Sir Jim Ratcliffe, billionaire owner of petrochemicals firm INEOS, has made a bid to buy football club Manchester United. Glazer family had expressed their willingness to sell the Premier League club in November. “We have formally put ourselves into the process,” INEOS said in a statement to The Associated Press on Tuesday. 

Ratcliffe supported the club as a boy and has previously indicated a desire to buy the club. He has a reported net worth of £12.5 billion. Ratcliffe, 70, has been chairman of the company for a long time and has seen it grow from 400 employees to 26,000 employees. It has an annual revenue of around £52.5 billion.

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Over the years, the interests of INEOS have diversified to incorporate consumer brands and sports interests. Ratcliffe spent the first 10 years of his life in Greater Manchester town and developed a “quite deep-rooted” passion for the football club. He got a knighthood in 2018 for his services to business and investment. In recent years, his company has formed a varied sporting portfolio.

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Jim Ratcliffe’s wife

He reportedly married his second wife Alicia Ratcliffe in the mid-1990s. The couple welcomes one daughter together, Julia. Alicia is 70 years old. She is an Italian tax lawyer. Ratcliffe married Alicia after he got separated from Amanda Townson. He was married to Townson in early 1985 but they divorced in 1995. They had two sons together, named Samuel and George Ratcliffe.

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Since divorcing her ex-husband, Amanda Townson has remained out of the spotlight and has kept her personal life extremely private. 

His eldest son George also works at the chemical giant INEOS. In 2020, he was appointed the chief operating officer of a new global healthcare business after successfully producing millions of bottles of hand sanitizers for the NHS at the peak of the coronavirus crisis.