Soccer, Initial Public Offering | featured news

Soccer powerhouse Manchester United is expected to launch its IPO in New York as early as next week, for pricing in early August, after earlier attempts in Hong Kong, Singapore and the UK.

Manchester United filed for an initial public offering in the United States on Tuesday, a move that would return the English soccer team to the public markets. The club set a preliminary fund-raising target of $100 million to determine registration fees. It had previously hoped to raise about $1 billion in either Hong Kong or Singapore. Manchester United had traded on the London Stock Exchange before Malcolm Glazer, an American who also controls the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team, took the company private in a $1.45 billion buyout in 2005.

The U.K. soccer giant chose Singapore for its $1 billion IPO so it could have a dual-share structure—one with voting rights and one without—that enables its owners to effectively retain control of the team.