No more window shopping for Glazer
Apr. 29th, 2005 07:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirksThe "put up or shut up" deadline on Malcolm Glazer's bid for Man Utd is well-overdue. You might be forgiven for thinking that Glazer has already put in a bid for Man Utd, but he hasn't. What we have had is an "indicative offer", which has no more merit than if I put one in myself.
The worst recent example of this was when Philip Green outdid Richard Branson and Robert Maxwell in misrepresentation of reality. "Green bids for Marks and Sparks" was the headline, which was untrue in virtually all senses. This was because (a) as far as I could see most of the money being promised wasn't Green's and (b) he didn't put in a formal bid.
The farce of the Green "bid" was that both sides were wrong. Although Green's offer was conditional on the board accepting it (and thus was never formalized, because the board rejected it), Green was probably mad to even indicate it and the board was equally mad to turn him down. As most sage retail observers spotted, M&S is in a state not dissimilar to MG Rover, and Green can be like the Chinese. All he has to do is sit back and wait and he will be able to pick up the remnants for far less than he bid a couple of years earlier.
And, since M&S will by then have reached even lower depths, any kind of turnround (e.g, survival) will be seen as a sign of the Green Golden Touch, if that is not a bad kind of metaphor because of the colour clash.
The Glazer/Man Utd situation is somewhat more farcical. This looks to me to be little more than some kind of greenmail or asset-attack. But how do you attack the assets of a football club? And has Glazer not yet realized that taking over a UK football club with a view to making a profit is nothing like buying a US football team? For a start, you are unlikely to get too many death threats from your average fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I suspect the hand of JP McManus is in here somewhere. He and Magnier do not want the heat turned on them, so a deal with Glazer as a front man gives them a patsy. A bit like the fake owners of the casinos in Las vegas in the 1960s and 1970s.
The worst recent example of this was when Philip Green outdid Richard Branson and Robert Maxwell in misrepresentation of reality. "Green bids for Marks and Sparks" was the headline, which was untrue in virtually all senses. This was because (a) as far as I could see most of the money being promised wasn't Green's and (b) he didn't put in a formal bid.
The farce of the Green "bid" was that both sides were wrong. Although Green's offer was conditional on the board accepting it (and thus was never formalized, because the board rejected it), Green was probably mad to even indicate it and the board was equally mad to turn him down. As most sage retail observers spotted, M&S is in a state not dissimilar to MG Rover, and Green can be like the Chinese. All he has to do is sit back and wait and he will be able to pick up the remnants for far less than he bid a couple of years earlier.
And, since M&S will by then have reached even lower depths, any kind of turnround (e.g, survival) will be seen as a sign of the Green Golden Touch, if that is not a bad kind of metaphor because of the colour clash.
The Glazer/Man Utd situation is somewhat more farcical. This looks to me to be little more than some kind of greenmail or asset-attack. But how do you attack the assets of a football club? And has Glazer not yet realized that taking over a UK football club with a view to making a profit is nothing like buying a US football team? For a start, you are unlikely to get too many death threats from your average fan of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I suspect the hand of JP McManus is in here somewhere. He and Magnier do not want the heat turned on them, so a deal with Glazer as a front man gives them a patsy. A bit like the fake owners of the casinos in Las vegas in the 1960s and 1970s.
Geoff C: Mood Gloating - Music: Drive In Saturday
Date: 2005-04-29 09:17 am (UTC)I hope the whole thing does go through if only to show up Glazer as an idiot and Man U as being the hypocritical parasites we've all come to love. I think Glazer doesn't seem to appreciate that Man U have already got practically as much blood out of the stone as can be had and face another 3-4 years of team rebuilding. How we'd laugh if they got themselves into a Leeds situation where failure to qualify for the Champions League was financially catastrophic. The Old Trafford car boot sale would be so much fun. We'll take Heinze please.
Re: Geoff C: Mood Gloating - Music: Drive In Saturday
Date: 2005-04-29 12:49 pm (UTC)My read is that he's simply playing at a slower tempo than the normal British take-over. He comes from a business culture where the poison pill has to be gotten around, and most companies shop for a state to base themselves in, based on how much they are allowed to ignore their shareholders (which is why so many are from Delaware). And since this deal is likely to be make-or-break (he'll be leveraged to the hilt afterwards, the falling dollar most likely makes that worse for him from day to day), he doesn't want to pay a penny more than he has to.
I could be wrong on that, of course.
What is certain is that the ManU directors face a rather difficult dilemna. He has shown that he'll unseat them one-by-one if they oppose him. They'll face a lynch-mob if they sell.
Regarding Geoff's point about the Old Trafford fans being squeezed dry, I'm not so sure. Companies like Sky and Vodafone publish "revenue per customer". I doubt that the "revenue per fan" at ManU is above average for the premiership.