Stefan Borson drops stunning Man City ownership claim after confirmed news
Manchester City would enter into a “different world” if majority owner Sheikh Mansour’s stake was to drop below 50 per cent following a recent £210million investment.
That is the view of former Man City financial adviser Stefan Borson, who exclusively told Football Insider he expects minority investor Silver Lake to continue increasing its shareholding.
A Companies House submission on 29 November confirmed City Football Group (CFG) – Man City’s parent company – has issued almost 24 million A Preference Shares, totalling around £210million.
It isn’t the only investment CFG has made of this nature over the past few months after it also issued £210million of A Preference Shares in June.
Silver Lake is understood to be behind both investments as it is the only party to have previously owned those type of shares.
The American firm initially bought a 10 per cent stake in CFG in 2019, but it has since increased its shareholding to 18.1 per cent, while the Abu Dhabi United Group owns 78.7 per cent.
Borson told Football Insider Silver Lake has likely now increased its shareholding, diluting Mansour’s stake in the process.
The latest injection comes at a time when Man City are spending £300million to expand their stadium, with a new third tier on top of the Etihad’s North Stand set to take the capacity to more than 60,000.
Silver Lake to increase Man City stake after latest injection
“It’s likely that this is not the end of the spending because they are also building the stadium in New York,” Borson told Football Insider.
“They have got these two projects that are clearly going to be sucking up cash in the development phase, and somebody has got to pay the bills.
“It will be interesting to see at the end of all these projects what shareholding does Silverlake have of the overall CFG. I suspect it’s going to get quite big.
“I think they will breach the 25 per cent and go further, unless Sheikh Masour’s vehicle decides that they want to maintain the 25 per cent, in which case they would have to start putting in their pro rata amount as we go forward.
“If you were looking at this from an English law perspective, you would look at first of all 90 per cent. At 90 per cent, you have certain things that you can do.
“At 75 per cent, there are certain things you can do and certain resolutions you can pass.
“At 50 per cent, there are certain ordinary resolutions you can pass without their being an agreement, so that’s another important milestone.
“Once Sheikh Mansour is below 50 per cent, then we are in a different world.”
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