United thread 2012/13 (inc merged IPO thread)

[bluevengence]

The Glazers of course have clever lawyers and accountants in their employ advising them all the best ducking and diving tactics to milk the cash cow for all it's worth. Not too much all at once and milk the bastard dry too quickly but slowly and effectively keeping a watching brief making sure the cow has some life left in it confident that thousands will still turn up at O.T. in their green and yellow.

Yep....keep on milking Malcy

 

[bluevengence]

The Glazers of course have clever lawyers and accountants in their employ advising them all the best ducking and diving tactics to milk the cash cow for all it's worth. Not too much all at once and milk the bastard dry too quickly but slowly and effectively keeping a watching brief making sure the cow has some life left in it confident that thousands will still turn up at O.T. in their green and yellow.

Yep....keep on milking Malcy

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

As far as I can see, the price of the shares won't effect anything. They've got their money, so it doesn't matter a whole lot to them financially if the shares fall to 1 cent.

One impact will be raising money through the share market or loans again. If the shares stink, surely they won't be able to get away with conning the market a second time. And if they are in negative equity, who will loan them money to pay off debts (or pocket money to Uncle Malc's boys)?

That's right but there's another potential impact I think. I understand they used their shares to secure the personal loan they took on to pay off the PIK notes. That was somewhere between £200-250m but will have gone down by about £75m after this. There will have been covenants about Loan-to-Value ratios I strongly suspect so if the shares do bomb the banks could put pressure on the Glazers to increase the level of assets offered for security or to pay off the loan altogether.

 

[Anonymous]

Share price up to 14.15.

 

[Marvin]

Am I correct in thinking that even if shares are eventually traded at $5 this will not affect the Glazer's control?
All that will happen is less funds will be available to clear some of the debt and the Glazers will just have to take less that their expectation for their other activities, so they'll just be a bit more "jiggery pokery"

Means that they wont be able to generate the money ( they where expecting) to fund and service the debt which will quickly spiral out of control and Could possibly lead them to cash and bail out or do something extremely drastic. but atm its not looking good atm for them as a invest able product (lasting damage )

After issuing the shares at $14, the day to day share price has no effect on their business, but if it falls a lot it would mean that the Glazers would find it very difficult to repeat this exercise.

 

[hutton who blue]

The Glazers of course have clever lawyers and accountants in their employ advising them all the best ducking and diving tactics to milk the cash cow for all it's worth. Not too much all at once and milk the bastard dry too quickly but slowly and effectively keeping a watching brief making sure the cow has some life left in it confident that thousands will still turn up at O.T. in their green and yellow.

Yep....keep on milking Malcy

Arrff!!! You gotta love them Glazers.

 

[Marvin]

Don't understand the comments about underwriters propping up the price.

Did the underwriters end up buying the stock? I haven't heard that.

And even if they did, they can only hold it up temporarily and that will just increase their own exposure. I think a lot of rubbish is being written

They did end up supporting the stock. It's in their contract. According to people in the know, there were a lot of attempts to short the stock (in expectation of a significant fall) and Jefferies had to keep buying to resist that. The story is that the selling pressure has abated for the moment but that the underwriters are left with a lot of stock.

As you say, that can only work for a short period and they'll have to slowly let that stock dribble out onto the market over time. It will be a couple of weeks or so before we see how the price really is and the 2012 results will probably impact it negatively.

Trouble is so many people spin the story. If the underwriters were forced to buy stock then that will exert downward pressure on the price as there will be an excess of supply waiting to come on to the market.

In the UK I think disclosure rules mean that you'd find out who owned big chunks of the Company. I'd have thought similar listing rules operate on the NYSE but in the news announcements for the stock MANU, they have the prospectus and the Employee Reward Incentive Plan but nothing about major shareholder disclosures. Perhaps that's not part of the listing requirements

 

[AntiUnited]

Am I correct in thinking that even if shares are eventually traded at $5 this will not affect the Glazer's control?
All that will happen is less funds will be available to clear some of the debt and the Glazers will just have to take less that their expectation for their other activities, so they'll just be a bit more "jiggery pokery"

Means that they wont be able to generate the money ( they where expecting) to fund and service the debt which will quickly spiral out of control and Could possibly lead them to cash and bail out or do something extremely drastic. but atm its not looking good atm for them as a invest able product (lasting damage )

After issuing the shares at $14, the day to day share price has no effect on their business, but if it falls a lot it would mean that the Glazers would find it very difficult to repeat this exercise.

ya i worded it wrong but your pretty much spot on but i did mention (lasting damage ) hampers and scares off future investment.

 

[laserblue]

Does anyone know when the employee share options are being awarded?

Can the recipitents sell immeadiatley? Do the shares carry a garunteed price or do they have to accept market rate?

Could it all add up to employees dumping millions(?) of shares on the same day crippling the share price?

Based on my own experience share options are granted today at today's price (or a preferential rate) but don't mature for a period of, say, 2-5 years. The idea is that the shares are expected to increase in value in the meanwhile so that when you the option matures you'd be able to buy shares at today's price in, say, 5 years time. Once the shares have matured and the option exercised the beneficiary can do what he/she likes with the shares including selling any or all of them at the prevailing price.

If the shares end up being worth almost nothing more (or even less) than their option price the beneficiaries are likely to choose not to exercise the option. It all depends what option price they've been granted in the first place. The volumes in any share option scheme are only a small percentage of the total so beneficiaries cashing in on maturity will have no tangible effect.

 

[JM Mcr]

If the share price suddenly spikes in the future (for instance on the back of a lucrative new commercial or tv deal or sale of stadium naming rights) can the Glazers just offload more stock on the quiet or do they have to make public announcement before doing so? I understand they apparently included something in the wording of this offer to allow them to sell a further 2.5m of their personal shareholding, should they so wish, but what about after that?