1878 | No ownership. Funded by a local company.

Manchester United Football Club was formed in 1878 as "Newton Heath Football Club" by the Carriage and Wagon department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. The team initially played games against other departments and rail companies at their home ground at North Road, and was originally funded by the company.

 

1892 | Company formed. Public shares issued.

The club became a limited company in 1892 and sold shares to local supporters for £1 via an application form. This generated some initial funding for the club to continue participation in a local league.

 

1902 | Ownership acquired by four local businessmen.

With the club nearing certain bankruptcy, majority ownership passed to the four local businessmen in 1902 when they each invested £500 to save the club. Captain Harry Stafford played a decisive role in securing the investment from the men, convincing them that their interest in the club would prove to be a worthwhile investment. As a mark of this fresh start, on 24 April 1902, the club's name was changed to "Manchester United".

 

1931 | Ownership acquired by W. Gibson.

Manchester United managed to compete in the First and Second Division, as well as the FA Cup, for two decades with limited funding, but by 1927 the club faced bankruptcy yet again. This time United was saved by another businessman, one James W. Gibson, who assumed control of the club after an investment of £2,000 in 1931. A Salfordian by birth, Gibson was living in Old Trafford in 1911 and was aware of his 'local' football team, who had just moved into their new stadium in the district, although whether he was an active supporter at this time is not known.

Unlike the wealthy Gibson, Manchester United F.C. was being affected greatly by the Great Depression around the start of the 1930s. Their previous owner, John Henry Davies had died in 1927 after 25 years at the club. They had won the FA Cup and two league titles during the first 10 years of his chairmanship and by the time of Davies's death they were developing a reputation as a "yo yo" club who regularly moved between the First and Second Divisions and their future was under threat by large debts.

Gibson injected around £40,000 more funds into the team during the Great Depression, though they continued to wander between the First and Second Divisions without looking like serious contenders for either the league title or the FA Cup. When Old Trafford was wrecked by German air raids on 11 March 1941, he also funded the rebuilding of the stadium, which was completed in 1949, and started the United Youth Academy that produced the great Busby Babes side of the mid-to-late 1950s.

At the end of the Second World War, he appointed Matt Busby as manager, but only lived to see Busby bring one major trophy back to Old Trafford – the 1948 FA Cup – as he died in 1951, a year before they won their first top division title since 1911. He did not live to see the revolution of the Busby Babes later in the decade.

 

1948 | Ownership retained by the Gibson family.

Gibson promoted his son, Alan, to the board in 1948. Three years later W. Gibson passed away. The Gibson family retained ownership of the club through James' wife, Lillian .

 

1964 | Control of the club acquired by Louis Edwards.

Promoted to the board a few days after the Munich air disaster, Louis Edwards, a friend of Matt Busby, began acquiring shares in the club; for an investment of approximately £40,000. He accumulated a 54 per cent shareholding and took control of Manchester United in January 1964.

Edwards first met Matt Busby in 1950, as they were introduced by a mutual friend. From the mid 1950s he was an investor in Manchester United and joined the club's board of directors the day after the Munich Air crash in February 1958 and bought ten shares worth £1 each. He became vice-chairman in December 1964 and club chairman in June 1965 upon the death of Harold Hardman, overseeing United's success in winning the Football League First Division in 1967, finishing runners up in 1968, and the European Cup on 29 May that year.

By the early 1970s Edwards was the majority shareholder at the club. The upgrade and development of Old Trafford occurred under his chairmanship, including a new cantilever stand, ringed by theatre style executive boxes. Other stands and restaurants were added, with relatively modern training facilities. Edwards later stood down from the Football league management committee to make way for Busby.

 

1971 | Control of the club retained by the Edwards family.

When Lillian Gibson died in January 1971, her shares passed to her son Alan Gibson who sold a percentage of his shares to Louis Edwards' son, Martin, in 1978. This left the Edwards family in total control of the club. Martin Edwards went on to become chairman upon his father's death in 1980.

 

1984 | Failed attempt by Robert Maxwell to buy Manchester United.

Media tycoon Robert Maxwell attempted to buy the club in 1984, but did not meet Edwards' asking price, and no deal was reached.

 

1989 | Failed attempt by Micheal Knighton to buy Manchester United.

Chairman Martin Edwards attempted to sell the club to Michael Knighton for £20 million in 1989, but the sale fell through at the last hour. At the time, this was a record offer for a British football club and the offer was accepted by Edwards. Knighton promised to invest £10 million in the team's stadium, Old Trafford, as well as re-establish the club as England's top side. Knighton appeared on the pitch at Old Trafford before a game dressed in a full Manchester United football kit to publicise the takeover. Famously, he showed off his football skills by completing a long series of skilful "keepie ups". The vehicle for the takeover was a Knighton-controlled company, MK Trafford, based in the Isle of Man and set up specifically for the purpose. A £10m contract for Edwards' 50.06% stake was signed, subject to an audit of the club's accounts, with a £20 per share offer submitted to the club's other shareholders. The MK Trafford investors comprised Knighton, former Debenhams executive Bob Thornton and Stanley Cohen of the Betterware home shopping company. However, Thornton and Cohen pulled out in mid-September. Knighton sought other backers, with David Murray and Owen Oyston among those approached. As the deadline to complete the takeover loomed, Knighton abandoned his bid for control in exchange for a seat on the board.

 

1991 | Manchester United floated on the stock market.

Manchester United was floated on the stock market in June 1991 (raising £6.7 million). This lead to yet another takeover bid in 1998, this time from Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting Corporation. This resulted in the formation of Shareholders United Against Murdoch – now the Manchester United Supporters' Trust – who encouraged supporters to buy shares in the club in an attempt to block any hostile takeover. The Manchester United board accepted a £623 million offer, but the takeover was blocked by the Monopolies and Mergers Commission at the final hurdle in April 1999. A few years later, a power struggle emerged between the club's manager, Alex Ferguson, and his horse-racing partners, John Magnier and J. P. McManus, who had gradually become the majority shareholders. In a dispute that stemmed from contested ownership of the horse Rock of Gibraltar, Magnier and McManus attempted to have Ferguson removed from his position as manager, and the board responded by approaching investors to attempt to reduce the Irishmen's majority.

 

2005 | Control of Manchester United acquired by the Glazer family.

In May 2005, Malcolm Glazer purchased the 28.7 per cent stake held by McManus and Magnier, thus acquiring a controlling interest through his investment vehicle Red Football Ltd in a highly leveraged takeover valuing the club at approximately £800 million (then approx. $1.5 billion). Once the purchase was complete, the club was taken off the stock exchange. In July 2006, the club announced a £660 million debt refinancing package, resulting in a 30 per cent reduction in annual interest payments to £62 million a year. In January 2010, with debts of £716.5 million ($1.17 billion), Manchester United further refinanced through a bond issue worth £504 million, enabling them to pay off most of the £509 million owed to international banks. The annual interest payable on the bonds – which mature on 1 February 2017 – is approximately £45 million per annum.

In August 2011, the Glazers were believed to have approached Credit Suisse in preparation for a $1 billion (approx. £600 million) initial public offering (IPO) on the Singapore stock exchange that would value the club at more than £2 billion. However, in July 2012, the club announced plans to list its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange instead. Shares were originally set to go on sale for between $16 and $20 each, but the price was cut to $14 by the launch of the IPO on 10 August, following negative comments from Wall Street analysts and Facebook's disappointing stock market debut in May. Even after the cut, Manchester United was valued at $2.3 billion, making it the most valuable football club in the world today.