Football: Qatari investors preparing imminent bid for Manchester United

LONDON – Qatari investors are ready to officially make an offer for Manchester United, people familiar with the matter said, ahead of Friday’s soft deadline for bids set by club owners the Glazer family.

The Qatari consortium is preparing to submit an initial bid for the English Premier League giants with a view on a full sale instead of taking just a minority stake.

Officials at sovereign wealth fund the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) are helping with the preparations alongside local family offices, one of the sources said, asking not to be identified discussing confidential information. 

New York bank Raine Group is advising United’s owners, the US-based Glazers. Shares in United rose as much as 5.3 per cent in early trading in New York on Monday.

United have been the subject of increasing takeover speculation since the summer, when Bloomberg News reported the Glazers were open to selling a stake.

So far, only British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe has officially declared his interest and is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc and JPMorgan Chase & Co on a potential offer. 

Bloomberg reported in January that state-backed Qatari investors were weighing an investment in United. 

Qatar Sports Investments, a subsidiary and separate entity to QIA, already owns French club Paris Saint-Germain.

Regulations from European football’s governing body, Uefa, state that teams with the same majority owner cannot both compete in the region’s major tournaments, including the showpiece Champions League.

But it is not unprecedented for an owner to field two clubs in the same European competition, if he can provide proof that they have different management teams.

Red Bull Salzburg and RB Leipzig met each other in the Europa League in 2018 after they showed there was clear separation between the two teams, despite both being part of the Red Bull GmbH group.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the ruling emir of Qatar, is a United fan and unlikely to want to let slip the chance to own what is widely regarded as one of the world’s biggest sports brands. 

Deliberations are ongoing and no final decisions have been taken about which Qatari entities will ultimately provide capital for the United bid, the sources said.

Adam Sommerfeld, a sport investment specialist at Certus Capital, has estimated that any offer for United would need to exceed £4 billion (S$6.45 billion) to be successful. That would make it one of the largest ever deals involving a sporting franchise. 

But Qatar is more than capable of putting in a high bid, having spent more than US$200 billion ($S265.2 billion) during the past decade redeveloping the country’s infrastructure to host the World Cup. BLOOMBERG