Legendary English football club Manchester United plan to tap their massive Asian fan base and raise up to 1 billion dollars via a lucrative share listing in Singapore, media reports said Wednesday.
The Red Devils, the Premiership title-holders and three-time champions of Europe, were ranked by business magazine Forbes earlier this year as the world's most valuable football club with a value of $1.86 billion.
Analysts said the reported initial public offering (IPO) would exploit the deep capital markets of Asia, where United have an estimated 190 million fans, or more than half of their estimated 300 million followers worldwide.
The Straits Times newspaper said representatives of the English champions met with Singapore Exchange (SGX) officials recently.
Representatives of the Glazers, the American family that owns the debt-plagued club, have been meeting bankers in the city-state, it said.
Singapore's state investment agency Temasek Holdings is being eyed as a cornerstone investor, the newspaper added.
An SGX spokesperson told AFP it was the exchange's policy not to comment on press reports.
Sources told Dow Jones Newswires that the IPO was being planned for the fourth quarter of 2011 and that Credit Suisse Group had been mandated as sole global coordinator and bookrunner on the deal.
The estimate of $1 billion for 30 percent of the club's shares means a total valuation for the company of more than $3 billion, far higher than other estimates such as given by Forbes.
Singapore's Business Times also noted that the timing of United's IPO would come ahead of new UEFA regulations making it mandatory for European clubs to break even from the start of the 2013/2014 season.
If not, they risk being expelled from European club competitions.
The club, which was once listed on the London Stock Exchange as Manchester United PLC, had reportedly first planned to list in Hong Kong.
But it changed its mind and now prefers to list in Hong Kong's regional rival Singapore, according to the Dow Jones sources.
United were delisted from the London exchange in 2005 after US tycoon Malcolm Glazer bought the club through a deal that was heavily reliant on debt financing.
The family's ownership has been deeply unpopular with United fans. Singapore's Business Times said the business is currently 717 million pounds ($1.18 billion) in the red.
CIMB regional economist Song Seng Wun said he was not surprised that United would choose to list in Asia.
"More than half of their fan base is in Asia -- from China to Korea and all the way to Southeast Asia," he told AFP.
"Every diehard Man U fan will be out there... There are a lot of Man U fans who are able to subscribe (to the IPO), but there are also those who are too young to have a trading account who will have to ask their parents."
English football counts wealthy Asians among its most ardent fans.
Singaporean billionaire Peter Lim, a self-confessed United fan, last year lost a bid to buy Liverpool for 320 million pounds.
Lim could not be immediately reached for comment on Wednesday, but online reactions to the planned IPO suggested that financially savvy fans could be deterred by United being in debt.
"I wonder how many M United fans will buy. The football club is in debt," one online comment read.
Another netizen with the monicker Angry Bird said: "With the current EPL (English Premier League) system where clubs pay insane transfer fees and wages, can the company really make profit?"
A Singapore listing by United would boost the city-state's credentials as a financial centre.
The China port unit of Hong Kong conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa -- Hutchison Port Holdings Trust -- raised $5.5 billion in Singapore earlier this year.
But perennial rival Hong Kong has also had its own recent coups with successful IPOs by Italian luxury goods house Prada and Samsonite, the world's biggest luggage maker.
Source: AFP
