Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe is the founder of Ineos and all their related industries including Ineos Energy
17:00, 09 Sep 2025Updated 17:04, 09 Sep 2025
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe(Image: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Energy have announced that they are pulling their funding in the United Kingdom and moving their investments to the United States.
Ineos Energy is the oil and gas production and trade arm of Ratcliffe’s empire and had, until recently, been investing money into their oil refinery in Scotland. However, the Grangemouth oil refinery closed in April 2025 and the executive chairman of Ineos Energy, Brian Gilvary, has conceded that further investment in the UK is now over.
Speaking to The Telegraph, Gilvary explained: “We have stopped investing in Britain. Our future investment will not be [in] the UK.
“There’s no question of that. The problem is that the UK has become one of the most unstable fiscal regimes in the world from a perspective of natural resources and energy.
“It means we cannot invest with any certainty because we can’t be sure what future tax rates will be.” While Ineos Energy are now looking to invest £3bn into the US’ oil and gas industry, there is no indication that this could lead Ineos’ sporting operations to pull out of United.
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The Daily Mail revealed last month that the drag along clause in the Glazers and Ratcliffe’s business agreement was now active. Simply put, this would allow the American majority stakeholders to sell their entire shares of the club, and those of Ineos, to another buyer without Ratcliffe being able to stop it.
These clauses are often included to prevent minority stakeholders from holding those with the majority to ransom by refusing to sell. While Ratcliffe has acknowledged this clause openly and hinted that he hoped it would not be triggered, he could be forced into a tricky situation had Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani renewed his interest.
However, the Mail understands that the Qatari businessman is highly unlikely to do that. There is thought to be little appetite for purchasing United now considering the success of Qatari-owned PSG and the scale of the task to return the Reds to the top.
Instead, there is a feeling in the country that their new priority is to gain the host country accolade for the Olympics 2036. Their current major competition for that honour is India.
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