The Analysis Series: City Football Group; who owns it? Shareholder register and beneficial owners, November 2026

City Football Group Limited (CFG), the ultimate UK parent of Manchester City, filed its latest confirmation statement on 13 November 2026. It shows one change in a year: Sheikh Mansour’s Newton Investment and Development took 11,327,163 new A Preference shares and now owns 81.07% of the group. Read alongside the statements of capital filed since 2024, the register also settles a question press coverage could not: Newton paid for every share CFG has issued since June 2024, about £650m. One shareholder, Vega FZ, LLC, remains unexplained.

Author: Paul Quinn, CWTE Limited. Primary documents: CS01 confirmation statement dated 3 November 2026 (received 13 November 2026); RP01 replacement of the confirmation statement registered 3 November 2025 (received 29 January 2026). Company number 08355862.

Key findings

Newton now holds 81.07% of CFG (543,477,871 of 670,341,469 shares), up from 80.75%. It holds 96.21% of the Ordinary shares and 40.46% of the A Preference shares.
Silver Lake holds 16.16% through two Delaware partnerships (SLA CM Marcus Holdings, L.P. 15.62%; SLA Marcus Co-Invest, L.P. 0.54%), down from 16.44%. Its holding has not changed since November 2022. Every movement since is dilution.
The register settles who funded CFG since 2024. Newton’s A Preference holding at the 2025 statement (62,275,290 shares) equals, to the share, the four allotments made between June 2024 and October 2025. Newton therefore subscribed all of them, including the roughly £130m that coverage could only attribute to “the owners”. With October 2026 added, Newton has taken every one of the 73,602,453 shares issued since June 2024.
Control sits above the 75% special-resolution threshold. Newton alone can pass special resolutions. No other holder reaches the 25% needed to block one. Any minority protection rests on the shareholders’ agreement, not company law.
One shareholder remains unexplained. Vega FZ, LLC (1.87%) is a UAE free-zone company whose owners have never been publicly disclosed. CFG announced its other two outside investors; it has never announced Vega. If Vega is aligned with Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi bloc is 82.95%.
The price has not moved. The October 2026 issue implies about £8.83 a share and an equity value of about £5.92bn, the same price as every owner-subscribed issue since 2024. That is the controlling shareholder setting its own price, not a market test.

1. The documents and the method

The previous statement is an RP01, “Replacement of document not meeting requirements for proper delivery”, received 29 January 2026. It replaces the confirmation statement originally registered on 3 November 2025 and contains a full statement of capital and shareholder list. The current statement is a CS01 with a confirmation date of 3 November 2026. It lists every shareholder but contains no statement of capital, which is consistent with the October 2026 allotment having already been notified on a separate return (SH01).

The filed share particulars state that both classes carry one vote per share and rank equally for dividends and on a winding up. Percentage of shares therefore equals percentage of votes and economic interest, as far as the public record shows (see section 6 for why that may not be the whole picture). Each beneficial-ownership finding is graded: A primary record (Companies House, court or arbitral record, SEC filing); B company statement or consistent reputable reporting; C analytical inference, stated as such.

2. Shareholdings at 3 November 2026

Shareholder	Class	Shares	% of class	% of CFG	Domicile
Newton Investment and Development – Sole Proprietorship L.L.C.	Ordinary	469,875,418	96.21%	70.10%	Abu Dhabi, UAE
Newton Investment and Development – Sole Proprietorship L.L.C.	A Preference	73,602,453	40.46%	10.98%	Abu Dhabi, UAE
Newton total		543,477,871		81.07%
SLA CM Marcus Holdings, L.P. (Silver Lake)	A Preference	104,716,681	57.56%	15.62%	Delaware, US
SLA Marcus Co-Invest, L.P. (Silver Lake)	A Preference	3,616,600	1.99%	0.54%	Delaware, US
Silver Lake total		108,333,281		16.16%
Vega FZ, LLC	Ordinary	12,562,927	2.57%	1.87%	UAE free zone
CMC Football Holdings Limited	Ordinary	5,967,390	1.22%	0.89%	Cayman Islands
Total issued		670,341,469		100.00%

Table 1. Ordinary shares 488,405,735; A Preference shares 181,935,734; all £1 nominal, fully paid. Source: CS01 dated 3 November 2026; class totals from the RP01 statement of capital plus the October 2026 allotment.

