Monday, June 07, 2010

Greece, Spain and Manchester United?

The first two countries are laden with enough debt to dwarf the combustion that was the U.S. home mortgage market in 2008. The latter has about 750 million pounds of debt on it, and the Glazer family, which owns Man U, has about $1.7 billion of debt (against $2.9 billion of assets).

The debate rages as to whether Man U is healthy and whether the Glazers have enough debt. $2.9 billion of assets is good when those assets are liquid; when they're shopping centers in an over-developed United States, well, they might be worth half that. The big question is whether a) the Glazers are paying their debts as they become due and b) whether they can manage Man U and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers well.

Read this and see what you think. I think that if there is a "double dip" recession, more sports owners will be in trouble, perhaps more so than when the first dip hit.

No comments: