The relationship of the new major shareholder of Manchester United with Automotive is not “limited” only to his business activities, where Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe stars at the top level, as for him it is a relationship of life.
On December 24, 2023, the world-famous football club Manchester United announced that Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe (the gentleman in the photo to the right of seven-time champion Lewis Hamilton) acquired 25% of its shares. The team’s new major shareholder is a British billionaire, chemical engineer and businessman. Ratcliffe is chiefly chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of chemicals group INEOS, which he founded in 1998. The company’s turnover is estimated to reach $65 billion in 2021. In May 2018, he was the richest man in the UK, with £21 billion.
In September 2020 Ratcliffe moved his tax residence to Monaco, a move estimated to save him £4bn in tax. He co-founded Inspec, which leased the former BP Chemicals site in Antwerp, Belgium. In 1998 he founded INEOS to acquire Inspec and the freehold of the Antwerp plant.
From this base, Ratcliffe began buying up unwanted businesses from groups such as ICI and BP, choosing targets based on their potential to double their profits in a five-year period. In 2006 INEOS bought BP’s refining and petrochemicals arm (Innovene), a move that gave INEOS refineries and plants in Scotland, Italy, Germany, France, Belgium and Canada.
In February 2019, it was announced that INEOS would invest £1 billion in the UK’s oil and chemical industries, including an overhaul of the Forties pipeline system, which is responsible for transporting a significant proportion of the North’s oil and gas United Kingdom Sea. And of course, from 2020 and for the next five years, INEOS is an official sponsor of Mercedes AMG F1.
Ratcliffe also founded Ineos Automotive Ltd., initially to build a replacement for his Land Rover Defender. He then unsuccessfully approached Jaguar Land Rover for a business partnership in car production. In 2019, it began partnerships with BMW and Magna Steyr to jointly design and build a similar vehicle codenamed Projekt Grenadier.
Of course, the CEO of INEOS and now a major shareholder of Manchester United also has his own car collection. And since there is no “bottom” in Sir James Arthur Ratcliffe’s abysmal wallet, it is strongly rumored that he is the new owner of the legendary Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut coupe, which cost 142 million dollars.