Club Sale | It’s done!

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I highly recommend everyone have a listen to this with Ben Jacobs , I know he’s a bit of a chancer but he is highly intelligent and informed.

Some key points:

- There are no solid offers currently only indicative valuations and paragraphs.

- Any talk of delays due to valuations and low ball offers is nonsense as there are no actual offers on the table.

- The current valuations simply give a general idea of starting prices and provide a platform for negotiation , it is expected the price Will be negotiated higher.

- It’s business as usual at United until the sale advances so don’t read too much into Glazers actions.

- There is a chance Sheik Jassim would fail the owners and directors test.

- Precedent is that Newcastle did pass but it took a while.
 
Rightnr said:
The Athletic are a sports publication. The way people go on about them, you'd think they write Pulitzer-winning articles for breakfast and have no agenda.

But please keep pushing their elitist propaganda.
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The elites are trying to stop a Royal family taking over a giant conglomerate football club! Help, help we’re being oppressed!!

Absolutely no one who isn’t already solidly part of the elite is involved in any of this takeover, in any way (on any side)
 
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SmallCaine said:
If either buyer pays them 5bn. The expectation will be 700 of it will go towards debt so glazers can't pocket the 700mn. If debt stays on the books or if the buyer pays it he will deduct that 700mn from that 5bn before making the payment.
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You couldn't be more wrong, nothing in there has to or will happen
 
Posh Red said:
Maybe I’m being thick, but if what you say is true, why are you able to recognise these ‘leaks’, and not the people attempting to buy the club, who I assume are experienced, savvy business people?
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They know exactly what they are. That’s my point…everyone knows this but it still happens.
 
TrebleChamp99 said:


I highly recommend everyone have a listen to this with Ben Jacobs , I know he’s a bit of a chancer but he is highly intelligent and informed.

Some key points:

- There are no solid offers currently only indicative valuations and paragraphs.

- Any talk of delays due to valuations and low ball offers is nonsense as there are no actual offers on the table.

- The current valuations simply give a general idea of starting prices and provide a platform for negotiation , it is expected the price Will be negotiated higher.

- It’s business as usual at United until the sale advances so don’t read too much into Glazers actions.

- There is a chance Sheik Jassim would fail the owners and directors test.

- Precedent is that Newcastle did pass but it took a while.
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The gist of what Ben is saying is, it's pointless to make any conclusions or speculations at this point. There is nothing at the moment that is firm as the bidders are looking at the financial numbers in-depth before making an official 1st offer.
 
Cloud7 said:
I think this is the big worry really. As someone not versed in finance and such, I would say that your second paragraph makes sense.

However the bolded bit. The Glazers have run the club so damn poorly during their entire time here that it does sometimes make you think they might actually be pretty stupid, which is a worry when you're in a situation where you expect them to do the sensible thing.
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They have been scummy but not stupid financially. If they get close to their asking price they could teach a PHD on how to squeeze every penny out of a sports club. The only only issue is that there are very few clubs their financial planning would work with...it needs to be massive, have a rock solid fan base, and have teflon earnings potential. We have all of those.

As I said though, the only problem is...like a "bust out" or Ponzi scheme...it won't last forever. Once you've over leveraged to a certain ratio you can't really take the dividends anymore. and then you're just stuck with no future dividends and massive debt service. The only positive recourse then is to sell, which they will...and because of our stature they'll make a fortune. Otherwise they'll just erode their equity moving forward, and likely only receive a marginal bump in valuation in the future.

It's evil, it's legal, but (luckily) their operations always meant this day would come and they would need to sell.
 
bringbackbebe said:
Yes, if they pay $5000m, Glazers will have to use the 1st $700m or so to pay off debt, and then the remaining $4300 is what's available to the stakeholders.
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That’s not correct. There is no legal obligation on the Glazers to pay the debt before they go. It is United debt and the new owner become liable for it when the club is sold. It has no bearing on the sale process.
 
Nou_Camp99 said:
Nobody is going to go in with top dollar with an opening bid. Same as Glazers aren't going to accept the first offer they get either.

I don't see how they can stay after all this. I firmly believe we will be sold and this is all just games to get a higher asking price. £5.25 bn I reckon will do it in the end. They won't get 6 and they know they won't.
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100% agree
 
TrebleChamp99 said:
I highly recommend everyone have a listen to this with Ben Jacobs , I know he’s a bit of a chancer but he is highly intelligent and informed.

Some key points:

- There are no solid offers currently only indicative valuations and paragraphs.

- Any talk of delays due to valuations and low ball offers is nonsense as there are no actual offers on the table.