3. What changed in the year

Shareholder	Shares Nov 2025	Shares Nov 2026	% Nov 2025	% Nov 2026	Change (pp)
Newton (Ordinary + A Preference)	532,150,708	543,477,871	80.75%	81.07%	+0.33
SLA CM Marcus Holdings, L.P.	104,716,681	104,716,681	15.89%	15.62%	−0.27
SLA Marcus Co-Invest, L.P.	3,616,600	3,616,600	0.55%	0.54%	−0.01
Vega FZ, LLC	12,562,927	12,562,927	1.91%	1.87%	−0.03
CMC Football Holdings Limited	5,967,390	5,967,390	0.91%	0.89%	−0.02
Total	659,014,306	670,341,469	100.00%	100.00%

Table 2. Changes calculated before rounding. Sources: RP01 (received 29 January 2026) and CS01 (dated 3 November 2026).

The only movement is a new share issue. The 11,327,163 additional A Preference shares held by Newton match the 11,327,163 shares that Companies House filings show were allotted on 14 October 2026. CFG confirmed to City AM that Newton took them up, for about £100m [1][2]. The new statement adds the one fact coverage lacked: the class. They are A Preference shares, like the four owner-side issues before them.

Within each class. Ordinary shares are unchanged at 488,405,735, so ordinary percentages are identical in both statements (Newton 96.21%, Vega 2.57%, CMC 1.22%). The A Preference class grew from 170,608,571 to 181,935,734 shares. Newton’s share of that class rose from 36.50% to 40.46%; Silver Lake’s fell from 63.50% to 59.54%. A few more issues on the same pattern would give Newton a majority of the class Silver Lake once held alone, which matters if the articles or shareholders’ agreement give that class a separate vote.

4. Who funded CFG from 2024 to 2026

Before 30 June 2024 the only A Preference shares in issue were Silver Lake’s 108,333,281. Every A Preference share above that number belongs to Newton. Matching the register to the statements of capital filed after each allotment gives this:

Allotment date	Shares allotted	Issued shares after	Approx. proceeds	Subscriber
30 Jun 2024	23,788,002	620,527,018	£210m	Newton (now evidenced by register)
1 Nov 2024	23,766,185	644,293,203	£210m	Newton (now evidenced by register)
14 Mar 2025	7,924,806	652,218,009	£70m	Newton (now evidenced by register)
31 Oct 2025	6,796,297	659,014,306	£60m	Newton (now evidenced by register)
Subtotal to Nov 2025	62,275,290		£550m	= Newton’s A Preference holding in the RP01
14 Oct 2026	11,327,163	670,341,469	£100m	Newton (confirmed by CFG; register)
Total since Jun 2024	73,602,453		≈£650m	= Newton’s A Preference holding in the CS01

Table 3. Issued capital after each allotment from Companies House SH01 statements of capital [3] and the RP01. Share counts for March and October 2025 derived by difference. Proceeds as reported [1][2][4][5].

Why this matters. Until now the two £210m issues of 2024 were attributed to Newton by press sources rather than CFG, and the £70m and £60m issues of 2025 only to “the owners” [4]. The register closes the question. The four allotments add up exactly to Newton’s 62,275,290 A Preference shares, and nobody else’s holding moved. All of the roughly £650m of new equity since mid-2024 has come from Sheikh Mansour’s vehicle. Silver Lake has put in nothing.

5. Ownership through time

Point in time	Issued shares	Newton	Silver Lake	Vega	CMC	Newton + Vega
Before 30 Jun 2024	596,739,016	78.74%	18.15%	2.11%	1.00%	80.85%
After 30 Jun 2024	620,527,018	79.56%	17.46%	2.02%	0.96%	81.58%
After 1 Nov 2024	644,293,203	80.31%	16.81%	1.95%	0.93%	82.26%
After 14 Mar 2025	652,218,009	80.55%	16.61%	1.93%	0.91%	82.48%
RP01: 3 Nov 2025	659,014,306	80.75%	16.44%	1.91%	0.91%	82.66%
CS01: 3 Nov 2026	670,341,469	81.07%	16.16%	1.87%	0.89%	82.95%

Table 4. Derived from register holdings and statements of capital. The figures match independent snapshots by Norton Rose Fulbright [6] and Financial Football [7].

ADUG (Sheikh Mansour) owned 100% until December 2015, when a consortium of China Media Capital and CITIC Capital invested US$400m for just over 13% at a US$3bn valuation [8], rising to 13.79% by June 2016 according to the CAS award in Manchester City v UEFA [9]. Silver Lake invested US$500m in November 2019 for just over 10% at a US$4.8bn valuation, with no existing holder selling [10]. It then bought 4.1% from CMC by September 2022. In November 2022 CMC sold a further 7.24%, split between Silver Lake and Sheikh Mansour, taking Silver Lake above 18% [11][12]. CMC chairman Li Ruigang left the CFG board on 21 November 2022 [3].

