Choppy waters for Ineos and United

As it complains about ‘the deindustrialisation of Europe’, INEOS is undertaking a slowing down or outright cutting of investment in what had been flagship businesses. On Wednesday, the INEOS Group received a further blow when leading agencies Fitch Ratings and Moody’s downgraded their credit rating to “negative”, citing mounting debts of almost €12bn (£10bn), over five times larger than INEOS’ annual earnings.

INEOS’ recent business decisions have the appearance of stripping back to protect the motherlode, but even United have not escaped the cost-cutting. On Tuesday, The Athletic reported that Ratcliffe was following up 250 job losses last summer by making another 100 staff roles redundant over the upcoming months.

This is just the latest in a string of what Ratcliffe has termed “right-sizing” measures — such as removing club credit cards and cutting Sir Alex Ferguson’s ambassadorial deal, as well as raising ticket prices and eliminating concessions for children and pensioners on unsold tickets.

According to the club’s financial results, these are part of a “club-wide business transformation plan” to “improve operating efficiency via cost-savings, headcount rationalisation and changes to the organisational structure”.

In December, United’s chief executive, Omar Berrada, told staff that 2024 had been “a difficult year and I can’t promise next year won’t be difficult too”. Ratcliffe, for his part, told the United We Stand fanzine in the same month that INEOS had to “make some difficult and unpopular decisions. If you shy away from the difficult decisions, then nothing much is going to change”.

But all of these seem to go against another of Ratcliffe’s previous assertions to The Times in an interview in 2019. “It’s invest for success, invest wisely for success,” he said of his sporting strategy before investing in United. “We haven’t bought Nice to make money, that’s clear. If we want to make money, we’ll do that in chemicals — not football.”

So what is the vision for United? If the deals with other sporting investments are falling by the wayside to fund them, that is at least a strategy, but recent actions point in the other direction. Is INEOS refocusing, streamlining, or even beginning a managed withdrawal from sport? There is an argument to be made for each.

Ratcliffe needs to answer why the Old Trafford cuts are taking place despite INEOS’ overall profits — and justify that they are not linked to the lingering debts which are worrying ratings agencies. If cuts at Manchester United are part of a strategy to manage the financial health of the overall group, that is a very different prospect to what was initially sold to the club’s fans. When INEOS took over their stake, it was meant to be with different ideals to the Glazers.

A request by The Athleticto INEOS to discuss what recent business decisions meant for Manchester United went unanswered, so they were left with what Ratcliffe has stated before. But does Ratcliffe represent the bright new dawn promised for United after the depredations of the Glazers? Or is he making a bloated structure more efficient?

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

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Fulham requires big funding from owner

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The Political Economy of Football V2

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