By Gabriel Chan

FANCY owning a piece of Manchester United? Cough up at least US$100,000 (S$140,000) and you can be a player - in a financial sense anyway.

A delegation from the famous English football club was in town yesterday to put just such a gameplan to about 50 to 60 fund managers who help manage portfolios and assets of the wealthy.

The aim of the road show, which took place at a private and exclusive luncheon at the Ritz Carlton yesterday, was to woo financial institutions and attract investment so that the club can reduce its huge debt load of £699 million (S$1.6 billion).

The club would normally borrow from banks but the credit crunch has forced many financial institutions to either curb lending or charge crippling interest rates.

Like a crafty centre forward, United has changed direction and is out to sell £500 million worth of bonds to investors across the world.

The delegation will host sales pitches in London, Paris, Frankfurt and Zurich next before heading to the United States.

A banker involved in the sale of the bond told The Straits Times: 'The exact yield has yet to be determined and it is far too premature, but the turnout was pretty good.'

The minimum denomination is US$100,000 with a maturity of between five and seven years and an estimated yield of 9 per cent to 10 per cent.

There are other less tangible attractions as well, including the glow of having a stake in the reigning English Premier League champion.

United is also the world's most profitable football club despite being awash in ink as red as the famous jerseys.

'While United is in debt, it is also a tightly run business,' the banker explained. 'It has strong stadium revenues, matches get booked way in advance and there is fee income generated every year because it does not finish below the top three in the league.'

United announced a record turnover of £278.5 million and pre-tax profits of £48.2 million for the financial year ended June 30, 2009.

Its books would have been stained with red ink if not for Cristiano Ronaldo's world-record transfer to Real Madrid. The £80 million sale prevented United from suffering an annual loss that would have amounted to £31.8 million.

The club's figures also showed it paid £41.9 million in interest on a huge loan of £509.5 million.

Manager Alex Ferguson has insisted the decision not to spend three-quarters of the money received for Ronaldo was his alone and unrelated to the financial noose around the club's neck.

'Concerns of the supporters are down to the fact that I haven't moved in the transfer market. But that is nothing to do with the Glazers... It is simply because I am not going to pay £50 million for a striker who is not worth it.'

The bond issue will go a long way to help United trim its borrowings.

Manchester United's owners, the Glazer family, bought the club in a £790 million debt-financed takeover in May 2005.

They put up around £275 million themselves and borrowed the rest from banks and hedge funds.

The average repayment term of United's loans is five years, with the vast majority due between 2013 and 2016.

United is not the only top-flight English football team with debt woes. Liverpool has been loaded with debt by owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett.

The United bond issue has run into resistance at home with the Manchester United Supporters Trust, which has been resolutely anti-Glazer since the family bought the club, slamming the move.

'Now is the time for the Glazers to go,' Mr Duncan Drasdo, the chief executive, was quoted in The Times in Britain.

'This bond issue is just rearranging the deck chairs and still leaves the club with huge debts, which they expect supporters to continue to fund.'

In another piece of news that is sure to anger United fans, the club disclosed in its bond offer document that the Glazers had taken £10 million out of the club in 'management and administration fees' as well as personally borrowed a further £10 million in the past year, The Guardian reported yesterday.

There are some doubters here as well.

A Singapore-based fund manager, who was invited to the roadshow at the Ritz Carlton but chose not to attend, said the bond is not suitable for the portfolio she manages.

'It's not rated (by a credit agency), it's risky and I'm not sure how many people in this part of the world will be interested,' she said.

And an investment banker cautioned: 'United's a good story, a good brand, but people must still do their credit analysis before taking the plunge.'

A local bond analyst has more emotional reasons for passing on the bonds: 'I'm a Manchester City fan.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times.