- The current valuations simply give a general idea of starting prices and provide a platform for negotiation , it is expected the price Will be negotiated higher.

- It’s business as usual at United until the sale advances so don’t read too much into Glazers actions.

- There is a chance Sheik Jassim would fail the owners and directors test.

- Precedent is that Newcastle did pass but it took a while.
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Interesting.

At this point it feels unlikely that a takeover will be concluded before next season. People will reference the Chelsea takeover, but that was the exception rather than the rule.
 
The American owners have allegedly put the club for sale, for a whopping price of £5 billion but according to a recent assessment by Financial Times, the club’s current value stands at £1.3 billion.
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This seems ridiculously low.

Does anyone know if a similar assessment was made of Chelsea - and if so, what it amounted to?

I see that some people suggest that it's an assessment that doesn't take the particular nature of a football club (as opposed to any number of other listed companies, I suppose) into consideration, but then: what's the bloody point of the assessment in the first place? It is a football club, not a cruise line or a metal producer.
 
Chesterlestreet said:
This seems ridiculously low.

Does anyone know if a similar assessment was made of Chelsea - and if so, what it amounted to?

I see that some people suggest that it's an assessment that doesn't take the particular nature of a football club (as opposed to any number of other listed companies, I suppose) into consideration, but then: what's the bloody point of the assessment in the first place? It is a football club, not a cruise line or a metal producer.
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Chelsea's valuation wasn't straight forward as the price they were including a guaranteed billion to invest in the squad as part of the valuation and others (can't remember)
 
Chesterlestreet said:
This seems ridiculously low.

Does anyone know if a similar assessment was made of Chelsea - and if so, what it amounted to?

I see that some people suggest that it's an assessment that doesn't take the particular nature of a football club (as opposed to any number of other listed companies, I suppose) into consideration, but then: what's the bloody point of the assessment in the first place? It is a football club, not a cruise line or a metal producer.
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I think it does take into account the nature of a football club, if you are purchasing it solely for returns and profits to your investors, then a football club may not be the best place to put your club. Unlike traditional companies, who can downsize, shift funds, launch products, change tactics in their marketplace to become more profitable, it's not something a football club can do. A football club, you need to constantly increase spend on transfers and wages to maintain revenue from fans and sponsors, and with us especially to increase revenue dramatically we will need another £1-3 billion of investment on stadium and clearing the debt.

For example Glazers/shareholders only started taking dividends out in 2016, and since then they've taken about £150 million to date. At that rate it will take decades for any investor to see a return on investment of £1.5 billion let alone £5/6 billion.
 
I know the Glazer's are greedy and want top dollar, cannot really blame them for that, but after having bought Utd for £250m ish of their own money, taking out £1.5bn, and leaving the club with the £500m debt they leveraged in the first place, I would say they would be nuts not to snap at the reported £4.5bn offered, they would be net £4.25bn not including their dividends, the alternative being stay and have to actually put money into the club whilst at best drawing dividends of £30m per year as previous.... Okay so if they bring in an investor, they are going to have to use that money to fund the redevelopment, the investor will want a piece of the dividend pie and will take a chunk out of any future sale.... it is hard to see that long or short term a partial sale makes any sense financially, and I refuse to believe that Joel and Avram are emotionally invested in the club to the extent that they would take a financial hit!
 
Zed 101 said:
I know the Glazer's are greedy and want top dollar, cannot really blame them for that, but after having bought Utd for £250m ish of their own money, taking out £1.5bn, and leaving the club with the £500m debt they leveraged in the first place, I would say they would be nuts not to snap at the reported £4.5bn offered, they would be net £4.25bn not including their dividends, the alternative being stay and have to actually put money into the club whilst at best drawing dividends of £30m per year as previous.... Okay so if they bring in an investor, they are going to have to use that money to fund the redevelopment, the investor will want a piece of the dividend pie and will take a chunk out of any future sale.... it is hard to see that long or short term a partial sale makes any sense financially, and I refuse to believe that Joel and Avram are emotionally invested in the club to the extent that they would take a financial hit!
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Tax free too. How can you bankrupt the club by taking £1bn dividends out the club, yet when there is a 4.5bn offer, you want to stay?

They need to go as soon as possible really.
 
Hal9000 said:
I think it does take into account the nature of a football club, if you are purchasing it solely for returns and profits to your investors, then a football club may not be the best place to put your club.
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Yes, but...

Of course a football club isn't a grand investment if you just...buy it, using your own money: it's ridiculously expensive to run, huge yearly expenses (salaries alone - insane on the top level) and so forth.

