Premier League teams as part of the 'big six' rarely hit the market.
Combined, prior to the sale of Chelsea earlier this year there were 97 years of ownership between Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.
Sanctions placed upon Roman Abramovich in the wake of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine earlier this year, imposed due to Abramovich's historical ties to Russian president Vladimir Putin, saw Chelsea become the first club since 2010, when Stan Kroenke completed a full takeover of Arsenal after purchasing the shareholdings of Danny Fiszman and Nina Bracewell-Smith, to change hands.
Kroenke was already a shareholder at Arsenal prior to that takeover, with the last major ownership overhaul prior to the Todd Boehly/Clearlake Capital/Hansjorg Wyss consortium at Chelsea earlier this year arriving when Liverpool owners Fenway Sports Group took over from the near ruinous regime of Tom Hicks and George Gillett at Anfield in 2010, a deal concluded for £300m.
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The nature of the Chelsea takeover, where a whole host of billionaires and investment funds entered the race, provided some food for thought for other owners of the major powers in the Premier League, the £2.5bn sale price giving the clearest indication for some as to how buoyant the market was and how much these teams, as major assets with global reach, may be worth.
FSG, who acquired the Reds for £300m in 2010, had been seeking third party investment for more than a year and had engaged major US banks Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to handle interest. Earlier this month that search expanded to allow any parties willing to part with £3bn plus to make their interest known to representatives of the two banking giants should they wish to discuss a full sale.
The FSG stance remains that the willingness to test the market is just exploratory and that they may remain custodians of the club for the long haul, with Liverpool chairman and FSG's second in command, Tom Werner, stating that it was "business as usual" in a recent interview with the Boston Globe.
But a valuation of around $4bn (£3.4bn), a likely list of suitors and the fact that FSG principal John Henry, a man who made his billions in commodities trading where the idea is to buy cheap and sell high, could see a 1,100 per cent increase on the initial outlay means that there are plenty of reasons to believe that FSG are willing to hand over the baton to serious parties with deep pockets.
A little more than a fortnight after Liverpool's owners showed their willingness to listen to offers so, too, did Manchester United's Glazer family, owners of the Old Trafford side since their controversial leveraged buyout back in 2005.
Under the Glazer ownership Sir Alex Ferguson managed to continue to paper over the cracks until he retired in 2013, keeping the team challenging for honours at home and abroad. But since he left the club they have had five permanent managers, no Premier League titles and no Champions League successes, while their famous old stadium has lacked investment and become something of a creaking old relic.
Former Manchester United vice chairman Ed Woodward once told an investor call that the club's ability to drive forward commercial revenues wasn't impacted by what it failed to achieve on the pitch. But over time that theory has been dispelled, the Red Devils having seen themselves fall behind both Manchester City and Liverpool when it comes to commercial revenues generated having been the dominant force for many years in English football.
The club's kit and shirt deals no longer eclipse their closest rivals like they did and the club's lack of investment into the stadium and infrastructure makes them an expensive asset to take on for anyone willing to cough up several billion.
Football clubs, and sports teams in general, tend to be purchased on a multiple of revenue. When Chelsea were sold they were sold at a revenue multiple of around six, having posted revenues for 2021 of £416m. Liverpool, using the expected revenue figures of £600m for the 2021/22 financial accounts, which are yet to be published, would be valued around £3.6bn on that basis, roughly what the ECHO expects to be the figure to start a conversation around a changing of the guard at the top of the football club.
New York Stock Exchange-listed Manchester United, who saw their share price surge to a market capitalisation of just north of £3bn after news of the Glazer's willingness to sell up, posted revenues of £583m for 2021/22 when they published their financials at the end of September, a loss of £115m a part of those results. But despite having what is predicted to be lower revenue than Liverpool, despite not investing in their stadium and training ground where Liverpool did to the tune of some £200m combined, and despite on-pitch performance being way off what the Reds have been achieving over the last five years, noises of the Glazers wanting £6bn plus for the club have emerged.
