Manchester United chooses NYSE for listing
Manchester United has picked the New York Stock Exchange to make its stock market debut, ending months of speculation over where the world’s best-supported football club would list.
After first eyeing a Hong Kong IPO, the former English Premier League champions had planned a $1bn (£638.1m) listing in Singapore in the second half of last year before putting plans on hold because of market turmoil.
The U.S.-owned club filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday to raise up to $100m in an initial public offering of its Class A ordinary shares in New York.
In the United States, the amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.
Thomson Reuters publication IFR reported last month that the club, which has been English champions a record 19 times and features players such as England’s Wayne Rooney, had dropped its plans for an Asian listing in favour of a US listing.
The company filing for a much lower amount than $1bn originally expected does not come as much of a surprise, said Josef Schuster, founder of Chicago-based financial services firm IPOX Schuster LLC.
“The smaller the float, the higher the relative valuation can be…This may just be a strategy initially to make it appear like a low float IPO,” Schuster said. “Traders may believe if the deal is very low, then the company can pop at the opening.”