybe there's something that I've missed.
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This back-of-envelope maths makes the most sense. DSG's numbers seem a bit fantasistic -- that Ratcliffe found some magic formula that enabled him with 25% or 1.3billion to control the club.
 
Sky1981 said:
This sort of arrangement will spill conflicts of interest all over.

SJR would probably want to take a 500m loan to fix the club while the glazers would probably only sanction 200m

In the event of dispute who holds the decision? Havibg full footballing control without the finance would be half the work.
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The loan analogy doesn't make sense. Yes, there might be conflict of interest if Ratcliffe wants to buy a new stadium but we don't fund our transfers by borrowing beyond what we can spend (before the pedantic idiots jump in, lines of credit / other short term loans / creative financing stuff doesn't fall under the previous statement). FFP generally won't allow that, that's the reason for its existence.

We've spend 1bn+ on transfers, clearly having a guy who knows football in Europe as opposed to trust fund babies being in-charge is only going to help.
 
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