I agree. Surely it's easier for Glazers to stuff United silly by floating in their own country.
Why?
Not really the case. Glazer's are at a point where if they choose to hold more money back from the club they begin to harm their own long term investment.
The thing to remember in all of this is that £230m of the PIK debt was written off by, until now, an unknown source. Assuming that was the Glazer's themselves, or somebody related to the Glazers...at this moment in time they are actually down on United on their own personal accounts. They have actively taken very little money out of the club thus far.
The IPO is clearly a means to 1) Get that money back 2) Make the club's financial position healthier, and in that order.
That they want to move the IPO over to NYC after looking into the Singapore floatation for as long as they did is strange and it shows the original plan was by no means certain. They wanted to float in Singapore because they thought they could get an unrealistic high price, a naive assumption. Floating in NYC means they will float at a lower price and already there are suggestions they will float for half their original price, but for a lesser stake I assume. To me that suggests they want to get money into the club quickly.
The main reason this is a sign of desperation is that nobody in their right mind would look to launch an IPO at the moment. Look at what happened to Facebook, F1 have withdrawn their own plans for now. At this moment in time the markets are terrible and there is little value out there...yet they want to press ahead and are even willing to shift location...i.e - they need money and quickly.
This image (courtesy of @andersred) shows just how much IPO's have declined over the recent years.
I don't think that has anything to do with the Glazer's wanting to screw United over any more (they have already secured all bases for that tbh) and floating in NYC doesn't really help their cause even if that were the case.
On balance the IPO is good news for a United fan. It means a portion of the club is out of the Glazers' hands and that a much needed influx of money comes into the club. I want this to succeed...just I doubt it will.