The amount of people who think the debt not being in United’s name means United won’t pay it off is actually very scary.
Club Sale | It’s done!
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
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Have we had any info or even rumours on the US bids? With Chelsea the US bids had been pretty open and public.
its logical though
Ineos can surely get cheaper debt than United, given their revenues
I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t pay off the club debt.. they’d save money
So no news of a potential American consortium?
so you think our revenues will service a 5bn loan?
Incredibly naive take here. INEOS shareholders would riot if they took on the debt with no contribution from United. Like others have said, corporate finance doesn’t work like that.
It's a private company and he's the majority owner.
That's a myth and anyway Ineos only has 3 shareholders. Ratcliffe owns 66% of the company.
there’s three shareholders mate including Sir Jim, who owns 60%
How they finance it is not the important decision anyway, the important decision is to buy the club - which they’ve already taken.. and neither Jim or his two mates have rioted about it
Berbaclass 2.0.
Now you're just trying to convince yourself. I have been closely following how Qatar operates with a football club for almost a decade now, I'm pretty sure I have a well informed grasp of how they run this kind of investments.
A big difference between ineos proposal and the glazers is that the United earnings are not the only source of debt repayment.
Secondly, no charge on United balance sheet in respect of the debt.
Ineos is a good company, well diversified and lots of free cash flow. Will have to charge some fees to United to meet debt but it’s light years from the Glazers LBO. Sure the Qatar deal is miles ahead financially but morally it’s at sewer level and we sing weekly that we are the “busby boys”. That rings a bit hollow if we are now a sportswashing vehicle.
The only American link I saw mentioned was Michael Dell, but that’s probably Twitter twaddle.
I just popped in to ask about this.
Beeb says
Is there any particular reason these aren't really being included in our conversations here? Is it just that we don't know enough about them yet or do we know stuff that makes them seem unrealistic?
Just so I'm clear here: you think that if a company bought an asset (say, a football club) as an investment with an eye to long term capital appreciation, they would nonetheless be legally obliged to take money from that asset to pay for the cost of its purchase? Even though that would clearly be at cross-purposes with the purpose of their investment?
I'm guessing you're not involved in corporate law, are you?
Why do I need to convince myself of anything?
The entire football world just shifted their league schedules so that qatar could hose the biggest sports competition in the world. Everyone who matters to them politically and fianncially are already onside.
Qatar is a dictatorship of slavery, homohphobia and mysoginy. Ineos are global polluters. There are no good guys. At 5 billion asking price, there will never be any good guys who can buy us.
We are going to be owned by someone awful, whatever happens.
Never ever I have supported Qataris to take over joking aside but I would still continue to love the club even if the takeover happens. I haven’t shown any hypocrisy at all. The post I made was for a different topic altogether when somebody said now they would stop supporting the club.
I’m not the biggest expert in the world but some of the business and finance takes in this thread are borderline ridiculous
Didn’t know we had so many corporate lawyers here.
That wouldn't be too bad but as you say, likely twitter twaddle.
Not as scary as the amount of people who think a football club which made losses of over £100m last year could afford to service the repayments on a £4-5 billion debt anytime soon.
I just wiki it and realized it is a private company, so it has no problem to do whatever.
True.
We also don't know the amount of debt that will need to be serviced. It is very likely that it would be beyond the club's ability to pay it alone anyway.
My biggest concern with the debt based approach is having funds for the essential stadium renewal. There seems to be no avenue for that, and if the club is going to be funding it directly, then we are looking at, at best, a renovation.
I was actually picturing a bunch of scientists in white mocks protesting angrily outside the HQ
Somebody should do a roll call of all the members that have left Redcafe after the Qatari exodus. Would certainly make for interesting reading. By all accounts it sounds like a major culling.
Have people no shame?
This sounds like the dream scenario. Debt free, Glazer free, all of the revenue that we’ve consistently brought in since the 90’s now being directed to the club in all the areas it should be. Stadium, facilities, squad improvement on all age levels. Rather than being used to line a group of thieves pockets. There will be the obvious group of people against this type of takeover because of the human rights issues that are involved. That’s too political to even attempt to debate on though. Easier to see it as a takeover by an apparent United fan who wants to move the club back to being run the way it can be and bring the success back, which is what we all want anyway. I’m excited. Just waiting for the Glazers to reject and ask for an extra billion though and ruin my good mood. feckers 
The bottom line is that we don't know how the INEOS debt would be serviced. Such debt is often serviced from the company being acquired - but not always. Unless there have been public statements that United's profits won't be used to service the debt, I would tend to be skeptical.
This is really relevant only vis-a-vis comparing this bid to Qatar's bid. I have never thought that debt is a bad thing per se, and I don't even think that our current debt is a problem (I know that many others will disagree, and that's fine). But Qatar's offer obviously means no interest payments, so a higher profit base that Qatar promises to reinvest directly into the club.
This is really relevant only vis-a-vis comparing this bid to Qatar's bid. I have never thought that debt is a bad thing per se, and I don't even think that our current debt is a problem (I know that many others will disagree, and that's fine). But Qatar's offer obviously means no interest payments, so a higher profit base that Qatar promises to reinvest directly into the club.
All the Jim Radcliffe talk is a complete waste of time he’ll never offer what the Glazers want and he can’t compete with a State bid. So it’s either Qatar or the Glazers stay
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You don't understand how Qatar works. Their investment policy is driven by 2 factors : diversification and PR. They want the whole world to know where Qatar is on the map and to them, shiny players is better than a title because it allows them to put famous faces on commercial billboards. There's no chance it stopped with the world cup and people who are on their side today won't be tomorrow if they do stop.
You think the loan is going to get paid off overnight or within a decade?
You’ve just seen a bid that actually has red flags all over it. Yet people are brushing those off? Do me a favour. Read the bid imagine Qatar’s bid is Jim, and Jim’s is Qatar. Then ask the questions that come to mind.
You’re right about debt. But to go from £500m to billions is never good. Jim is really getting the benefit of the doubt that no one else would.
Did I say any time soon! It’s here for decades and decades. Glazers debt of 500m has been going on for 17 years? Use some common sense.
ummm what?
You've read a 20 word twitter post and are jumping to the most extreme negative conclusions. Just sit down and wait until more information is published, it's not hard is it
You hit the nail on the head here, I think. The amount of the debt is important, as well as how it would be serviced.
I reckon Big Jim plans to pay off the debt with Super League money.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's "billions". The purchase price should be a few billion, and it wouldn't be surprising if a significant portion of that were debt-financed. I'm not saying 95%, but 40%? 60%? 75%? Sure.
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