Manchester United now worth $3 billion

Manchester United (MANU) has beaten back the criticisms about its initial public offering and is now the first sports team to be worth $3 billion.

It's been an extraordinary run for a team that was valued at $2.29 billion last August, when its IPO shares priced at $14 each. The Glazer family, which took the famous soccer club private in 2005, was hoping the IPO would value the team at more than $3 billion.

The family finally got its wish. Manchester United shares lingered for months below their IPO price, but began crawling up in November and finally erased the losses about two weeks ago. The stock surpassed the $17 mark last week, though it has fallen back and closed Tuesday at $16.34.

The recent rise was enough to push Manchester's enterprise value, which is its equity plus debt, to $3.3 billion, Forbes reports. The only other team that comes close to that is the Dallas Cowboys, which is worth about $2.1 billion.

That's good news for George Soros, the billionaire investor who plowed millions into the team after it went public. In a regulatory filing at the time, Soros's fund management company said it owned 3.1 million Class A shares, which were worth nearly $41 million, CNNMoney reported.

If he had held on to those shares, his stake would be worth about $50.7 million now. So that's a gain of about $10 million in five months.

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