sport news Man United: How Sir Jim Ratcliffe went from a council house to £10.9bn net worth trends now

sport news Man United: How Sir Jim Ratcliffe went from a council house to £10.9bn net worth trends now
sport news Man United: How Sir Jim Ratcliffe went from a council house to £10.9bn net worth trends now

sport news Man United: How Sir Jim Ratcliffe went from a council house to £10.9bn net worth trends now

Sir Jim Ratcliffe has revealed his interest in launching a takeover bid for Manchester United if it comes up for sale, in what would be one of the most audacious moves yet for Britain's richest man. 

Sir Jim, the 69-year-old founder and boss of chemical giant Ineos, is a Brexit-supporting football obsessive who recently attracted controversy for his decision to abandon Britain for the tax haven of Monaco. 

The tycoon, who has an estimated net worth of £10.9billion, bought French club Nice for £91m in 2019 two years after purchasing Swiss team FC Lausanne-Sport. 

He wants to buy Manchester United outright, having recently failed with a bid to buy Chelsea. 'If the club is for sale, Jim is definitely a potential buyer,' his spokesman told The Times.  

Yet he faces an uphill battle. United's hated owners Avram and Joel Glazer are not believed to have any plans to cede control of the club any time soon, while they recently entered exclusive talks with US private equity firm Apollo to offload a small stake. 

Born in 1952, Sir Jim grew up in a council house on Dunkerley Avenue in Failsworth, a small town between Manchester and Oldham, before attending Beverley Grammar School when his family moved to Yorkshire.

On his first day at the University of Birmingham, he was embarrassed to see he was nearly at the bottom of a list of 99 undergraduates ranked by their A-level results, but went on to achieve a 2:1 in chemical engineering.

He worked for BP during a summer holiday after graduating and was offered a job. But he was fired after just three days because his boss had seen his medical report and wasn't keen on him working there with mild eczema.

Sir Jim went on to work as a trainee accountant at a pharmaceuticals company before moving to Esso then Courtaulds. In 1992 he mortgaged his house to buy BP's chemicals division for about £40 million.

He only started his first business weeks before his 40th birthday and founded Ineos aged 45 in 1998. During the next 20 years he transformed it into the world's fourth largest chemicals company, with annual revenues of £45bn. 

Sir Jim, the 69-year-old founder and boss of chemical giant Ineos, is a Brexit-supporting football obsessive who recently attracted controversy for his decision to abandon Britain for the tax haven of Monaco

Sir Jim, the 69-year-old founder and boss of chemical giant Ineos, is a Brexit-supporting football obsessive who recently attracted controversy for his decision to abandon Britain for the tax haven of Monaco

Sir Jim faces an uphill battle to buy United, with its hated owners Joel (left) and Avram (right) Glazer are not believed to have any plans to cede control of the club any time soon

Sir Jim faces an uphill battle to buy United, with its hated owners Joel (left) and Avram (right) Glazer are not believed to have any plans to cede control of the club any time soon

Sir Jim is a lifelong Manchester United fan, although he also has a season ticket at Chelsea. 

He recently said: 'I am a season ticket

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