Sir Jim Ratcliffe couldn’t resist the opportunity to take on the Manchester United revival job, not just for the challenge itself, but also for the exposure it would bring to INEOS. Ratcliffe’s chemical company spends about £300 million a year on sports and owns French Ligue 1 side OGC Nice, Swiss Challenge League side FC Lausanne-Sport and is a Principal Partner and third equal owner of the Mercedes F1 team.
One of the perks of owning a 33 per cent stake in Mercedes is that INEOS’ logo is painted on the side of Lewis Hamilton’s car. Advertising doesn’t get much better than that – and according to Ratcliffe, it’s a fantastic investment.
“So you can spend your money on advertising, or you can do it in a completely different way, which is to invest in sport,” he wrote in Grit, Rigour & Humour — The Ineos Story, published earlier this year.
“If I put money into a Formula One team and in consequence get a lot of publicity, it isn’t money that’s disappeared; it’s money that’s invested. And my investment in Formula One will be worth more in five years’ time. So all that brand exposure won’t have cost me anything.”
Ratcliffe is still waiting to hear back from Man Utd as to whether his £1.3bn bid for 25 per cent of the club will be accepted by the board. The 71-year-old was given a clear path to a minority share in the club after Qatari businessman Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al Thani withdrew from the bidding process two weeks ago.
Ratcliffe is bidding to take control of the football side of the business at United and wants to bring in his own people from INEOS to ensure the ship sails smoothly. This could lead to Chief Executive Richard Arnold and Director of Football John Murtough being ousted from their roles.
Arnold will have some say on the proposal as he is among the 12 board members that will vote on Ratcliffe’s bid but it is unlikely his decision will make much of a difference on the overall result as despite owning a 69 per cent share of the club, the Glazer family hold 96 per cent of the voting rights.
Ratcliffe wants a clause attached to the deal that will enable him to eventually complete a full takeover once he has raised the funds to match the shareholders’ hefty valuation of the club.