A stale public figure. CFG’s own website still gives Silver Lake’s stake as 18.16% [13]. That was right before June 2024. The register figure today is 16.16%.

6. Control

Threshold (Companies Act 2006)	Who meets it	Consequence
Over 50%: ordinary resolutions	Newton (81.07%)	Newton alone controls ordinary resolutions, including appointing and removing directors.
75% or more: special resolutions	Newton (81.07%)	Newton alone can change the articles, disapply pre-emption rights, reduce capital and vary class rights (subject to any class consent).
Over 25%: blocking minority	Nobody	Silver Lake (16.16%) cannot block a special resolution. Its protection is contractual.
Over 25%: person with significant control	Sheikh Mansour	The only registrable PSC. Silver Lake, Vega and CMC are below the threshold and have no PSC disclosure obligation.

Table 5. Control analysis on the basis that both classes vote equally, as stated in the filed share particulars.

Silver Lake’s protections are contractual. A 2021 resolution waived rights under clauses 7 (reserved matters) and 8 (issue of shares) of an amended and restated shareholders’ agreement in respect of a share transfer [3], so such an agreement exists. Silver Lake also has a board seat: co-CEO Egon Durban has been a CFG director since December 2019 [14]. The agreement’s terms are not public. That Silver Lake has been diluted five times without taking part suggests it either consented to each issue or waived any pre-emption or anti-dilution protection.

What “preference” does and does not mean. The filed share particulars say A Preference shares rank equally with Ordinary shares for votes, dividends and winding-up distributions, and are not redeemable. On the public record they carry no preference at all. Some commentators describe them as giving downside protection on exit [15], and fan commentary has called them non-voting; both conflict with the filed particulars. Any real economic preference would sit in the articles or the shareholders’ agreement. SH10 filings in November 2021 and January 2023 show the class rights have been varied [3]. Anyone valuing the equity or modelling a sale or insolvency should obtain the current articles rather than rely on the class name.

7. Beneficial owners: Newton Investment and Development (81.07%)

Item	Finding
Legal form and domicile	A single-owner limited liability company (“Sole Proprietorship L.L.C.”) registered in Abu Dhabi. [A: register name; B: CFG]
Ultimate beneficial owner	His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan. CFG states Newton is fully owned by him [13]. [B]
UK PSC register	Sheikh Mansour is CFG’s only active person with significant control, with effect from 6 April 2016: 75% or more of voting rights. Correspondence address: Ministry of Presidential Affairs, Abu Dhabi. ADUG is recorded as having ceased on 6 April 2016 (filings made August 2021). [A] [16]
History	ADUG bought Manchester City in 2008. Newton has been CFG’s ultimate parent undertaking since 25 July 2021 [17]. Newton is not on the PSC register because it is not a UK “relevant legal entity”; the register looks through to the individual. [B]
Who Sheikh Mansour is	UAE Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Presidential Court and Chairman of Mubadala Investment Company [18]. Also chairs the Emirates Investment Authority and the Central Bank of the UAE board; brother of the UAE President [14]. [B]
Holding	469,875,418 Ordinary (96.21% of class) and 73,602,453 A Preference (40.46% of class), all A Preference shares subscribed since June 2024. [A]

Board point. The beneficial owner of 81% of CFG is a serving senior office-holder of the UAE state who also chairs the sovereign fund whose managing director, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, chairs CFG. On any associated-party or owner-independence test, Newton cannot be analysed separately from the Abu Dhabi state. My September 2026 board mapping sets out these links director by director [14].

