Chapter 245： Manchester United Savior

By the time William Chen arrived in Manchester again, the news that he had completed the deal to acquire Manchester United had already made headlines around the world.

This time, he brought an accompanying team of more than ten people to the Manchester United club. As the new owner of the club, whether it is the club's employees, players, or Manchester United fans are all eagerly looking forward to the arrival of Chen William. What kind of changes will Manchester United get.

William Chen did not disappoint them. In this meeting with the club's management and players, William Chen put forward several plans for the future after he joined Manchester United.

First of all, William Chen will pay off all the foreign debts of Manchester United’s $100 million in bonuses at this time, so that the club can play lightly, and no longer have to bear the high annual interest and swallow up the club’s profits. From now on, the club’s profits can be fully for the future development of the club.

Just this one made everyone's face full of smiles. At this moment, they finally felt that they could breathe a sigh of relief. Since the Glazer family bought Manchester United and transferred the debt to the club, Manchester United was burdened with huge debts. Since then, whether it is the club's management and child players, they have actually been affected, especially the head coach Ferguson. It is indeed very difficult to maintain Manchester United's current results without much money for him to trade players.

You know, Manchester United is the most profitable club in the world, but under such circumstances, Ferguson was forced to sell Cristiano Ronaldo, the star, and even most of the 80 million he got from selling Cristiano Ronaldo was used for The debt was repaid, which also made Ferguson very dissatisfied with the Glazer family.

When the Glazer family wanted to buy Manchester United, Ferguson was one of the supporters. Now the behavior of the Glazer family has also caused the legendary Manchester United manager to resist them.

Then, a professional consulting company will be hired to adjust the salaries of the club's personnel. In addition to being linked to the club's performance, it will ensure that the salaries of all the club's personnel will be in the first-tier standard of world football clubs.

In addition, it is to communicate with the management and the head coach. In the future, a complete championship bonus will be formulated. Whether it is the Premier League or other competitions, as long as Manchester United can win the championship, then Manchester United players and coaches will receive the corresponding bonus. As for the specific bonus The amount needs to be researched and decided, but it will definitely not be lower than other companies.

With just two of them, everyone immediately saw the difference between William Chen and his former club. He is indeed one of the world's most wealthy people, and his money is really generous. At this time, many people in the field almost burst into tears. We can finally understand the feelings of local tyrants like Chelsea and Manchester City. I have to say, it is really cool.

This is not over yet. William Chen will also authorize the management to conduct an assessment and renovate the current Manchester United home stadium, Old Trafford. In addition to adding modern facilities, optimizing lawns, training grounds, etc., the stands will also be repaired. to add more seats.

In addition, there are other improvement measures, such as cooperating with the three top universities in the UK, building a sports health laboratory, and training and recovering players more scientifically to ensure that they are free from injuries; strengthening Manchester United's youth training system to provide They provide better conditions and sign other potential teenagers to Manchester United to develop...

In addition, what William Chen carried out immediately after his arrival was the commercialization of Manchester United. Chen William specially hired the American sports giant IM Company to carry out a complete business plan for the Manchester United club from now on.

This point, after Chen William made the above expenditures, was also approved by the management, including CEO David Gill and head coach Ferguson, but they pointed out that the team's games and training should not be affected by business.

This is for sure, after all, William Chen is different from the Glazer family, and he does not need to make money through Manchester United. The reason for strengthening the commercial development of Manchester United is to make the club more healthy and not need to continue to inject capital due to lack of funds.

When IMG conducted a detailed investigation of Manchester United, William Chen's team also began to negotiate with EMI Records.

Before, William Chen had already decided to acquire two companies, Sony Records and EMI Records, and EMI Records happened to be a British company, so this time he came to the UK, and he could also finish this thing by the way.

Speaking of EMI, it has something to do with Citigroup, in which William Chen holds shares.

EMI is currently owned by Terra Firma, the company that bought EMI in 2007 for £4 billion ($6.5 billion), when EMI had $1.5 billion in debt.

Not long after that, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, and the record industry has been in a slump in recent years, so this investment suffered heavy losses. This led to Taifeng Capital's chairman and CEO Ge Hansi claiming that Taifeng Capital's acquisition of EMI was a failure. In this leveraged buyout, they were deceived by the main financier, Citibank, and even prepared to sue Citigroup. court.

"If Terra Firma hadn't invested in EMI, the company's investment decision would have been very wise."

That's what he told reporters at the time.

No wonder he was so angry, because when he acquired EMI Records, it was 2007 when the M&A market was extremely prosperous. At that time, there were active mergers and acquisitions around the world, and these mergers and acquisitions were often carried out through high premiums. Because the market is so optimistic, it is believed that the global economy has entered a period of activity, and the scale of mergers and acquisitions-valuation has risen. This is a tried-and-true strategy for many groups.

But more than two years later, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, and the economic situation was completely different. The lack of global liquidity made it more difficult to obtain funds. Those companies that had been aggressive in mergers and acquisitions broke out one after another, putting them on the verge of bankruptcy.

The same is true for Terra Firma, who at this point asked Citigroup to take responsibility, and in addition to forgive them some of their financing debt, they also asked for help with the sale of EMI Records.

At this time, EMI Records has a debt of up to 200 million US dollars, and as the music record market shrinks, its valuation has been cut by more than half from the time of their acquisition.

Originally Citigroup was going to take EMI through a debt swap, and then sell it to other companies. But after inquiries, the other three of the four major record companies couldn't make their bids satisfactory. Universal Music, the highest bidder, only offered a price of 200 million US dollars. No matter how high it was, they would not accept it.

In the current situation, even if they pay an extra 100 million US dollars, it will be difficult, because the current situation of these record companies is not good, and it is good to have a strong parent company, such as EMI Records, an independent company, once the industry is in recession, Then it's hard to deal with it alone.

Moreover, a large part or even all of the bids of these record companies need to be traded in the form of shares, which makes it difficult for both Terra Firma and Citigroup to accept.

At this time, Citigroup was overjoyed to know that William Chen intends to acquire EMI Records. This is a big money maker, and the most important thing is that William Chen's acquisitions are often cash acquisitions. For Feng Capital, is more desirable.

It's just that Tai Fung Capital spent nearly 7.5 billion US dollars on the acquisition of EMI Records. Of course, part of the reason was that the exchange rate of the British pound against the US dollar was high at that time, and the premium was also high at that time. It has shown its original shape, so it is destined to be impossible to trade at the previous price.

However, the final transaction price is still under negotiation. William Chen’s bid is higher than other companies, 2.5 billion US dollars, and it is paid in cash. However, Taifeng Capital also hopes to recover more funds. They were leveraged buyouts at the beginning. If the price is really sold, they can only say that they have gotten rid of the burden, but they can't get any money at all, and they will all be attributed to the bank that provided the financing. them.

However, on William Chen's side, in addition to Goldman Sachs, the negotiating team also has some members of the think tank he recently formed. They will definitely not allow the other party to raise the price. Therefore, in due course, the corresponding news came out - William Chen's The team is also approaching Time Warner Group and negotiating the acquisition of Warner Records.

Except for the people on Chen William's side, it is difficult for anyone to imagine that he will acquire two major record companies at one time. Therefore, whether it is Warner or Taifeng Capital, there will be misjudgments, and Chen William will choose between the two. A takeover.

Of course, many of these misjudgments were deliberately released by William Chen's team. So something interesting happened.

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