Tories’ billionaire fundraiser targets English football club takeover

Mohamed Mansour's appointment as Conservative Party senior treasurer marks a further deepening of ties to the UK

Mohamed Mansour
Mohamed Mansour said he was “definitely” looking for an opportunity to break into the English league Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph

The Conservative Party’s incoming senior treasurer, the Egyptian-born billionaire Mohamed Mansour, has revealed plans to buy an English football club as part of a global investment in the sport.

In a Telegraph interview, Mr Mansour said he was “definitely” looking for an opportunity to break into the English league, to build on his majority stake in the top-tier Danish side FC Nordsjaelland and plans to invest in the growing US football market.

It comes months after his son Loutfy was linked with a potential bid for Chelsea, which he denied.

Mr Mansour also ruled out interest in the sale of Manchester United but said: “Is England on our radar screen? Definitely.”

His family investment office, Man Capital, has also pumped almost £100m into the Right to Dream Academy, a network of football schools which has produced 90 professionals. Mr Mansour’s interest in football was sparked by his uncle, who went to Glasgow University in the 1930s and played in goal for the Scottish team Queen’s Park.

He spoke as the Conservative Party prepared to announce him as senior treasurer, a crucial role drumming up finance for its forthcoming General Election battle. One of Mr Mansour’s own companies, Unatrac, has donated more than £600,000.

He said: “I am a proud British citizen and have been a supporter of the Conservative Party for many years.

“I believe their policies will stimulate entrepreneurialism and the spirit of enterprise in the economy, which benefit everybody.

“My politics were influenced by what happened to my father in North Africa in the 1960s and 1970s, when far-Left governments seized our family’s assets amid large-scale nationalisations of private companies and property.

“North Africa is very different today, but this was a formative political experience for me. It is why I have always instinctively favoured centre-Right governments.”

Mohamed Mansour
Forbes estimates Mr Mansour’s net worth at $2.5bn Credit: Paul Grover for the Telegraph

The appointment marks a further deepening of ties to the UK for the 74-year-old and his business empire, which was started by his father as a cotton exporter in 1952 and built up by a role as the conduit for General Motors cars and Caterpillar diggers into Egypt. 

In more recent years he has invested around the world, from the Caffe Nero coffee chain, to North Sea wind turbines and some of Silicon Valley’s most valuable tech giants. 

Today the American business magazine Forbes estimates Mr Mansour’s net worth at $2.5bn, although the true number may be significantly higher. Man Capital manages the family money from immaculate offices overlooking Berkeley Square in Mayfair, London, where visitors are greeted by a model of his 65-metre superyacht Zazou.

Mr Mansour did not always have it so good, however. The raid on his family under Egyptian president Nasser left its mark.

He said: “During my student days in America in the Sixties, I was struggling financially as all our family’s assets had been confiscated, and had to work any shift I could as a waiter in a pizza restaurant just to make ends meet.

“I know what it is like to be hungry and to struggle to afford food or utility bills. I know that my life is very different today and I thank God for his blessings and for my good fortune. I have to pinch myself that I am not dreaming that ‘Mo the waiter’, as people called me, is now the senior treasurer of the party of Churchill!”

The Mansour family based its wealth in London partly as a result of that experience and the risks posed by political instability. Now the roots are deeper.

Mr Mansour said: “When we thought of starting Man Capital, it was either New York or London.

“We chose London because of the rule of law. And we love living here. My grandchildren are here going to school. It’s a vibrant city and there’s no other like it - Brexit or no Brexit. You have a very strong financial capital. You have good universities. We love living here.

“I mean, after Brexit there were people talking about Dusseldorf and other places. But the politeness of the people in the UK, the way people have accepted different nationalities and different races coming from all over the world, the countryside. There’s no other place like it.”

Except in terms of the economic challenges it faces. Mr Mansour said that grim consumer sentiment is a global phenomenon as a result of post-pandemic inflation.

He said: “I travel a lot all over the world. Every country that I've gone to, whether it's in sub-Saharan Africa, New York, Paris, Rome, wherever, life is becoming very hard for people. These are difficult times, there’s no question about this. But I think it’s a matter of a year or two.”

Man Capital itself has cut its cloth differently for tougher times. As inflation began to take off, it sold off around half its investments in public companies that would be exposed. They included Twitter and Meta, the owner of Facebook, which has lost 64pc of its value this year. Man Capital had invested in Facebook in 2009, years prior to its Wall Street debut.

Mr Mansour: “We exited maybe 50pc of our public equities. We have firepower now to wait and see when is the best time to invest and in which sectors. 

“I think our view is that it will maybe be the third quarter of 2023, the time to do it. We remain firm believers in technology.”

The wider Mansour Group, run in partnership with brothers Youssef and Yasseen, and sister Rawya, is also looking to its future with heavy investment in the shift to electric vehicles, currently at an embryonic stage in Egypt. The company is in talks with three potential manufacturing partners - Peugeot, General Motors and Chinese-owned MG - about manufacturing in the country. It has also backed Infinity, Egypt’s largest solar power provider.

The plans put the Mansour Group in the middle of a tug-of-war between the US and China over the emerging market for electric vehicles. Chinese businesses across industries are seeking to secure access to African markets.

Mr Mansour, who recently attended an “eye-opening” Cop27 climate conference in Sharm El Sheikh, said: “We want to be among the entrepreneurs that pushes electrical vehicles into Egypt. I think by 2023 we’ll make an announcement about starting production.

“I went and visited facilities in Shanghai, with SAIC, a motor company that we represent. They are pushing hard into the market.

“But the line of electric Cadillac cars, which we provided to Cop delegates, is amazing. So I think the Americans are also taking a lead. We will see which of these fits best in the Egyptian environment and take it from there.”

While their business has become global, the family’s links to the Egyptian elite remain strong. Last year Mr Mansour, who served as transport minister under Hosni Mubarak, was appointed by the current president, Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, to the board of trustees for the Grand Egyptian Museum, a new home for the country’s greatest treasures, due to open in spring.

The appointment could thrust him into a debate over the fate of the Rosetta Stone, the Egyptian artefact which allowed the translation of hieroglyphics and is held by the British Museum. There are growing calls in Egypt for its return.

Mr Mansour would not be drawn on what should happen between his country of birth and his adopted home.

He said: “A lot of Egyptian artefacts are outside the country. Not only in the UK but a lot of places.”

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