Kieran Maguire makes intriguing claim about Sir Jim Ratcliffe buying Man United after £30bn confirmed news
It will be ‘tricky’ for Sir Jim Ratcliffe to liquidate his assets and purchase Man United despite his net worth reaching £30billion.
That is the opinion of finance expert Kieran Maguire, who spoke exclusively to Football Insider about the ‘challenging’ issues facing Ratcliffe if he is to invest in Man United.
As reported by The Times, Ratcliffe has risen up the 2023 Rich List into second place, with a net worth of £29.7billion.
The 70-year-old has made most of his money through INEOS – a chemical engineering company that has since taken over French club OGC Nice and Swiss Super League side FC Lausanne-Sport.
Ratcliffe and INEOS remain in the running for a majority takeover at Old Trafford, with Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim his closest competitor.
Maguire believes Ratcliffe’s net worth isn’t an issue for funding a takeover, but the storage of his wealth could make a deal more ‘tricky’.
“Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s wealth has never been a distractor as far as his ability to fund a takeover is concerned,” Maguire told Football Insider’s Sean Fisher.
“How his wealth is stored is a much more challenging issue – he’s unlikely to have £5-6billion of cash in a bank account given present rates of interest.
“Liquidising his assets will be much more tricky for him, should he choose to go down that particular route.
“If the acquisition is going to be done through INEOS, then I suspect that they will use a combination of existing cash resources while also going to the market to fund the purchase price.“
In other news, Man United record-breaking £75m deal is secured after key development