There has been a breakthrough in the sale of Manchester United, with the Sun reporting that the Glasha family, owners of the Red Devils, have agreed to sell the club to a consortium led by Qatari official Sheikh Al-Thani for 6 billion pounds (HK$60 billion), with details expected to be announced in September at the earliest, and the deal to be finalized in mid-October. United's share price surged more than 10 percent in the after-hours session after the U.S. market closed, so it looks like good things are on the horizon.
Since the Glasha family announced their plan to sell Manchester United in November last year, there have been many rounds of bidding, mainly between Sheikh Al-Thani and British tycoon Ratcliffe. In June this year, Qatari media was the first to reveal that Sheikh Al-Thani had won the bidding and would be the owner of United, but there was no further news afterwards.
It was reported that the Glasha family originally wanted to keep a portion of the shares, and Ratcliffe was willing to go along with this by only acquiring a majority of the shares, which would have given them the upper hand in the takeover battle. However, the club's management believes that if the Glasha family stays in the club, it will cause dissatisfaction among the fans, and suggests that they accept Sheikh Al-Thani's proposal to buy 100% of the shares in the club.
In fact, in addition to the Sheikh Al-Thani bid more aggressive than Ratcliffe, but also for Manchester United will pay off the 725 million pounds of debt (about 7.25 billion Hong Kong dollars), and promised to invest an additional 1 billion pounds (about 10 billion Hong Kong dollars), to be used to improve the facilities of the home stadium in the Otford Stadium and revitalize the development of the surrounding areas, to obtain the support of the general Manchester United fans, the Grassa family delayed again to go, no good for themselves, I believe that good! I believe the deal will be finalized soon.
