Putting the Old in Old Trafford

With our vast American readership somewhat distracted by baseball, it might be appropriate to ponder the latest weird goings-on amongst Manchester United Football Club's large shareholders. As we noted recently, Malcolm Glazer, owner of the once-again shite Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has been increasing his shareholding in Man Utd towards the 30 percent level that would trigger a formal takeover bid.

But any bid would likely need the assent of the Oirish 29.9 percent stake in the club, held by tax exile JP McManus and skilled tax avoider John Magnier. The two Oirishmen so far show no signs of having done a deal with Glazer, but they are busy with other investments which suggests they may be thinking of getting out of Man Utd.

In particular, the two are members of another Oirish consortium which through a takeover has just made itself the largest operator of nursing homes in Britain. And of course, because we're all supposed to be proud of any Irish businessmen, there's plenty of fawning coverage in the Irish meeja. The company in question is called Barchester -- which could easily be the name of a housing estate in, say, Lucan, and truly does Oirland have no greater ambassador than this fine outfit (subs. req'd):

An Irish-controlled company is on the verge of becoming the UK's biggest private healthcare player in a euro 760 million deal ... The Irish-controlled company saw off competition from venture capital players Blackstone, Charterhouse and Allianz private equity, as well as British health insurer BUPA ... The company said that this would make it the biggest provider of privately paid-for beds in the UK.
... [chairman] Mr Brosnan said the deal was a transformative event for Barchester. "It creates a group with critical mass and an unrivalled position at the premium end of the market," he said.

In that brilliant example of corporate-speak at the end, when he says "premium," he means: elderly people, individuals with learning difficulties, younger disabled people and dementia sufferers. God be with the days when the gombeen men stuck to pints and funerals.

But anyway, it's tempting to wonder whether the expansion into the premium end of healthcare might signal an exit from the premium end of football, if only for the need to generate some cash to support the expanded venture. And this does cast in a different light the claim of some Man Utd fans that Glazer would surely be a bad owner because he has shown no previous interest in soccer.

DUDES! Your two Oirish shareholders are thinking about soccer one minute and how to generate cash from old people in the next. In fact, one wonders if they're planning on landing manager Alex Ferguson, with whom they have feuded, in one of these homes.