Manchester United are currently up for sale, with their owners, the Glazer family, announcing in November 2022 that they were open to exploring strategic alternatives for ownership of the club, welcoming either new investors or a sale.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe's Ineos has lodged a formal interest in buying the club with Raine Group, the merchant bank exclusively advising Manchester United and the Glazers in the sale of the club.
A spokesperson said: "We have formally put ourselves into the process [of buying Manchester United]."
The Glazers have owned Manchester United since 2005, but, amid unrest from supporters unhappy with the direction and infrastructure at the club, they have now opened up the possibility of selling. Raine Group is hoping a sale will be complete by the end of the first quarter: the end of March.
How much will Manchester United cost?
With any sale, the Glazers are set to make a huge profit in regards their original investment.
Indeed, when the Glazers took over in 2005, the final purchase price of the club totalled almost £800 million. However, it was a leveraged buyout, with most of the capital used by the Glazers coming in the form of loans, the majority of which were secured against the club's assets, leaving Manchester United in multiple hundreds of millions of debts.
Regardless, at the beginning of 2023, Manchester United's overall price on the stock market was valued at around £3 billion, while Forbes valued the club in May last year at £3.7 billion.
Sky Sports journalist, Kaveh Solhekol, believes they will be looking for considerably more than that, though.
"In the current climate, because there is so much interest in buying Premier League clubs, and because a club like Manchester United rarely becomes available, most people expect it to be sold for somewhere between £5 billion and £10 billion," he said.
"I think it'll be closer to £5bn than £10bn, but that would be the kind of figure the Glazer family would be looking for, which would be an incredible return for them."
Last year, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital purchased Chelsea for £2.5 billion, plus a commitment to spend a further £1.75 billion on the club - essentially working out at £4.25 billion. While that reflects the need for a sale, due to Roman Abramovic being sanctioned by the UK government, it is still a considerable outlay that the Glazers will be expecting even more from in a potential sale.
Ratcliffe clearly has the funds to purchase Manchester United, too, considering he also bid £4.25 billion on Chelsea. However, he did so a lot later than Boehly and Clearlake Capital while negotiations were nearing the end, and so his bid was rejected.
