As Sir Jim Ratcliffe closes in on acquiring a significant stake in Manchester United after a year-long saga, another billionaire has snapped up a percentage of the club, and many fans are sure to take umbrage with his controversial views.
American hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman has acquired almost one million shares in the club for a value in the region of £13million, according to Bloomberg. Cooperman, who climbed the ranks at Goldman Sachs before launching Omega Advisors, has an estimated net worth in excess of £2billion.
In 2021, 80-year-old Cooperman caused controversy when critiquing President Joe Biden's plans to increase taxes for wealthy Americans in a Bloomberg television interview. Cooperman insisted people earning $400,000 (£320,000) per year "are not rich", adding that wealth taxes are "Baloney".
“I believe rich people should pay more in taxes,” he added. “The question we have to deal with as a nation is coalesced around the question: What should the maximum tax rate be on wealthy people? We don’t need new forms of taxation, deal with the loopholes."
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Cooperman's acquisition of a stake in United, which is owned by the Glazer family and trades on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), continues a trend of hedge funds investing in the club amid a 12-month bidding war.
While British petrochemicals billionaire Ratcliffe and a Qatari bid fronted by Sheikh Jassim Bin Hamad Al Thani were locked in a bidding war for the Glazers' Class B shares, firms including Psquared Asset Management AG and Antara Capital picked up smaller stakes of Class A shares on the stock exchange.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe is closing in on a deal for 25 percent stake of Manchester United (Getty Images)The Glazers' Class B shares have 10 times greater voting rights than Class A shares, so any investors acquiring pieces of United from the NYSE will have no practical influence on the running of the club. Instead, Cooper and the other hedge funds plunging cash into the 13-time Premier League champions appear to be speculating that the club's value will increase in the wake of Ratcliffe's deal.
Ratcliffe, owner of INEOS, had intended to acquire a majority stake in the club when the sale process was launched in November 2022, but he settled for a minority stake in the region of 25 per cent for around £1.25b on the proviso of being handed sporting control of the club.
Ratcliffe's proposed acquisition has been broadly agreed in principle and is set to go before the United board in the coming weeks, although it appears unlikely the 71-year-old and his team will not be in charge in time to influence the club's activity in the January transfer window.
Although the much-maligned Glazer family – which took charge in 2005 with a leveraged takeover that plunged the club into hundreds of millions of pounds of debt – will remain in control of the club after Ratcliffe's investment, it is set to bring an end to their disastrous running of the sporting side of the club, going a decade without a Premier League title.
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