Sir Jim Ratcliffe looks to sell parts of business

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has barely had a quiet week since arriving at Manchester United, and that is before you even get into the football.

The INEOS founder has become the public face of the club’s minority ownership era, with his group taking a 27% stake and responsibility for football operations, while the Glazers remain in control of the wider company.

That dynamic matters, because Ratcliffe is now judged in two arenas at once.

At Old Trafford, every decision gets filtered through a simple fan question: is this making Manchester United better, faster?

Off the pitch, INEOS is a sprawling industrial machine, and now, any issues there tend to follow him into the United conversation, fairly or not.

Now, away from Old Trafford, a significant business story is gathering pace.

The Guardian has reported that INEOS is understood to be in early-stage talks to sell parts of its business in a bid to raise hundreds of millions of pounds and tackle rising debt.

The discussions taking place are reportedly focused on assets within its vinyls unit, INEOS Inovyn.

It’s understood that the group’s two largest holding companies, Ineos Group Holdings and Ineos Quattro Holdings, had more than £18 billion of borrowings at the end of last year.

Alongside this, INEOS is also in discussions with credit firms about refinancing bonds due to mature next year.

There is also recent movement on the funding side, with the same reporting pointing to €200 million of new equity injected by shareholders and a further €300 million of financing raised in recent weeks.

Credit ratings have added extra pressure. S&P Global downgraded two INEOS entities this month and attached a negative outlook, citing concerns around higher leverage and the possibility earnings could fall further.

INEOS has pushed back on the idea of any “panic stations”, with a spokesperson saying the company “continually reviews its portfolio and capital structure” and is focused on cost control, liquidity and refinancing debt as it falls due, rather than raising new funding for expansion.