It’s all gone quiet over there. After over two decades of involvement with Man United, the Glazer family are now taking a silent-partner approach to operations at Old Trafford.
United fans might argue that, even well before Sir Jim Ratcliffe‘s £1.2bn investment in February, the Glazers were never particularly vocal. At least, not publicly.
Joel and Avram Glazer did occasionally deign to stick their heads above the parapet but those appearances, at cup finals or corporate events, were the exception that proved the rule.
Make no mistake though, the Glazers – and particularly Joel and Avram – were active behind the scenes. In fact, by most accounts, they were too involved in humdrum, day-to-day activities.
That encompassed a range of activities, from hiring and firing directors and dictating commercial strategy to making decisions about which cleaning agency to hire for the North Stand.
In Ed Woodward, they had a convenient shock absorber, a company man who was willing to take the venom from United fans if it came as the cost of increasing commercial revenues.
Under Ratcliffe, who now owns 27.7 per cent of United’s shares with a proportionate set of voting rights, the dynamic has shifted.
His focus has been on streamlining the club in every department. Some of his efforts to increase efficiency have been well received, others not so much.
An incentive-based contract structure? Good stuff. Firing 250 employees, many from Manchester, in one go and crudely dubbing it a ‘headcount rationalisation’? Not as likely to win over bedrock fans.
But change is needed. On that much, everyone stakeholder at United can agree.
Old Trafford‘s leaking roof both a perfect metaphor for and direct symptom of years of neglecting the fundamentals of what it means to be a football club, not an elaborate marketing vehicle.
And whether you agree with his methods or not, Ratcliffe has arrested the culture of stasis in M16.
And now, it looks like the Glazers, happy to take a backseat and perhaps take the occasional dividend at Old Trafford, are eying a new sports investment project.
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Glazers targeting new sports investment
The Glazers are one of just a tiny pool of billionaires whose sports franchises feature multiple times in the top 50 most valuable sports teams in the world.
Valuations vary across different platforms, who used different metrics to appraise sports enterprises.
Man United’s market cap (the value of their shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange extraopolated across all of the businesses shares) is about £2bn, but the club’s true value is closer to £5bn.
The estimated worth of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Glazer family’s NFL franchise, is approximately £5bn.
Incidentally, the Glazers rejected a £4.7bn bid for the Bucs earlier this year.
In total, there are six Glazer siblings.
Joel and Avram are the most famous in Manchester but Bryan and Edward run the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, while Darcie runs the family’s charities and Kevin their real estate empire, Glazer properties.
And according to The Telegraph, the siblings may have found their next sports investment project.
Reportedly, a group of the Glazers – which excludes Joel – want equity in a team or teams in the Hundred cricket tournament.
Eight franchises worth a combined £650m are for sale in total.
Interestingly, Raine Group are handling the sale process.
If that name sounds familiar, it is because Raine acted as brokers when the Glazers were looking to sell their United shares.
That process ultimately leading to Ratcliffe becoming United’s largest individual shareholder.
Chelsea director Jonathan Goldstein is also among those said to have expressed firm interest, while Chelsea co-owner Todd Boehly has not been ruled out as a prospective investor.
Raine Group also acted as the go-between in the process that saw a group led by Boehly and Clearklake Capital take over from Roman Abramovich.
The Glazers’ long-term plan at Man United
Between them, the Glazers still control the majority of the voting rights at Old Trafford.
Ultimately, the reason they cashed in on the 27.7 per cent stake they sold to Ratcliffe was that their valuation for a full takeover had not been met.
It appears that the plan is for the family to let Ratcliffe oversee the regeneration of the club and then reap the rewards when they eventually cash out for billions of dollars.
In the meantime, it does not look like they will provide capital for the £2bn Old Trafford project, nor will they provide operating cash. United will continue to draw on credit facilities – their overdraft, essentially.
Dividends meanwhile will keep them ticking over on a personal level, with United having no formal structure in place that would stop them from taking them.
Even when United make a financial loss, dividends can be and are paid on profit from previous years.
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