Debt-ridden Manchester United to float football club on New York Stock Exchange

In an effort to reduce its debts, Manchester United football club have listed floated themselves on to the New York Stock Exchange...

16:42 04 July 2012

 

In an effort to reduce its debts, Manchester United football club have listed floated themselves on to the New

YorkStock Exchange. 

The club believes that selling shares to wealthy Wall Street investors on the NYSE will raise the $100m/£64m required. 

Boys in red Manchester United lost out on the Premier League title this year to close rivals, the boys in blue Manchester City. 

Floating the company will keep the Glazer family in charge after they originally bought the club in 2005 for $1.4bn. At the time it had a debt of over £400m. Floating the stock should reduce that total. 

Despite their financial troubles, Forbes magazine recently valued the club at a cool $2.24bn/£1.43bn which makes it - for the eighth year running - the most valuable club in world football. 

Rates haven't been set for the NYSE yet, and nothing is definite at this stage especially after an aborted try at listing the club on the Singapore stock market last year at $1bn. 

Duncan Drasdo, chief executive of the Manchester United Supporters' Trust (MUST), thinks the floating will help their problems. 

He was quoted in This Is Money as saying: "A minority shareholding with inferior voting rights and no dividends is going to severely impact on the attraction to both financial and supporter investors.

"However, if it turns out that the vast majority of the proceeds are used to pay off the debt that is certainly something MUST would welcome and entirely vindicates our long-standing position that their debt was damaging our club."