Manchester United owner Ratcliffe cuts asking price in bid to offload club
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has cut his asking price for OGC Nice as he attempts to trim the French club from his shrinking Ineos sports portfolio.
Ratcliffe bought the Ligue 1 outfit for €100m in 2019, two years after the side based on the French Riviera had finished third in the domestic league, but put them up for sale last year.
The British billionaire was said to be seeking as much as €250m (£217m) for Nice but has now lowered the asking price to less than €200m (£173m), according to Bloomberg.
Ratcliffe has ownership stakes in three football clubs, with Swiss team Lausanne also part of his Ineos group, along with a sizeable minority holding in the Mercedes Formula 1 team.
But he has sought to slash his sports investments in recent years, pulling his funding from Sir Ben Ainslie’s America’s Cup team and cancelling sponsorship deals with both New Zealand Rugby and Tottenham Hotspur.
He engaged bankers Lazard to help find a buyer for Nice but a financial crisis in French football caused by the collapse of key media rights contracts has severely dented appetite from potential investors.
Why Ratcliffe wants to sell Nice
Ratcliffe’s ownership of Nice has caused complications for his running of Manchester United, where he has been in charge of football operations since paying £1.3bn for almost 29 per cent of the 20-time English champions.
European governing body Uefa’s rules on multi-club ownership forced Ratcliffe to change the ownership structure of the French club in order for Nice and Manchester United to compete in the Europa League last season.
Nice were also subject to a temporary ban on selling players to Manchester United, who had been interested in signing defender Jean-Clair Todibo, now of West Ham United.
Both clubs’ on-field fortunes have suffered a downturn, with Manchester United finishing 15th last season and Nice currently sitting 14th of 18 teams in Ligue 1.