After long being linked with a move to buy Manchester United, Sir Jim Ratcliffe has finally declared his interest in a takeover of his boyhood club.
With the Glazers reportedly open to selling, the Oldham-born billionaire has spoken about the prospect of buying the team he grew up watching. And he is one of very few with the financial power to pull off a purchase.
Ratcliffe has earned his fortunes as the owner of chemical powerhouse Ineos, which has made him a billionaire as well as Britain’s richest man.
And the boyhood United fan is also the owner of Ligue 1 side Nice, professional cycling team Ineos Grenadiers, Sir Ben Ainslie's sailing team, Ineos Team UK, and is one of the sponsors of the Mercedes Formula One team.
All of this has equated to Ratcliffe totalling up a net worth of an astonishing 14.7 billion USD, which equates to around £10.9 billion.
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The 69-year-old made his money through shale gas as a co-founder of Inspec, before launching Ineos in 1998, where his fortunes really flew.
His company sells a diverse range of products, from synthetic oils and plastics to solvents used to make insulin and antibiotics.
In 2006, Ineos bought BP's refining and petrochemical arm Innovene and in 2010, Ratcliffe relocated Ineos' head office to Switzerland, in what was a masterstroke of financial thinking as he cut the company's tax bill by £100 million per year.
Ratcliffe stills owns two-thirds of Ineos today, which has an estimated turnover of $80 billion (£59.3 billion).
And the Oldham-born entrepreneur has an estimated annual salary of $10m (£7.4m), while he has also racked up lifetime earnings of £17.5 billion.
In 2019, he was heavily interested in sealing a deal to buy Chelsea Football Club, but was unwilling to meet Roman Abramovich’s £2.5 billion estimation of the club, which is when he went on to buy Nice instead.
A fresh attempt at a takeover when Abramovich was forced to sell failed to succeed as Todd Boehly purchased the Blues, but Ratcliffe has more than enough money to buy some of the biggest football clubs in the world.
In September 2020, the 69-year-old moved to tax-free Monaco, where it is estimated that he will save up to £4 billion a year on tax payments.
As well as owning French club Nice, Ratcliffe also purchased Swiss top flight football team FC Lausanne-Sport in 2017, which adds to the list of sports clubs he owns underneath his company's name.
Outside of sport, Ratcliffe has previously owned two super yachts, but still has the 78-metre long Hampshire II, while he also owns 50% of the Pig Hotels business group.
