Sir Jim Ratcliffe: How the British billionaire from a council estate made his fortune and forked out for Manchester United

Chief executive, former chemical engineer, and Manchester United co-owner, Sir James Ratcliffe has built a multibillion-pound empire, placing him as the fourth richest person in the UK. 

Ratcliffe is a regular name on the Sunday Times Rich List, a knighthood recipient for his services in business and investment, with a penchant for buying and turning around unloved assets. 

Here we take a look at Sir Jim's ventures and how he has built his fortune. 

Humble beginnings 

Sir Jim Ratcliffe grew up on a council estate near Manchester. Ratcliffe graduated with a chemistry diploma in 1974, and in 1989 he attained an MBA from the London Business School. 

He formed Ineos in 1998 to lead the buyout of a BP chemicals company, when he was in his mid-forties. From a single site in Antwerp bought for £84m and employing 400 people, the chemical company has grown exponentially. Today, the pharmaceutical empire generates a reported $65bn annually, operates across 194 sites in 29 countries and employs more than 26,000 people with Sir Jim sitting at the helm as chairman and majority owner. 

Publicly shy, the billionaire did not become a household name until he featured on the Sunday Times Rich List in 2018 as the wealthiest person in the UK.  

Since then, the chemicals tycoon has featured heavily in the list throughout the years and in 2024 he maintained his place at the top of the North West rankings in the Sunday Times Rich List. Despite losing more than £6bn in 2024, Sir Jim's fortune stands at £23.5bn, which was nearly double the wealth of the second placed Michael Platt of BlueCrest Capital.

Manchester United  

Born in Failsworth in Greater Manchester, Ratcliffe is a long-term fan of the Red Devils. The 2024 FA cup winners featured in second place in Forbes World's Most Valuable Soccer list for 2024 is worth an estimated $6.6bn (£5.19bn). It published its full-year revenues for the 12 months to 30 June 2023, showing revenues soaring to £648.4m, compared to £583.2m the previous year. 

The billionaire magnate announced his intentions to purchase a stake of the FA Cup winner's club in October 2023. Initially, Ratcliffe had entered a bidding process for a full takeover from the Glazer family in January 2023, but by February 2024, the Premier League approved Sir Jim's 25 percent acquisition of the football club. 

As well as his acquisition of 25 percent of the class A and B shares in United, Ratcliffe also invested $200m into the club for additional class A and class B shares via a primary issuance, resulting in overall ownership of approximately 27.7 per cent, with a further $100m to be invested by 31 December 2024.

At the time Ratcliffe shared: "To become co-owner of Manchester United is a great honour and comes with great responsibility," said Sir Jim Ratcliffe.

"This marks the completion of the transaction, but just the beginning of our journey to take Manchester United back to the top of English, European and world football, with world-class facilities for our fans." 

In June 2024, the club announced it would start work on its £50m project to revamp its Carrington Training Complex, with Sir Jim saying that the club wanted "to create a world class environment for our teams to win." 

Other sporting ventures 

The deal with Manchester United is just one of Sir Jim's ventures in the sporting world. 

Ratcliffe and the sporting branch of Ineos - Ineos Sports - have been making strides in football, Formula 1, sailing, rugby and cycling in recent years. 

INEOS owns the football club, OGC Nice, in French Ligue 1 and FC Lausanne-Sport in the Swiss Super League. The company also has a partnership with racing club Abidjan of Ivory Coast Ligue One. 

In December 2019, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport signed a technical agreement with INEOS and in December 2020, the chemical company acquired a stake in the team. Ratcliffe owns a third, alongside Daimler and Toto Wolff.