Chapter 169 Taking over Manchester United

As mentioned before, Barron can choose to wait until the end of the year, after Manchester United coach Ferguson has a conflict with its major shareholder over horse racing, before further acquiring Manchester United.

You can also raise your offer now to increase your stake beyond that of Cubic Expression, which owns 28.7% of the Manchester United club.

When they returned to London, DS Capital had already met this condition.

After buying 6.45% of the shares of Manchester United from Dobson, a Scot, plus the shares of Manchester United that it had been buying from the secondary market, and then buying some shares from other small shareholders at the same price, DS Capital officially announced that their stake in Manchester United exceeds 30%, which is already more than Cubic Expression, which holds 28.7% of Manchester United’s shares!

When the Scotsman Dobson initially purchased 6.45% of his shares, the price the other party asked for these shares would have given Manchester United a market value of £650 million, which was more than double the market value of Manchester United's shares at the time. .

After continued negotiations, the other party was finally willing to sell its shares for 38.5 million pounds. The market value of the corresponding Manchester United club was about 600 million pounds. After DS Capital completed the acquisition, it also acquired other companies at the same price. The stakes of several small shareholders extend their holdings beyond those held by Cubic Expression.

At this point, the overall situation of DS Capital’s acquisition of Manchester United Club has been basically determined. At this time, as DS Capital and the American Glazer family acquired Manchester United Club shares in the secondary market, its stock price has risen by more than 100% compared to the initial time. 60%, its market value has reached 500 million pounds!

It seems that with the stock price reaching its current position, Cubic Expression has deemed the price to be too high and is unwilling to purchase Manchester United Club shares from the secondary market, thus retaining its status as the largest shareholder of Manchester United Club.

Now, DS Capital has once again issued an offer to Cubic Expression to acquire its shares in Manchester United, expressing its hope to acquire their 28.7% stake in the Manchester United club at a price of 175 million pounds.

Their bid corresponds to a market value of Manchester United that is still over 600 million pounds.

If the other party refuses again, then DS Capital can also request to convene a shareholders' meeting of Manchester United to re-elect its board of directors, thus gaining control of the Manchester United club.

Next, by issuing additional shares and injecting capital into Manchester United, the shares of other shareholders can still be diluted.

As for the other party being willing to invest in the same proportion?

This is of course possible. Anyway, it’s just a matter of comparing who has more money. Even if they invest in the same proportion, the pattern of shares has been determined, unless the Glazer family is willing to side with Cubic Expression and invest more money into the Manchester United club. .

With the "blood-sucking" characteristics of the Glazer family, they originally needed to carry out a leveraged buyout to acquire the Manchester United club. After the final privatization, they dumped their debts on the Manchester United club. How could they choose this thankless method?

And if Cubic Expression and the Glazer family stand together, then in terms of public opinion, Barron will also have a way to put the two under negative pressure.

Therefore, under such circumstances, Cubic Expression finally agreed to DS Capital's acquisition request and sold their 28.7% stake in Manchester United for £175 million.

After this, DS Capital held more than 60% of the shares of Manchester United Club, completing its control of the club.

It can be said that at this time, Manchester United Club officially changed its entrance hall and became the Duke of Devonshire's team.

As things have developed now, the Glazer family saw no hope of acquiring the Manchester United club, and finally sold their 10% stake in the Manchester United club to DS Capital for 60 million pounds, bringing DS Capital's shareholding to more than 70%. %!

Next, DS Capital will continue to absorb Manchester United Club shares from the secondary market. After holding more than 75% of the shares, DS Capital will start the privatization process of Manchester United Club, thereby buying out everyone’s club shares and making this team its 100% shareholder. % private property.

In fact, in the original time and space, it took the Glazer family nearly two years to complete the full acquisition of Manchester United at a total cost of US$1.47 billion.

This price could be said to be a premium of more than 200% at the time! Many felt they had paid a high price and were destined to lose heavily at Manchester United.

But the fact is, they made a lot of money from this deal.

why? Because the subsequent development of the Premier League, especially the commercialization process, has greatly exceeded everyone's expectations. With the commercial value of Manchester United ranking first in the Premier League, its income has increased year by year, even though they have not spent much money. They invested in player replacement and even sold Cristiano Ronaldo, who later flourished, at a high price. However, thanks to Ferguson's good planning for the team, they still maintained the top income among clubs in the Premier League and even around the world.

However, because he made the acquisition earlier than the Glazer family, he had a first-mover advantage, and Barron had already tied Goldman Sachs Group to his own chariot in the acquisition of O2 Company - the original time and space Glazer family acquired Manchester United. The main consultant and fund provider is Goldman Sachs Group.

But now, Goldman Sachs Group has become the main partner of DS Capital in acquiring the Manchester United Club. Therefore, combined with these factors, it is expected that DS Capital will complete the 100% acquisition of the Manchester United Club, and the funds spent will be far lower than the Glazer family’s 14.7 in the original time and space. million US dollars (equivalent to 980 million pounds), only less than 600 million pounds is needed, which can be said to be a very good deal.

It is also because Cubic Expression did not expect that the commercial value of Manchester United would grow so fast in the future, and make more and more money - in their opinion at this time, the market value of 600 million pounds, and the market value of 310 million pounds, its price-earnings ratio was For Manchester United, which is much higher than other companies, it is really a bit expensive. Even the Glazer family was optimistic about Manchester United at this time, but they were not as sure as Barron. In the end, they made money and left after the acquisition was hopeless.

Yes, compared to the money spent by the Glazer family to acquire 10% of the shares of Manchester United, the 60 million pounds sold to DS Capital has already made more than 20 million pounds, even if the acquisition of Manchester United was not completed. , this benefit also gave them some comfort.

For this acquisition plan, DS Capital invested about 200 million pounds in funds, and the remaining funds mainly came from financing from Goldman Sachs Group. After the final completion of this acquisition, they still have a large amount of funds in their accounts that can be used Make an investment.

Of course, this time, Barron will not sell Ronaldo to Real Madrid.

Well, it is worth mentioning that Ronaldo has not yet joined the Manchester United club. He is still playing in Sporting Lisbon in Portugal. He will not be bought by Manchester United for a fee of 12.8 million pounds until August this year. Into the Red Devils.

On May 3, in the penultimate round of the 2002-2003 Premier League season, Leeds United defeated Arsenal 3:2 in an away game, thus ensuring Manchester United's advantage over Arsenal under Wenger's head coach. The team has secured the Premier League title this season ahead of schedule.

At this time, Barron, who had already decided to take over the Manchester United club and become its new owner, also met with the club's management.

In the conversation with Ferguson, Barron still assured the meritorious coach of Manchester United of his status in the team, saying that he would receive his 100% support.

At the same time, Barron met with David Gill, the future vice-president of the Football Association and FIFA, and said that he will serve as the CEO of Manchester United in the next season.

After stabilizing these two people, Barron has basically stabilized the Manchester United club. The next thing to do is to make the Manchester United club better than the original time and space in terms of commercial operations, thereby surpassing the Real Madrid club and becoming globally famous. The highest football club.

This can also double Barron's influence.