Manchester United's new shirt sponsor, the New York-based American International Group, has a $148 million stake in a hedge fund company which last year helped Malcolm Glazer's debt-laden takeover of the Old Trafford club.

United had been searching for a shirt sponsor since Vodafone withdrew its backing from the former Premiership champions last November, and today the club announced that it had signed a UK record £56.5 million, four-year deal.

But the announcement is certain to prompt further questions about the relationship between Manchester United, AIG and Perry Capital, the hedge fund, following speculation earlier this week that the club was seeking to refinance the terms of the highly leveraged takeover.

This afternoon, a senior spokesman for AIG confirmed that the company had money invested in two separate funds operated by Perry Capital, stressing that the $148 million investment was just a small fraction of Perry's $12 billion total assets.

"These funds are so totally unrelated to any involvement between Perry and Manchester United that this matter did not even come up in our sponsorship negotiations," Chris Winans, AIG's vice president for media relations, said in a telephone interview from the company's New York headquarters.

"AIG invests in many, many hedge funds," he said, adding that the involvement of Perry Capital and his company's sponsorship of Manchester United was "purely coincidental".

When the American sports magnate, Malcolm Glazer, took over Manchester United in a controversially disputed deal last year, he used £275 million of preferred securities that he sold to three New York hedge funds to help to finance his takeover. He agreed to make annual repayments of 20 per cent on £210 million of these securities and 14 per cent on the remaining £65 million.

The preferred securities give the hedge funds — Citadel Horizon and Ochs-Ziff, as well as Perry Capital — the right to take 30 per cent of United’s equity in 2010, with proportionate representation on its board.

The money raised through the preferred securities was on top of the £374 million that Mr Glazer also borrowed from a syndicate of banks led by JP Morgan.

Perry, founded and run by Richard Perry, is known for its bruising approach in takeover battles, and has built stakes in firms including Blockbuster, the video-rental chain.

In 2004, Perry Capital bought shares in Mylan Laboratories in order to vote in favour of its acquisition of King Pharmaceuticals, in which Perry was already a big shareholder. Perry hedged its exposure to movements in Mylan's share price, and was thus able to exercise its voting rights without having any apparent exposure to the consequences. This activity prompted the US financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission, to investigate the legality of the deals.

AIG have denied that their recent negotiations with United have had anything to do with refinancing the club's debts.

Today's announcement of the tie-up between AIG and United will come as a massive relief to senior executives at the club, who have been criticised for losing the backing of Vodafone and were blamed at the weekend for the collapse of another, bigger sponsorship deal.

United, who have not won the English Premiership title since 2003, needed urgently to secure a shirt sponsor in order to allow full production of replica shirts, which represent a significant element of the club's multi-million annual income.

Today, United chief executive David Gill confirmed the four-year deal, which betters the £10 million-a-season contract Chelsea has with Samsung.

But the figure agreed is less than the deal United were on the verge of agreeing with Mansion, the Gibraltar-based gaming company, which withdrew from discussions earlier this week, accusing the football club of "double dealing".

"Let’s be clear," Mr Gill said today. "We passed up the opportunity to do the world’s biggest shirt deal to do the right shirt deal, one that is right for Manchester United and one that underlines our position as the world’s leading club.

"AIG’s global operations complement our great fanbase and we are excited about the global prospects this relationship brings. This is a blue chip deal for a blue chip club."

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