Since Sir Jim Ratcliffe took over Manchester United in February 2024, the English businessman has made headlines for his business operations away from Old Trafford.
The ruthless manner in which he has dealt with and drawn the ire of staff at the club, attempting to end a sponsorship agreement early with a fellow Premier League club and doing public media to answer questions of his ownership of the club.
It has been quite the stressful and tumultuous journey, as is the case with a club regularly full of dramatic stories.
The public figure and businessman Ratcliffe already was means he’s regularly in the headlines and the ownership of United exacerbates this.
Ratcliffe’s company INEOS has ceased all British investment and will put £3 billion into American operations citing Labour’s taxation of Northern Sea oil and gas extraction as the reason.
According to a report in The Telegraph, Chairman of INEOS Energy, Brian Gilvary, said the company was diverting it’s spending to the US.
After 100 years of operation in Scotland this year, INEOS was forced to shut down the Grangemouth oil refinery in Scotland.
The company has also taken steps to warn that its Olefins and Polymers plant, which manufactures products used by hundreds of UK plastic companies, is under threat because of high taxes and energy prices.
Sir Jim has warned that the country’s high energy prices are making things tough for plants to function and henceforth be profitable in Britain.
Chairman Mr Gilvary said ‘We have stopped investing in Britain. Our future investment will not be in the UK. There’s no question of that. The problem is that the UK has become one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world from a perspective of natural resources and energy. It means we cannot invest with any certainty because we can’t be sure what future tax rates will be.’
It’s clear Ratcliffe’s company is vehement about moving business operations away from the UK.
How much or whether this effects United at all remains to be seen.
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