George Soros
bought 3,114,588 shares of Manchester United (
MANU
), the British soccer team, on August 9 at an average price of
$14.15 per share, according to GuruFocus Real Time Picks. That
amounts to a 7.85% ownership of the 134-year-old team's class A
shares by the billionaire financier who made his initial fortune
shorting the British pound.
Manchester United held its IPO earlier this month, offering 16.67
million shares at $14 each and raising $233.2 million. The
offering valued the company at approximately $2.3 billion. The
company planned to use the net proceeds from the offering to pay
down debt. Since the IPO, the stock price has declined almost 6%.
Financially, the soccer team has been growing, with revenue
increasing for the last three consecutive years. In 2011, the
team pulled in 331 million, compared to 286 million pounds in
2010. Fiscal year 2012, however, is expected to decrease 3 to 5%
from last year to 315 to 320 million pounds.
There are currently about 25 sports teams that offer stock in
their companies. Manchester United was purchased by Malcolm
Glazer, an American businessman, in 2005 via his Red Football
parent company through taking on approximately 660 million pounds
in debt. Glazer also owns controlling stakes in the football team
the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
George Soros
also released his second-quarter purchases last week, which
revealed new stakes in Walmart (
WMT
), NetApp Inc. (
NTAP
), EQT Corp. (
EQT
) and The Walt Disney Company (
DIS
).
See his portfolio here
.
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