The impending takeover of Manchester United took a highly dramatic turn earlier this week, with the 9 PM deadline on Wednesday evening passing without bids from the most publicly interested parties: Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s INEOS and Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim.
Initial reports suggested that both parties had submitted their revised offers following an opening round of exploratory proposals but just minutes later, it emerged that they had been granted extensions to fine-tune their bids.
The bizarre turn of events left supporters wondering if they were planning on making a bid at all or whether a deal was completely dead in the water.
Now, it has been revealed that INEOS have finally submitted their second offer to acquire the club from the Glazer family, almost 24 hours after the deadline had passed.
“Sir Jim Ratcliffe has made his revised bid for Manchester United,” Sky Sports reporter Kaveh Solhekol explained, as seen above.
“Of course, there was this deadline last night of 9 PM. We understand Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s team got in touch with Raine, the bank who are handling the sale, and said ‘Can we have just a little bit more time?’. Raine said ‘Absolutely no problem at all’ (and) gave them the extra time that they needed and that bid has now gone in today.”
After many ifs and buts, it looks like the end of the second round of bidding is approaching but as things stand, Sheikh Jassim and his consortium are yet to confirm that they have made another bid. It remains to be seen whether Ratcliffe’s revised bid will be matched by Sheikh Jassim on Thursday.
According to CBS reporter Ben Jacobs, Ratcliffe’s second proposal is more attractive than the offer INEOS launched in the first round of bidding.