8. Beneficial owners: Silver Lake (16.16%)

Item	Finding
Vehicles	SLA CM Marcus Holdings, L.P. (104,716,681 shares) and SLA Marcus Co-Invest, L.P. (3,616,600 shares): Delaware limited partnerships managed by Silver Lake, Menlo Park, California [19]. [B]
Strategy and fund	“SLA” denotes Silver Lake Alpine, Silver Lake’s credit and structured-equity platform for non-control investments. Its first fund raised about US$2.5bn [20]; Alpine II closed at US$3.15bn (2022 vintage) [21]. Industry analysis places both CFG vehicles on the Alpine platform [15]. Given the 2019 investment date, the stake most likely sits in the first Alpine fund. [B; fund attribution C]
General partner chain (by analogy)	SEC filings for a sister vehicle, SLA CM Avatar Holdings, L.P., show this chain: SLA CM GP, L.L.C.; SL Alpine Aggregator GP, L.L.C.; Silver Lake Alpine Associates, L.P.; SLAA (GP), L.L.C.; Silver Lake Group, L.L.C. [22]. The shared “SLA CM” naming makes the same chain highly probable for the CFG vehicle, which is not itself in a public SEC filing. [A for Avatar; C for Marcus]
Economic owners	The limited partners of the Alpine fund(s) and the co-invest vehicle. They are institutional investors and are not disclosed. [C]
Control of Silver Lake	Silver Lake Group is controlled by its partners, led by co-CEOs Egon Durban and Greg Mondre. In September 2020 Mubadala bought a minority stake in Silver Lake from Dyal Capital (reported as below 10%; some reports say below 5%) and committed US$2bn to a 25-year Silver Lake strategy [23][24]. [B]
Board seat	Egon Durban, CFG director since 6 December 2019 [14]. [A]
Holding history	108,333,281 A Preference shares, unchanged since November 2022. The shares bought from CMC in 2021–22 appear to have been re-designated as A Preference: CFG filed changes of class designation (SH08) on 1 November 2021 and 24 January 2023, together with variations of rights (SH10), matching the two CMC transfers [3]. [A for filings; C for the link]

Board point: Silver Lake is not a fully independent counterweight. Silver Lake is the only material holder outside Abu Dhabi, but it is not at arm’s length from it. Sheikh Mansour chairs Mubadala; Mubadala owns part of Silver Lake’s management company and is a major capital partner; and Khaldoon Al Mubarak announced the 2020 deal for Mubadala while chairing CFG [24]. Mubadala’s stake is in Silver Lake the firm, not in the CFG partnerships, so it gives no direct ownership of CFG shares. It does align the minority investor’s interests with the majority owner’s sovereign fund.

9. Beneficial owners: Vega FZ, LLC (1.87%)

Item	Finding
Legal form and domicile	“FZ, LLC” denotes a UAE free-zone limited liability company. The register entries reviewed do not give the free zone or registration number. [A]
Beneficial owner	Not publicly disclosed. No company statement, press release, regulatory filing or court record identifies Vega’s owners, and independent analysts of Premier League ownership have reached the same conclusion [15]. Unrelated UAE businesses trade under similar “Vega” names; none has been linked to CFG, and none should be assumed to be this shareholder. [A: absence of record]
Holding and history	12,562,927 Ordinary shares (2.57% of the class), unchanged across both statements and since at least 2019–20. Vega has taken part in no share issue and no recorded secondary trade. [A/B]
Analytical reading	Three explanations fit the record: a vehicle aligned with the Abu Dhabi ownership; an executive or management incentive vehicle; or an undisclosed outside investor. The circumstances favour the first two. Vega holds the same class as Newton, is UAE-domiciled, and was never announced, whereas CFG announced both CMC/CITIC (2015) and Silver Lake (2019) with statements naming the investor, the price and the board seat. The CAS award of July 2020 described ownership as ADUG 86.21% and CMC 13.79%, with no third party, consistent with Vega’s shares having come out of ADUG’s holding. [C]

Disclosure gap. A 1.87% holder in the parent of a Premier League club with no disclosed owner is a gap regulators should close. It falls below the PSC threshold, so UK company law does not require disclosure, and ownership tests built around significant control will not catch it automatically. The Independent Football Regulator or the Premier League should require CFG to identify Vega’s ultimate owners, when and at what price it acquired its shares, and whether it acts in concert with Newton.

10. Beneficial owners: CMC Football Holdings Limited (0.89%)

Item	Finding
Legal form and domicile	A Cayman Islands company set up as the holding vehicle for the China Media Capital and CITIC Capital consortium, according to the CAS record [9][25]. [A/B]
Sponsors	CMC Inc. (formerly CMC Holdings), the Shanghai-based media, entertainment and sports investor founded and led by Li Ruigang [10]; and CITIC Capital Holdings, the Hong Kong alternative-investment firm founded in 2002 [26]. [B]
Owners of the sponsors	CMC is controlled by Li Ruigang and has been described in coverage as state-backed [27]. CITIC Capital’s shareholders have included China Investment Corporation (40% from 2009), Qatar Holding (22% from 2012), Tencent (from 2014) and Fubon Financial (20% from 2015) [26]. A recent industry profile gives CITIC Limited 19.90%, Tencent 20.70%, Qatar Holding 18.73% and Fubon 19.92% [28]. [B; latest split C]
Split inside the vehicle	How the remaining 5,967,390 shares divide between the CMC and CITIC Capital interests is not disclosed. [Gap]
Trajectory	13.79% (2016), about 12% after the 2019 Silver Lake issue, 8.24% after the 2021–22 sale, about 1% after November 2022 [9][11][12], now 0.89%. Board seat ended 21 November 2022 [3]. [A/B]

