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Gill says United will grow despite poor market show

Chief executive David Gill believes Manchester United will continue to grow despite a disappointing share price when the club was listed on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday.

United, bought by the Glazer family in 2005 for about £800m (€1,019m), offered 16.7m shares — equal to a 10% stake — at a price of $14 (around €11) each, but there was little price movement in early trading.

The offering was substantially lower than the $16 to $20 originally proposed by its advisers — which would have valued the club at £2.1bn (€2.6bn) at the top end.

The flotation will raise around £150m million with roughly half the proceeds going to the Glazers, while the remaining proceeds will be used to pay down some of the Red Devils’ £423 million debt pile.

Yet Gill said the arrival of the Glazers and the debt the club subsequently incurred had not hampered the on-field success.

And he pinpointed the example of their shirt sponsorship deal with Chevrolet as proof that their growth revenue remained as strong as ever.

“The level of debt we’ve had at the club since they’ve taken over hasn’t impacted what we’ve done as a team,” Gill said. “We’ve won four Premier Leagues, we’ve been to the Champions League final three times, we’ve had ongoing success on the pitch. We fully understand and the owners fully understand that what happens on the pitch is crucial to us and we will make sure there are sufficient funds to invest in the team going forward.

“We’re comfortable with the leverage we’ve had and believe, given the growth opportunity we’ve got ahead of us — for example we’ve signed Chevrolet to a seven-year shirt sponsorship commencing in 2014, over twice what our current shirt sponsors make — we’ve got a lot of interesting and good opportunities to improve our cash flow.”

As trading started, United’s co-chairmen Avram and Joel Glazer and Gill applauded from the stock exchange balcony, which was adorned with the club’s emblem, while traders wore the club’s red shirt.

The lower flotation price comes after the Glazer family, who also own the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, previously failed to garner sufficient support to sell shares in Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Glazer family originally claimed all the proceeds would go towards paying down United’s debt but that figure has been reduced to 50%, angering some fans who called for a boycott of the club’s portfolio of sponsors in protest.

Shavaz Dhalla, financial trader at Spreadex, said: “After opening positively, possibly caused by smaller retail investors looking to pick up a token share, the club’s share price slowly began to retrace and drop early gains.’’

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