The news that Manchester United’s controversial owners, the Glazer family, could finally be selling the club has been met with delight from many of their supporters.
After saddling the club with huge debt and overseeing United’s worst trophy drought in 40 years, Sky News exclusively revealed the American owners are considering selling up after a 17-year reign dominated by fan protests.
But with a price tag reported to be anywhere between £5bn and £9bn, who could buy the club? Sky News looks at the possible contenders.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe
One of Britain’s richest men and – according to Forbes – with a net worth of $13bn (£10.9bn), Sir Jim Ratcliffe is a boyhood United fan and a proven investor in sport.
Sir Jim, the chairman and chief executive of chemical company Ineos, already owns French football club Nice and Swiss side FC Lausanne-Sport, as well as cycling team Ineos Grenadiers.
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He was unsuccessful in a last-minute £4.25bn bid to buy Chelsea in May, as American businessman Todd Boehly successfully acquired the London club
A source told Sky Sports News in August that Sir Jim was serious about purchasing United, and ex-players would be involved along with Grenadiers general manager Sir Dave Brailsford, a former performance director at British Cycling.
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In October, Sir Jim revealed he had met Glazer brothers Joel and Avram but was told then they were not interested in selling the club.
A group of wealthy United supporters known as the Red Knights were expected to make a bid of about £1.25bn for the club in 2010.
The group included former Football League chairman Keith Harris, then Goldman Sachs chief economist Lord O’Neill, and the hedge fund manager Sir Paul Marshall.
The proposed bid was put on hold after the group said media speculation of “inflated valuation aspirations” had hampered its plans.
They called for the Glazers to commit to reducing their combined stake in United to a maximum of 49.9% to “encourage a broader group of investors to consider ownership in the club in the future”.
Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund has been named in reports as a potential bidder for Manchester United.
It is yet to follow the likes of Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia in adding a Premier League club to its portfolio.
United’s local rivals Manchester City have enjoyed huge success on the pitch since being owned by Abu Dhabi’s City Football Group, while Newcastle United were bought by Saudi Arabia’s giant Public Investment Fund last year.
However any investment from Dubai would raise ethical questions over the involvement of the United Arab Emirates, where homosexuality is illegal and, according to Amnesty, the government continues to commit serious human rights violations.
US private equity firm
There were reports in August that New York-based private equity firm Apollo were in talks about acquiring a minority stake in United.
Fans’ groups and Gary Neville were among those to voice their opposition, with the former United captain writing on Twitter: “The US model of sports ownership is all about significant return on investment… the ownership model in England needs to change and US money is a bigger danger to that than any other international money. We need a regulator asap!”
Former United players
A host of former United players have experience of football club ownership and their involvement in a bid for United could prove popular with fans.
Members of United’s famous 1999 treble-winning squad Gary Neville, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scholes, David Beckham and Ryan Giggs are co-owners of League Two club Salford City, along with Singaporean business magnate Peter Lim.
Beckham also co-owns US side Inter Miami.
Michael Knighton
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Glazer family ‘has run out of road’
The former Manchester United director, who saw a £20m bid for United collapse in 1989, had recently been forming his own consortium to buy the club and claimed to have raised more than £3bn.
However Mr Knighton put his own ambitions to buy United on hold to back Sir Jim Ratcliffe to become the new owner and it is unclear if he would renew his interest.
Mukesh Ambani
One of India’s richest men with a reported net worth of $90.9bn (£76bn), Mukesh Ambani bought IPL cricket team Mumbai Indians in 2008 and has led them to several titles during his tenure.
The founder of Reliance Industries, the multinational conglomerate, was recently reported to be considering a takeover bid for Liverpool – after owners Fenway Sports Group said they were open to offers for the club – but his representative denied this, according to Indian media.
Elon Musk
The world’s richest person claimed he was “buying Manchester United” in a post on Twitter earlier this year, only to later clarify that he was joking.
With a net worth, according to Forbes, of $182.6bn (£153bn), Musk certainly has the funds to buy the club and has shown he is willing to go ahead with controversial takeovers through his $44bn purchase of Twitter.
However the Tesla and SpaceX boss’s turbulent start to his ownership of the social media platform may put off United and their fans.
Representatives of Thames Water’s multinational syndicate of shareholders are poised to quit as directors of its corporate entities after refusing to inject the billions of pounds of funding required to bail it out.
Sky News has learnt that a number of board members at companies connected to Kemble Water Finance, Thames’s parent, are expected to resign in the coming days.
City sources described the move as “the logical next step” after the owners of Britain’s biggest water utility said they would not commit more than £3bn to help upgrade its ageing infrastructure and shore up its debt-laden balance sheet.
A default on part of Thames Water‘s holding company debts last month has raised the prospect that the company is heading towards special administration, a form of insolvency that would effectively leave the government liable for managing a utility firm which serves nearly a quarter of Britain’s population.
