News of Leon Cooperman buying shares in Manchester United seemed to come out of nowhere.
The American billionaire has nipped in ahead of Sir Jim Ratcliffe, whose £1.4billion bid for a 25% stake in the club is still awaiting confirmation, to nab a small piece of United after sinking around £13million on just under a million shares – roughly equating to a 2% stake. But who exactly is Cooperman and why is he buying shares in a football team all of a sudden? Allow us to explain.
The 80-year-old is a semi-retired former hedge fund manager, with an estimated net worth of around £2.2bn. He's so wealthy in fact that he has the capability to buy 14 current Premier League clubs, including Tottenham, who are valued at roughly £2bn.
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Born in the New York borough, the Bronx, to Jewish-Polish immigrants, Cooperman became the first member of his family to get a college degree after attending the city's prestigious Columbia University. After graduating he spent over two decades at Goldman Sachs, eventually working his way up to become chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs Asset Management.
He left the company after 25 years in 1990s, by which point he was something of a legendary figure on Wall Street, and set up his own a private investment partnership, Omega Advisors, which he ran until his retirement in 2016. He's remained active in the years since, particularly philanthropically, donating hundreds of millions to needy causes.
Will Leon Cooperman's investment have any immediate impact on Man Utd's fortunes? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.
However, he's also attracted a reasonable amount of controversy in recent years. In 2021 he hit out at President Biden's plans to increase taxes for wealthy Americans, telling US outlet Bloomberg that wealth taxes were "baloney", adding that he doesn't consider someone earning $400,000 (£320,000) per year to be rich.
In 2011, he wrote an open letter to President Obama, accusing him of engaging in class warfare, and donated $1,000 (£800) to Hillary Clinton's election campaign in 2016 just so he could meet her to tell her she was stoking hatred against wealthy people.
Though in spite of his Republican leanings, he voted Democrat in the 2020 presidential election, telling CNN: "It would be terrible for the country if Donald Trump were re-elected. He’s a divisive human being who belongs in jail."
Recently, he waded into the Israel-Hamas conflict by pledging to cease donations to his alma Mater, Columbia, two years after donating over $100m (£80m) to fund the school's new medical centre, in response to students staging anti-Israel protests on campus.
He told Fox Business: "We have one reliable ally in the Middle East – that’s Israel. We only have one democracy in the Middle East – that’s Israel, okay? And we have one economy tolerant of different people – gays, lesbians, etc. And that’s Israel."
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Cooperman's investment in Man United comes relatively out of the blue considering his lack of experience in sport, though Red Devils fans will be pleased to hear he has a knack for picking undervalued stocks right before a boom. His stake in the club is incredibly minor and is unlikely to bring him much power in the boardroom, particularly once Ratcliffe joins.
But his arrival will no doubt be heralded by the Glazers, who have reportedly been eyeing investment from America since putting the club up for sale a year ago. In any case, a cash injection is likely to be well received by everyone at the club, especially with the January transfer window right around the corner.
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