Glazers bag £75m even though Man United shares are publicly traded at half a billion less than planned

 The Glazer family banked £75million from Manchester United’s controversial flotation on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday — up to £30m less than expected.

Avram and Joel Glazer rang the opening bell on Wall Street as 16.6 million shares, equal to 10 per cent of the club, were publicly traded.
However, the opening share price of £9 was lower than the £10-£13 initially proposed by the Glazers’ advisers.
At the top end, that would have allowed the American owners and United to split profits of £210m.
Instead, the flotation is expected to raise a total of around £150m, with half going to the Glazers.
It gives United an overall market value of £1.5billion, which falls short of the £1.8bn the owners were believed to have quoted Qatar Holdings when they enquired about buying the club last year.

Money matters: United Executives David Gill (right), Joel Glazer (centre right) and Avram Glazer (centre) prepare to ring the Opening Bell at the New York Stock Exchange

Nice doing business: Joel (left) and Avram Glazer (right)

The Glazers have been criticised for keeping half the proceeds of the Initial Public Offering themselves after initially indicating all the money would be used to help pay off United’s debts of £423m.
Doubts have also been cast over the class A shares on offer because they are said to give investors little in the way of voting rights.
One New York financial trader said: ‘Clearly, investors who are looking for a return as well as a shareholder  voting right are steering clear. After opening positively, possibly caused by smaller retail investors looking to pick up a token share, the club’s share price slowly began to retrace and drop early gains.’
Having previously failed to gain sufficient support to sell shares on exchanges in Hong Kong and Singapore, United had delayed yesterday’s IPO.

 

Chief executive David Gill joined the Glazer brothers in applauding from a balcony at the New York Stock Exchange as shares in United were publicly traded for the first time in seven years while traders wore the team’s red kit.

Selling under the stock market ticker ‘Manu’, the share price rose before falling back to the opening £9 mark.
The news received a cautious welcome from the Manchester United Supporters’ Trust, who had called for a boycott of United’s sponsors in protest at the flotation.
Chief executive Duncan Drasdo said: ‘The experts say they don’t expect to see  anything special in the first week because underwriters will be pedalling furiously to keep the price up, but they’ve suggested it could drop next week to £6 or lower.
‘Exactly the same thing happened with Facebook.’

Say what? Manchester United shares will go for less than first planned

Issue: Some Man United fans have long disliked the Glazer ownership of the club