11. Look-through summary

Ultimate economic interest	% of CFG	Basis
Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan (via Newton)	81.07%	Register, CFG statement, PSC register [A/B]
Silver Lake Alpine fund investors and co-investors (Silver Lake as manager)	16.16%	Register; vehicle chain by analogy [A/C]
Undisclosed owners of Vega FZ, LLC	1.87%	Register only [A]
China Media Capital / CITIC Capital consortium	0.89%	Register; CAS record [A]
Abu Dhabi bloc if Vega is aligned	82.95%	Inference only [C]
Holders outside Abu Dhabi (minimum)	17.05%	Silver Lake plus CMC, before the Mubadala link through Silver Lake

Table 6. CFG owns Manchester City Football Club Limited through City Football Group (Midco) Limited and Manchester City Limited; an independent analysis puts CFG’s indirect interest in MCFC at 99.93% [15].

12. Filing and governance observations

The previous statement had to be replaced. The confirmation statement registered on 3 November 2025 was replaced by an RP01 because it did not meet the requirements for proper delivery. The filing does not say what was wrong. The RP01’s statement of capital includes the allotment of 31 October 2025, made three days before the confirmation date. My inference is that the original statement did not reflect that allotment.
The 31 October 2025 allotment return appears late. Section 555 of the Companies Act 2006 requires a return within one month of allotment, here by 30 November 2025. On the reported filing date of 19 January 2026 [4], it was about seven weeks late; the RP01 followed ten days later. Late filing is an offence by the company and every officer in default (section 557).
Confirmation date moved. CFG previously confirmed on 10 January each year [3]. It moved to 3 November in 2025, in line with other group companies that filed on that date [29].
Class-rights history. Class re-designations (SH08) and variations of rights (SH10) in November 2021 and January 2023, and waivers of shareholders’ agreement rights for the transfers of 22 September 2021 and 21 November 2022, are the paper trail of CMC’s exit and Silver Lake’s step-up [3].
Funding pattern. Five owner-subscribed issues in 28 months, about £650m at a flat price of about £8.83 a share, implying about £5.92bn of equity (670,341,469 × £8.83) [1][4]. At that price Silver Lake’s shares are worth about £957m, against its US$500m entry in 2019 plus undisclosed secondary purchases. Because the controlling shareholder is the only subscriber, the price is not evidence of market value.

13. Implications for boards and regulators

Control is unconditional. At 81%, Newton’s position cannot be challenged by the minority under company law. Any outcome of the 115-charges case that touches ownership will be dealt with by one decision-maker.
Funding is concentrated. Since 2024 the group’s new equity has come entirely from one sovereign-linked individual. That supports CFG’s solvency in the short term, but its capital position depends on the owner’s continued willingness to pay, which is exactly the dependency a sustainability-focused regulator exists to assess.
The minority is passive. Silver Lake has not added capital since 2022. Anyone assessing exit routes should note that the only institutional co-investor is being diluted, not adding money.
Disclosure actions. Identify Vega FZ, LLC’s ultimate owners; obtain the current articles and shareholders’ agreement to establish the real rights of the A Preference class; confirm the consideration on each allotment return; and ask CFG to correct the 18.16% Silver Lake figure on its website.

Data limitations and caveats

Filing dates and statement-of-capital totals for the allotment returns, class changes and resolutions come from indexed extracts of the Companies House filing history and from published analysis. Share counts for the March and October 2025 allotments are derived by difference.
Proceeds per allotment are as reported (for example, “about £100m”). The £8.83 price and £5.92bn equity value rest on those figures.
The Silver Lake general-partner chain is inferred from SEC filings for a sister “SLA CM” vehicle. The specific Alpine fund holding CFG shares is not confirmed.
Vega FZ, LLC’s ownership is unknown. The readings in section 9 are inference, not fact.
CITIC Capital’s latest ownership split comes from a secondary industry profile; the split of CMC Football Holdings between its sponsors is undisclosed.
The public record of share rights is the summary filed particulars. The articles and shareholders’ agreement may contain economic or consent rights not visible here.
Percentages are rounded to two decimal places and may not sum exactly.