章 169: Chapter 169: Joining Manchester United
As mentioned before, Barron can choose to wait until the end of the year, when Manchester United coach Ferguson has a conflict with its major shareholder over horse racing, and then further acquire Manchester United.
It could also raise its offer now, thereby increasing its stake above Cubic Expression, which owns 28.7% of Manchester United.
By the time they returned to London, DS Capital had met this requirement.
After buying 6.45% of Manchester United Club's shares from Scotsman Dobson, plus the Manchester United Club's shares purchased from the secondary market, and then buying a part of the shares from other small shareholders at the same price, DS Capital officially announced that their holdings of Manchester United Club's shares exceeded 30%, which is more than Cubic Expression, which holds 28.7% of Manchester United Club's shares!
When initially purchasing 6.45% of the shares from Scotsman Dobson, the other party's asking price for these shares corresponded to a market value of Manchester United club of 650 million pounds, which was more than double the market value of Manchester United club's shares at the time.
After continuous negotiations, the other party was finally willing to sell its shares for 38.5 million pounds, which corresponds to a market value of Manchester United Club of about 600 million pounds. After DS Capital completed the acquisition, it acquired the shares of several other small shareholders at the same price, and its shareholding exceeded that of Cubic Expression.
At this point, DS Capital's acquisition of Manchester United has been basically confirmed. With DS Capital and the American Glazer family acquiring Manchester United shares in the secondary market, the share price has risen by more than 60% compared to the initial price, and its market value has reached 500 million pounds!
It seems that at the current share price, Cubic Expression has already considered the price too high and is unwilling to purchase Manchester United shares from the secondary market to maintain its position as the largest shareholder of Manchester United.
Now, DS Capital has once again made 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 for £175 million.
The market value of Manchester United Club corresponding to their bid is still over 600 million pounds.
If the other party refuses again, DS Capital can also request to convene a Manchester United shareholders' meeting to re-elect its board of directors and thus gain control of the Manchester United club.
Next, by issuing additional shares and injecting capital into Manchester United Club, the shares of other shareholders can still be diluted.
As for the other party's willingness to invest in the same proportion?
Of course, that's possible. After all, it's just a matter of who has more money. Even if they invest in the same proportion, the share structure has been determined, unless the Glazer family is willing to stand on the side of Cubic Expression and invest more money in Manchester United.
Given the Glazer family's "blood-sucking" nature, they would have needed to conduct a leveraged buyout to acquire Manchester United, and after ultimately completing privatization, they would have dumped their own debts on Manchester United. How could they have chosen such a thankless approach?
And if Cubic Expression stands with the Glazer family, then Barron will also have a way to put negative pressure on both of them in terms of public opinion.
Therefore, under such circumstances, Cubic Expression finally agreed to DS Capital's acquisition request and sold their 28.7% stake in Manchester United Club for 175 million pounds.
After this, DS Capital's shareholding in Manchester United Club exceeded 60%, completing its controlling stake in the club.
It can be said that at this time, Manchester United Club officially changed its lobby and became the Duke of Devonshire's team.
As things developed to this point, the Glazer family saw that there was no hope of acquiring Manchester United Club, and finally sold their 10% stake in 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 acquire Manchester United Club shares from the secondary market. After holding more than 75% of the shares, it will start the privatization process of Manchester United Club, thereby buying out everyone's club shares and making the team 100% its private property.
In fact, in the original time and space, the Glazer family took nearly two years to complete the full acquisition of Manchester United Club, with a total cost of US$1.47 billion.
This price was over 200% higher than the previous price! Many people thought that they had paid a high price and were destined to suffer heavy losses at Manchester United.
But the fact is, the deal made them a ton of money.
Why? Because the subsequent development of the Premier League, especially the commercialization process, greatly exceeded everyone's expectations. Manchester United, with its commercial value ranked first in the Premier League, has higher and higher income year by year. Even though they did not spend much money on player replacement and even sold Cristiano Ronaldo, who later became a shining star, at a high price, thanks to Ferguson's good planning for the team, they still maintain the top income among the Premier League and even the world's clubs.
However, because the acquisition was carried out earlier than the Glazer family, it had the first-mover advantage, and Barron had already tied Goldman Sachs to his chariot in the acquisition of O2 - the main consultant and funding provider for the Glazer family's acquisition of Manchester United in the original time and space was Goldman Sachs.
But now, Goldman Sachs has become the main partner of DS Capital in the acquisition of Manchester United Club. Therefore, taking all these factors into consideration, it is expected that the funds spent by DS Capital to complete the 100% acquisition of Manchester United Club will be far less than the US$1.47 billion (equivalent to £980 million) spent by the Glazer family in the original time and space. It will only cost less than £600 million, which can be said to be very cost-effective.
This is also because not only did Cubic Expression not expect that the commercial value of Manchester United would grow so fast and make more and more money - in their view at this time, the market value of 600 million pounds was a bit high for Manchester United, whose price-to-earnings ratio was much higher than that of other companies when the market value was 310 million pounds. Even the Glazer family, although optimistic about Manchester United at this time, was not as sure as Barron, and finally made money and left after the acquisition failed.
Yes, compared to the money the Glazer family spent on acquiring their 10% stake in Manchester United, they have made more than 20 million pounds by selling it to DS Capital for 60 million pounds. Even if they have not completed the acquisition of Manchester United, this profit has comforted them.
For this acquisition plan, DS Capital invested approximately 200 million pounds, and the remaining funds mainly came from financing from Goldman Sachs Group. After finally completing this acquisition, they still have a large amount of funds in their accounts that can be used for 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 for Sporting Lisbon in Portugal. It will not be until August this year that he will be bought by Manchester United for 12.8 million pounds and join the Red Devils.
On May 3, with the penultimate round of the 2002-2003 Premier League season, Leeds United defeated Arsenal 3:2 away from home, thus ensuring Manchester United's advantage over Arsenal, head coached by Wenger, and allowing Manchester United to lock in the title of Premier League champion this season in advance.
At this time, Barron, who had already been confirmed to take over Manchester United and become its new boss, also met with the club's management.
In his conversation with Ferguson, Barron still assured the meritorious head coach of Manchester United club of his position in the team and said that he would have his 100% support.
At the same time, Barron met with David Gill, the future vice-president of the English Football Association and FIFA, and said that he would serve as the CEO of Manchester United in the next season.
After stabilizing these two people, Barron has basically stabilized Manchester United Club. What he needs to do next is to make Manchester United Club do better in commercial operations than in the original time and space, so as to surpass Real Madrid Club and become the most well-known football club in the world.
This will also allow Barron's influence to be doubled.
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