(Bloomberg) — British billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, who recently bought a minority stake in Premier League team Manchester United Plc, has seen his wealth decline as the chemicals conglomerate behind his fortune has stumbled.
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Ratcliffe’s net worth has sunk 11% this year to about $17 billion, dragged down by one of the largest units of his Ineos conglomerate, which recently reported its lowest annual earnings since 2020 and highest net debt for at least a decade. He’s now the world’s 118th-richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, 19 spots lower than at the start of the year.
A spokesperson for Ratcliffe, 71, the UK’s second-richest person, declined to comment.
Ratcliffe’s wealth is dropping as he makes his boldest attempts yet to diversify the closely held business he’s run for more than two decades. Earlier this year, he spent at least $1.5 billion to acquire a roughly 28% stake in Manchester United.
Meanwhile, Ineos Group Holdings, the London-based conglomerate’s largest chemical unit, grappled last year with weakening demand for its products and rising borrowing costs from its largely floating-rate debt. The higher leverage prompted Fitch Ratings to downgrade its credit outlook in January.
The company last month reported a first-quarter loss of about €190 million ($205 million) amid a 361% jump in financing costs from a year earlier. Another major chemicals unit, Ineos Quattro Holdings, swung to its first annual loss in least five years, filings for 2023 show.
Ratcliffe pushed into sports acquisitions as he was also expanding Ineos, partly to help bolster awareness of the London-based firm, which doesn’t report consolidated financials.
He purchased Swiss football team Lausanne for an undisclosed sum in 2017, the same year Ineos acquired UK clothing brand Belstaff and announced plans to build an off-road vehicle to rival Tata Motors Ltd.’s Land Rover. Ineos has since struck deals to partner with five-time Olympic medalist Ben Ainslie to build a British sailing team for the America’s Cup, while also acquiring French Ligue 1 football club OGC Nice as well as former Tour de France winner Team Sky.
The Manchester United deal took more than a year to complete and gave Ratcliffe control of football operations even though he acquired only a minority stake. He’s since sought to rein in costs, including canceling corporate credit cards for senior executives, according to the Times of London.
Ratcliffe’s wealth drop is unlikely to have any short-term impact on Manchester United, which currently is eighth in the Premier League table and will face local rival Manchester City in the men’s FA Cup final later this month. Still, any prolonged slump of Ratcliffe’s fortunes would constrain his efforts to invest further after already committing to allocate an extra $100 million by year-end to support the club’s facilities.
Shares of publicly traded Manchester United have declined 21% in New York this year.
Read More: Manchester United Is More Than a Trophy for Billionaire Ratcliffe
Ratcliffe, who grew up in Manchester but now lives in Monaco, founded Ineos in 1998. He gained a reputation for spotting undervalued assets while turning the company into a global chemicals giants that now includes shipping and energy businesses.
Ratcliffe still oversees the group along with John Reece, 67, and Andy Currie, 68. They’re each worth about $6 billion from their roughly 19% stakes, with Ratcliffe owning the balance, according to Bloomberg’s index, which calculates the firm’s value based on a five-year average of Ineos Group Holdings’ financials to account for the chemical industry’s volatile business cycles.
–With assistance from Jack Witzig.
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