But this is known, it's part and parcel of the thing itself. It seems pointless to me to assess the actual, de-facto "value" of Manchester United based on the above when everyone and his dog knows that the club will be very attractive to parties who don't give a shit about making a profit in the traditional sense.

The Qataris (obviously, my nine year old nephew understands this) won't be buying United for the turnover/the immediate profit the club generates.
 
Zed 101 said:
I know the Glazer's are greedy and want top dollar, cannot really blame them for that, but after having bought Utd for £250m ish of their own money, taking out £1.5bn, and leaving the club with the £500m debt they leveraged in the first place, I would say they would be nuts not to snap at the reported £4.5bn offered, they would be net £4.25bn not including their dividends, the alternative being stay and have to actually put money into the club whilst at best drawing dividends of £30m per year as previous.... Okay so if they bring in an investor, they are going to have to use that money to fund the redevelopment, the investor will want a piece of the dividend pie and will take a chunk out of any future sale.... it is hard to see that long or short term a partial sale makes any sense financially, and I refuse to believe that Joel and Avram are emotionally invested in the club to the extent that they would take a financial hit!
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Hal9000 said:
I think it does take into account the nature of a football club, if you are purchasing it solely for returns and profits to your investors, then a football club may not be the best place to put your club. Unlike traditional companies, who can downsize, shift funds, launch products, change tactics in their marketplace to become more profitable, it's not something a football club can do. A football club, you need to constantly increase spend on transfers and wages to maintain revenue from fans and sponsors, and with us especially to increase revenue dramatically we will need another £1-3 billion of investment on stadium and clearing the debt.

For example Glazers/shareholders only started taking dividends out in 2016, and since then they've taken about £150 million to date. At that rate it will take decades for any investor to see a return on investment of £1.5 billion let alone £5/6 billion.
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Something doesn't equate here, I have no idea which is accurate but I don't see how both can be true
 
Worth pointing out that Delaney has gone on a long tirade trying a gotcha over Newcastle and with the LIV golf situation and has gotten the Saudi agreement and takeover of Newcastle completely wrong.
Kist in case certain posters still think he’s well researched in these subjects
 
stw2022 said:
Yes I'm doubting exactly that. Unless the argument was that fans were desperately angry that we had stopped being a PLC with a legal obligation to priorities profits for shareholders above anything else, or suddenly decided that 2006 was the time they noticed increased commercialisation of the game. Both reasons are either disingenuous or facetious.

Imagine if every one of the 92 clubs in the football league had fans feck off because they didn't like their owners. There would be about six clubs left.
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Well I can only assume you are too young to remember what was going on back in 2005 as it wasn't like that at all.

Firstly, most fans were content with the PLC. PLC obligation is to its shareholders and many fans were also shareholders which gave them the opportunity to attended AGMs and feel part of the club, so you are wrong that the priority was only profit. That's exactly why the Glazers wanted to take over, because they saw a lot more potential for profit with things like ticket prices that the PLC wasn't exploiting.
And fans were obviously not happy about being forced to sell shares to the Glazers and no longer have any input into anything after they took the club private in their hostile takeover.

Secondly, the debt was a major issue for many and still is today. That was the main factor that lead some to giving up season tickets and they thought a boycott would ruin the Glazers' business plan.
They were mistaken though as our fan base is simply too big for a boycott to ever work and it just ended up creating splits in the fanbase as Some of the boycotters went on to form FCUM.

Lastly, I do actually agree that the road to commercialisation started long before the Glazers though and that road has now lead to potential multi billion takeover, state interest, hedge funds etc.
Still I personally think there was far more reasons for fans to be against the Glazers takeover back in 2005 than there is against an Al Thani takeover today.
 
Rood said:
Well I can only assume you are too young to remember what was going on back in 2005 as it wasn't like that at all.

Firstly, most fans were content with the PLC. PLC obligation is to its shareholders and many fans were also shareholders which gave them the opportunity to attended AGMs and feel part of the club, so you are wrong that the priority was only profit. That's exactly why the Glazers wanted to take over, because they saw a lot more potential for profit with things like ticket prices that the PLC wasn't exploiting.
And fans were obviously not happy about being forced to sell shares to the Glazers and no longer have any input into anything after they took the club private in their hostile takeover.

Secondly, the debt was a major issue for many and still is today. That was the main factor that lead some to giving up season tickets and they thought a boycott would ruin the Glazers' business plan.
They were mistaken though as our fan base is simply too big for a boycott to ever work and it just ended up creating splits in the fanbase as Some of the boycotters went on to form FCUM.

