InterviewAndy MittenWith some £680m in debt repayments, bank charges and interest paid under
Glazer family ownership of Manchester United, the Red Devils could have...1
...cleared the estimated losses of the five
biggest box office flops in cinematic history –
47 Ronin, Mars Needs Moms, The 13th
Warrior, The Lone Ranger and RIPD – at a total
cost of £643.6 million, leaving them with
enough small change to have fully financed big
Oscar winner Birdman... three times over.2
...added a touch of class to the prawn sandwich
brigade’s matchday experience at the Theatre of
Dreams by buying the four most expensive
paintings sold at auction (adjusted for inflation):
Gauguin’s When Will You Marry Me?, Cezanne’s The
Card Players, Jackson Pollock’s No. 5, 1948 and Willem
de Kooning’s Woman III. And there should be a spare
£80 million or so to spend on post-impressionist and
abstract expressionist seafood butties.3
...rewarded the loyalty of United’s 55,000
season ticket holders with a £9,295 Chevrolet
Spark each as a 2015–16 renewal bonus.
United would still have £168.7 million left over
and shirt sponsor Chevvy would get free
advertising, too!United fan, economist and former Goldman Sachs boss Jim O’Neill, who quit the club board
when the Glazers took the club private in 2005, explains how the takeover was completedWHAT IS A LEVERAGED BUYOUT?
A leveraged buyout is when you put up just a
fraction of the cash that a business is being sold
for and borrow the rest. Should it be allowed?
As a general business procedure, yes. There’s
reasonable evidence that leveraged-buyout
owners are good at extracting value. The
Glazers did it to the book. Leveraged-buyout
owners tend to own a company for seven years;
they extract money, increase cash flow and cut
or keep costs low. They then aim to float the
business at a profit, with the debt repaid using
money from a stock market launch.SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
If you look at the rise of the Premier League,
United could have been as good as Barça in the
last decade. Since the takeover, United have
been marginally less successful. They stopped
being in the market for top, game-changing
players. It was only in the summer of 2014 that
the club started spending again. Domestically,
United could easily have competed with
Chelsea’s spending, but the club’s strong
incomes were used for repaying debt or the
owners’ personal income. The numbers that
have been spent to repay the debt are vast.AND WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
In 2012, the Glazers raised money through a
limited public offering on the New York Stock
Exchange, which surprised me because other
stock exchanges turned them down [flotations
in Singapore and Hong Kong were called off due
to lack of demand]. The way they did it means it
will be difficult for others to try to buy the club.
They paid £790m for United and put up only
£250 million of their own funds. With the
current share price it’s worth £4.2 billion. The
Glazers have been very clever. They’ve done it
all ruthlessly well.TEN YEARS OF
THE GLAZERSFourFourTwo.com The Story of Man Utd 97MONEY, MONEY,MONEY
£680,000,000
4
...covered the cost of Arsenal’s £390 million
Emirates Stadium and the construction,
football conversion and fit-out of
Manchester City’s Etihad Stadium, if they were
feeling generous. Charity begins at home,
after all.5
...bought the following XI (based on most recent
transfer fees): Manuel Neuer, Dani Alves, David
Luiz, Thiago Silva, Jordi Alba, Gareth Bale, Kaká,
James Rodríguez, Mesut Özil, Zlatan Ibrahimović and
Luis Suárez (oh, and substitutes: Thibaut Courtois,
Nemanja Matić, Fernando Torres and Edinson Cavani).6
...purchased 66 and a half live Premier
League matches under the latest TV
rights deal and shown them exclusively
on MUTV. They’d even be able to bring Gary
Neville back as a pundit.TOTAL £669.5M
“A LEVERAGED WHAT NOW?”