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Thames Water under threat
Thames Water is owned by a group of sovereign wealth funds and pension funds from countries including Abu Dhabi, Australia, Britain, Canada and China.
A number of the investors are represented on boards which sit at various points in the group’s labyrinthine capital structure.
It was unclear on Wednesday whether Michael McNicholas, a representative of the giant Canadian pension fund Omers and who sits on the board of Thames Water Utilities Limited, was among those in the process of stepping down.
Along with the rest of the privately owned water industry, Thames Water faces a crucial moment next month when Ofwat, the industry regulator, publishes its draft determination on companies’ five-year business plans.
The draft rulings will be subject to negotiation before final versions are published in December.
Thames Water and a spokesman for Kemble declined to comment.
The owner of Royal Mail has said it is “minded” to accept a revised takeover bid by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky.
The latest offer from Mr Kretinsky’s investment firm EP Group values the Royal Mail parent company International Distribution Services (IDS) at £3.5bn.
An extra shareholder pay out of 8 pence a share has been offered by EP Group, if the deal closes, as has a 2 pence per share payment to every stakeholder, expected to be paid in September.
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It would bring the total value of an IDS share to 73% more than it cost before the prospect of a buyout was raised.
‘Good value’
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“Having considered the proposal, the board has indicated to EP Group that it would be minded to recommend an offer to IDS shareholders”, the IDS board said.
The price is “fair” and reflects the value of current growth plans, the IDS chairman said.
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Royal Mail could be allowed to deliver letters just three days per week, under a series of options outlined by the industry regulator.
Consideration was given by the board to the national significance of Royal Mail as the operator of the postal network.
“The board is particularly mindful of Royal Mail’s unique heritage and responsibilities as the designated universal service provider in the United Kingdom and a key part of national infrastructure”, it said.
In assessing the proposal, the board has also been very mindful of the impact on Royal Mail and GLS and their respective stakeholders and employees, as well as broader public interest factors”.
EP Group has until 29 May to advance or withdraw its takeover bid.
Who isDaniel Kretinsky?
There has already been scrutiny of Mr Kretinsky’s part ownership in the postal company but a government national security concerns review into his investment led to no intervention.
He also owns parts of West Ham Football Club and Sainsbury’s.
EP Group, which he controls, has financial interests in energy, logistics, and food retail.
The boss of the world’s biggest bank has told Sky News that Western economies have a “good hand” in the “economic battlefield” with China but declared it does not have to be war.
In a wide-ranging interview with Sky’s Wilfred Frost, chief executive and chairman of JPMorgan Chase Jamie Dimon said the West was going to have a “hard time” as long as China had close ties with Russia.
But he said it was well placed due to the resilience of their collective economies and long-standing partnerships, such as NATO.
However, he warned of the dangers of fragmentation since Donald Trump, when US president, pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership in 2017.
He also said that Joe Biden’s administration should have worked with allies over the effects of his Inflation Reduction Act.
The massive programme of incentives to bolster the green economy had the effect of taking investment out of Europe at a time when Russia’s war in Ukraine was dominating the agenda.
The bank boss warned too of a backlash from China over US tariffs against its electric cars and solar panels announced just this week, arguing that a joint approach from western powers over China more generally would carry more weight.
Mr Dimon, who has run JPMorgan since 2005 and is widely seen as the most influential boss of a financial services company in the United States, said: “We have competition with China.
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Why is the US taking aim at China?
“I think the American government is doing the right thing to fully engage. That doesn’t mean the Chinese are going to like everything we do just like we don’t like everything they do but it doesn’t have to be war, it can be tough competition and we should be prepared for that.”
“The most important thing”, he added, “is that we do it together”.
“They’re not an enemy, you know, but they’re competing. They want a different world than we want. And I think they want a different world than we want in the Western world… it’s worth fighting for.”
“We all made a little bit of mistake in how we kind of expected them after WTO (World Trade Organisation) to become more Western and things like that. It’s okay. Don’t cry over spilled milk,” he concluded.
Mr Dimon was speaking 24 hours after the US-based bank, which has 22,000 staff and a 200-year history in the UK market, announced £40m in new investments to help connect young people and underserved communities to economic opportunities.
They followed the opening of a new tech centre in Glasgow.
JPMorgan Chase – perhaps best-known in this country for its Chase retail division – is the biggest bank in the world by market value with a capitalisation of almost $600bn (£475bn).
Mr Dimon, who was initially critical of Brexit following the UK’s split from the EU, spoke of the bank’s continuing commitment to the country having called the future of its UK operations into question in 2021.
Asked about the looming election, he said that talks with Rishi Sunak and Sir Keir Starmer had left him in no doubt that both the Conservatives and Labour were “pro business”.
He described how growing economies benefits everybody as it allows for investment.
“Everybody I heard… Conservative and Labour, (is) talking about growing the economy, technology, research and developments, simplifying regulations, making it easier for people to start businesses and grow businesses, making sure schools educate… those policies work,” he said.