Lastly, I do actually agree that the road to commercialisation started long before the Glazers though and that road has now lead to potential multi billion takeover, state interest, hedge funds etc.
Still I personally think there was far more reasons for fans to be against the Glazers takeover back in 2005 than there is against an Al Thani takeover today.
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This. The LBO was the biggest bone of contention for us fans. We knew our finances would be spent on servicing the debt.

Some people just don't understand their own club and what's going on.
 
SmallCaine said:
You clearly don't know what you are talking about. Not just business any asset you buy or sell comes with debt included in valuation. Say for eg if you have a house valued at 1mn and you owe a bank 300k for that. If I buy that house from you, you get 700k be it just 700k and I takeover the mortgage or you pay off the 300k and pocket the other 700k. In no calculation do you get 1mn.
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of course the debt comes included in the valuation, I'm not sure what you're arguing against.

A business is not a mortgage. In a mortgage the debt is your personal liability to pay once you sell the house.
 
Plant0x84 said:
That’s not correct. There is no legal obligation on the Glazers to pay the debt before they go. It is United debt and the new owner become liable for it when the club is sold. It has no bearing on the sale process.
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In that scenario, the bid for the club is effectively 5b + debt cost. That's not the case.
 
bringbackbebe said:
In that scenario, the bid for the club is effectively 5b + debt cost. That's not the case.
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Actually you are wrong, the debt belongs to the club, when you buy a business you take on the liabilities as well as the assets
 
Plant0x84 said:
That’s not correct. There is no legal obligation on the Glazers to pay the debt before they go. It is United debt and the new owner become liable for it when the club is sold. It has no bearing on the sale process.
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You are right there is no ‘legal obligation’ on the Glazer’s to pay off the debt - but this is going to be a negotiation, where any prospective buyer will factor the debt into their valuation. The Glazer’s won’t settle the debt but may need to take a lower offer for the club if someone is also prepared to settle the debt.
 
George The Best said:
You are right there is no ‘legal obligation’ on the Glazer’s to pay off the debt - but this is going to be a negotiation, where any prospective buyer will factor the debt into their valuation. The Glazer’s won’t settle the debt but may need to take a lower offer for the club if someone is also prepared to settle the debt.
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You don’t know the Glazers very well if you believe that. This is just another way they have fleeced the club to print free cash for themselves.
 
George The Best said:
You are right there is no ‘legal obligation’ on the Glazer’s to pay off the debt - but this is going to be a negotiation, where any prospective buyer will factor the debt into their valuation. The Glazer’s won’t settle the debt but may need to take a lower offer for the club if someone is also prepared to settle the debt.
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It's highly unlikely they will sell for anything less than their asking price, they don't need or have to sell the club, they are not under financial pressure to sell, for them it's a choice
 
Red in STL said:
Actually you are wrong, the debt belongs to the club, when you buy a business you take on the liabilities as well as the assets
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So let's just wait for the bid details to be clear. My guess like I mentioned in the previous posts, is that the bid is for the enterprise value. Glazers pocket net of debt. It'll be interesting if 5b is just for the equity like you say.
 
bringbackbebe said:
So let's just wait for the bid details to be clear. My guess like I mentioned in the previous posts, is that the bid is for the enterprise value. Glazers pocket net of debt. It'll be interesting if 5b is just for the equity like you say.
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Assuming the details are ever released, there's no obligation that I'm aware of that they have to be
 
Plant0x84 said:
You don’t know the Glazers very well if you believe that. This is just another way they have fleeced the club to print free cash for themselves.
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Of course they have. But, if a new buyer wants to clear the debt and meet the Glazer’s asking price, that’ going to cost over 6.6bn. I do think the Glazer’s would be mad to not accept an offer around 5.4/5.5bn - leaving the buyer to fork out their 6bn asking price.
 
Really hope that this is just posturing and they will sell up. I like to think the LUHG protests will get back into full swing if they don't sell up..
 
Chesterlestreet said:
Yes, but...

Of course a football club isn't a grand investment if you just...buy it, using your own money: it's ridiculously expensive to run, huge yearly expenses (salaries alone - insane on the top level) and so forth.

But this is known, it's part and parcel of the thing itself. It seems pointless to me to assess the actual, de-facto "value" of Manchester United based on the above when everyone and his dog knows that the club will be very attractive to parties who don't give a shit about making a profit in the traditional sense.

The Qataris (obviously, my nine year old nephew understands this) won't be buying United for the turnover/the immediate profit the club generates.
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I'm not talking about Qatar, we all know that's about status. I'm talking about the FT article only valueing the club at £1.5 billion and other investors/hudge funders who will want to come in.
 
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