If that were correct, which seems highly improbable given the financials of the business and that the hope for growth is predicated on nothing more than assumption, then the multiple of revenue, where Liverpool stand at six, would be 12 times the revenue, double where Liverpool are pegged and more than even the revenue multiples that are associated with getting into American sport, where the eco-system gives greater cost certainty to owners due to the nature of there being no promotion or relegation, the draft system and the ability to reset year after year.
But despite the landscape appearing to have shifted in recent years, former Manchester United defender turned pundit Gary Neville has claimed that his former club offer a better proposition to would-be investors.
"I don't want to be disrespectful to Liverpool at all because they're a massive football club," Neville told an interview with Sky Sports.
"When you look at the height of English football when it comes to viewing figures, fans, and commercial revenues - it's Manchester United and Liverpool at the very top.
"Forget the fact that Manchester City at this moment in time create a higher revenue. Naturally through traditional means, Manchester United and Liverpool are the two biggest clubs in the country by a mile.
"Manchester United will be more sought after and will fetch a higher price than Liverpool. Unless Liverpool have got something sorted, I think they're going to have to wait a little bit because I think the buyers will go to Manchester United first - unless there's a Liverpool fan who is very wealthy somewhere and has an allegiance to Liverpool.
"But I think if you were looking at both, as an asset side by side, you'd choose Manchester United and that's not me being biased as a Manchester United fan.
"When you look at commercial revenues, Manchester United as an asset are a better buy.
"I think the owner will think if Manchester United get it right on and off the pitch and Liverpool get it right on and off the pitch, Manchester United will be bigger."
Manchester United will attract a lot of interest, as will Liverpool. United have established themselves as a global brand through historical on-pitch success and the strides that they made through being one of the first major clubs in England to really look to open themselves up to a global audience and harness that power.
But the lack of success and investment into infrastructure will have hurt them, that cannot just assume a valuation based on name alone. For anyone coming into that football club right now they will have to find a way to introduce a new strategy, provide funds for the manager to challenge in order to try and return themselves to the top, spend huge amounts on either a stadium redevelopment or new build, all at a time when their commercial revenues are set to fall beneath Manchester City's and Liverpool's and where they have lost ground through their lack of success when it comes to their global appeal.
Valuations of £6bn plus are crazy, they are a business whose balance sheet and appeal nowhere near tally with such a price tag. If someone was willing to pay that, then take into account all the costs mentioned above then they would have to have almost unlimited wealth and be willing to not see any return on that investment for many, many years, if they ever did at all.
Also needing to be taken into account for a such a price tag is that the prohibitive nature of borrowing at present with inflation soaring and significant economic headwinds globally causing much turbulence to markets, means that it would need to be an owner or ownership group that didn't need to raise debt to fund the acquisition, and with a price tag the size of the one mooted for Manchester United that won't be easy to source.
Many names have already been linked with a takeover bid, from 86-year-old Zara founder Amancio Ortega to Apple, David Beckham to INEOS founder and Manchester United boyhood fan Sir Jim Ratcliffe. But with Raine Group, who handled the sale of Chelsea, a dab hand at driving up the interest in the asset and bumping up the price, links to the likes of Apple are believed to be sketchy at best.
A senior London-based banking source told the Telegraph : "There are going to be two weeks of people banding around atmospheric numbers. Good luck to the idiots willing to pay that.
"How are you going to make a lot of money on it, unless you are convinced the next 20 years is going to be another version of the previous 20 years?"
Another senior City executive who has worked in the football industry, told the same paper: "The Glazers have had a number of approaches over the years. I am surprised they haven’t sold out earlier.
"The timing is strange, however. It’s not like there isn’t another club 30 miles down the road that isn’t up for sale."
Given the strides Liverpool have taken over the past decade, given that they have invested in key areas already, have a world-class manager in place and need some funds for an assault on the transfer market to keep them there more than anything, Neville's assertion that Manchester United are a more attractive proposition 'just because' doesn't stand up.
For would be owners who want to see a return on their investment, like any owner does, acquiring United at the sums quoted doesn't make financial sense. But football has the tendency to lose control of its senses when it comes to the numbers behind the game, but the Glazers wanting such huge sums likely won't impact who might be interested in Liverpool. They are two very different businesses requiring very different levels of attention.
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