A call changed his luck and made him a billionaire. Jim Ratcliffe (Failsworth, United Kingdom, 71 years old) was sitting on a rock, surrounded by deer, in the Scottish mountain area of Glen Nevis in the spring of 2005, when his mobile phone started ringing. BP's CFO wanted to make him a proposal. If Ineos put $9 billion on the table, the energy giant's petrochemical business was its own. He accepted immediately. The deal tripled the size of the company that Ratcliffe had founded in 1998 with two other partners, Andy Currie and John Reece. “It was all surreal. “I didn't tell the BP manager that he had just gotten me off my bike and that I was covered in mud and shit,” says the businessman in his memoirs titled The Alchemists (The alchemists).
Polemicist, relentless negotiator, allergic to taxes, gentleman (Sir) of Queen Elizabeth II and a fervent defender of Brexit, Ratcliffe has just given himself a media Christmas gift. On Christmas Eve, and after months of tug of war, he closed the agreement to buy 25% of Manchester United from the Glazer family, one of the football clubs with the most followers in the world. He won the race against the other suitor, the Qatari Sheikh Jessim bin Hamad Al Thani, after disbursing 1.3 billion dollars. The agreement will give him two seats on the club's board of directors and will allow him to take charge of sporting operations. In addition, Ratcliffe will invest another 300 million to improve the stadium – the legendary Old Trafford. “As a lifelong fan of the club, I am very happy that we were able to reach an agreement,” he said in a statement published by him on the team's official website. The businessman, who now shows off his love for the Red Devils, failed a year ago in his attempt to buy Chelsea, one of his great rivals.
Ratcliffe is the second richest person in the United Kingdom – just behind the vacuum cleaner king, James Dyson – with a fortune valued at €19.4 billion, according to Bloomberg. However, his origins are much more humble. He was born in the Greater Manchester area and lived in a council house during his childhood. He graduated in petrochemical engineering and his first jobs were related to energy and finance. At the age of 40 he turned his career around, mortgaged his house and created his first company. Then came the launch of Ineos, which in its beginnings was a true predator. The company climbed by keeping the assets that the hydrocarbon giants, in the midst of restructuring, were auctioning. In the first 10 years of his life he made 20 acquisitions from companies such as BP, BASF or SCI, among others. Currently, Ineos is an octopus with multiple interests, a turnover (2022 data) close to 65,000 million euros (including the income provided by its interests in different joint ventures) and 26,000 employees.
Controversy after controversy
Ratcliffe has two passions. The first is sport — he runs marathons, goes on mountain bike routes and has made expeditions to both the North and South Poles. The second, get into all the puddles that come your way. Last summer he said the UK's energy policy was “rubbish”. He is very critical of the British Government for banning the fracking “ignoring the scientific community” and for discouraging investments by oil and gas companies in the North Sea with their extraction taxes.
Ratcliffe's relationship with the tributes has also raised more than a cloud of dust. Ineos moved its UK headquarters to Lausanne in 2010 to save on the tax bill. The parent company returned to British soil in 2016, but many of the subsidiaries are still based in Switzerland, according to the report. Financial Times. In addition, the businessman decided to move his tax residence to Monaco in 2019. He justified this decision by explaining that he was making it at the age of 65 and that therefore he had paid taxes in the United Kingdom for almost his entire life. Hermetic to the press—he has barely granted interviews—his management style allows for few concessions. The brand of the house is to reduce costs at any price to improve efficiency. In 2013 he faced a labor dispute at the Ineos complex in Grangemouth (Scotland). He threatened to close the petrochemical plant and leave its 800 workers out on the streets. He ended up winning the fight against one of the most rocky unions in the country.
Ratcliffe, who retains 60% of the shares in Ineos, has undertaken a diversification of the company in recent years. The bulk of the cash flow continues to be contributed by the petrochemical business, but the group also has a consumer division that includes the Belstaff clothing brand and its automotive project with the Grenadier 4×4, a modern version of the legendary Range Rover, as its flagship. Ineos' other growth path is in sports. For years the group has had one of the best cycling teams in the world, has interests in the world of rugby and sailing, is one of the shareholders of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team and is the owner of football clubs such as Lausanne and Nice.
Accustomed to success in almost everything he touches, Ratcliffe now takes on the challenge of returning Manchester United's splendor. The club, in which stars such as Bobby Charlton, George Best, Ryan Giggs and Cristiano Ronaldo have played, is going through a very long drought of titles and games. In fact, his last Premier League game dates back to 2013. The hole left by Alex Ferguson when he retired as coach has still not been filled despite the accumulated spending on signings since then. This poor sporting performance, however, has not been reflected in the accounts. Manchester United is the fourth club in the world by revenue (688 million euros) and its capitalization remains solid. The Glazers bought the club for 800 million in 2005 and now its stock market value amounts to 3,379 million. Now it is the alchemist's turn: he has to convert the numbers into goals.
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