Cost of trying to manipulate Ashley clear

558

This morning’s stock market announcement that Rangers International received a £5m emergency loan from our pal Mike Ashley, with terms agreed (pending diligence) on a further £5m available if needed, will see the club through the next week.

£3m of that £5m will go straight back to Ashley, to repay the loans he issued the club last year, leaving £2m, which will cover this week’s wages, with little left over (last year’s average monthly expenses was £2.75m).

The club can sell players this week, but as that is unlikely to generate significant funds, it looks like additional funding will be needed before next month’s wages – and significantly – before the proposed EGM.

In return for what is little more than an additional three week’s money, Ashley gets a floating charge over ALL the club’s assets.  Despite how many headlines portray this story, that includes Ibrox Stadium.

Issuing a floating charge over assets is a normal piece of business for a football club, but this is not a normal football club.  Floating charges are usually issued to banks, not predatory retailers, and they are seldom issued when the club is weeks away from running out of money.

A fixed charge has been granted over Murray Park, Edmiston House, Albion Car Park and, crucially, the club’s trademarks.  In the event of a default, all these assets become the property of Sports Direct.

For reasons which are hard to fathom, Ibrox became some totem not to be tampered with, allowing Ashley to grab hold of enormous assets with relatively little concern.  Should they default, consider this:

You want to sell tickets with ‘your’ crest or badge, pay me.  You want to sell programmes, own a web site, do a shirt deal with someone else in the future, display the crest on the stadium wall, pay me.

The fact that Ibrox is subject to a floating, not fixed, charge, means that in theory the board could grant someone else a fixed charge over that asset, if they act before the floating charge becomes actionable.  However, with Ashley now able to load the board with another two appointments, that possibility is not credible.  If you have the floating charge, and you have the board, you don’t need a fixed charge.

There are other kicks to the nether regions.  The club has given Sports Direct another 26% of Rangers Retail, bringing their total holding to 76%, for the duration of the initial loan.  This is not hugely significant, but it could be in lieu of fees and interest, which are not being charged.

More interestingly for a club completing short-term funding requirements, they have agreed to pass their shirt sponsorship proceeds to Rangers Retail from 2017, until all these borrowings are repaid.  With all the other rights Ashley is likely to assume in the coming months, this seems unnecessary.  He has the board, has inserted the conditions he wants in these loans and has the fixed and floating charges required to do pretty much anything.  Apart from rubbing people’s faces in the faeces, this additional ‘benefit’ appears superfluous.

What’s the takeaway message in all of this?

Despite the press briefings which were slavishly reported as news earlier this month, Ashley is not about to roll over, no matter how ample his frame.  He doesn’t care about anything you care about.  He cannot be bribed, blackmailed or coerced.  He will react badly to people trying to manipulate him.  Very badly.

He has control of the boardroom and Rangers International will need him before he needs it, and before any EGM is held.  This is his new baseline, the next round of ‘assistance’ will tighten his grip on the all-important income streams.

It’s an impossible situation for the fans.  Learn to live with the guy you’ve failed to box into a corner, while he exacts compensation for the trouble he’s been put to, or continue to resent him.

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558 Comments

  1. the glorious balance sheet on

    Petec 2237-

     

     

    Barnes time here might have been short but it was 6 months too long for my liking :)

     

     

    Another example that shows that great players do not necessarily make great managers.

     

     

    I`m sure Ronny is learning all about the forces of darkness that you have to deal with in Scotland. I heard him being interrogated on the news tonight asking if he felt that the team he was playing on Sunday was “the real Rangers”. Ronny refused to give the journalist the answer that he wanted.

  2. The Comfortable Collective on

    Surely Tonev playing for U20’s does not count towards his ban of 7 first team games.

     

     

    If that was the case, surely Celtic would simply organise 7 U20 games in quick succession to use up the ban and allow Tonev to be available for first team games.

  3. BIG-CUP-WINNERS on

    Celticrollercoaster

     

     

    the MSM still do smoke and mirrors and confuse our newly blessed zombies :-)

     

     

    ==========================

     

     

    Mr Guidi did that tonight on SSB………

     

     

    Mentioned something along the lines of , Ashley might do something good for the hordes haahaha………

     

     

    Also spoke about Ashley making a TV appearance to placate the Bears. Maybe he could do something along the lines of

     

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p058ChEu3tM

  4. the glorious balance sheet

     

     

    22:51 on 27 January, 2015

     

     

    Petec 2237-

     

     

    Barnes time here might have been short but it was 6 months too long for my liking :)

     

     

    Another example that shows that great players do not necessarily make great managers.

     

     

    I`m sure Ronny is learning all about the forces of darkness that you have to deal with in Scotland. I heard him being interrogated on the news tonight asking if he felt that the team he was playing on Sunday was “the real Rangers”. Ronny refused to give the journalist the answer that he wanted.

     

    _______________________________________________________

     

     

    I watched the link, Ronny is really up for it. He is the Celtic Manager, I want him to be hungry to score a lot of goals.

     

     

    I want Aberdeen and Dundee Utd to be as strong as possible if they Ever make it back, Payback.

     

     

    I might not even get to watch the game, it all depends on the wee mans fitba, I will be wanting them done by 10 goals, although I will settle for 1-0, binary finary.

  5. Celticrollercoaster supporting Shay,our bhoy wonder along the way on

    BIG-CUP-WINNERS

     

     

     

    22:55 on

     

     

    27 January, 2015

     

     

    Firstly, Good evening!

     

     

    Secondly, have you sent me your home address yet re Kano quiz night winners? Your holding up the rest :-)

     

     

    As you know, Big MA does not do public speaking. Guidi is a MSM spiv and idiot!. Sometimes I really worry that these guys actually believe what they say!

     

     

    Look at Newcastle, they hate Big MA and sell out at week in, week out

     

     

    Big MA sports direct ker-ching!

     

     

    HH

     

     

    CRC

  6. Am I the only one dreading Sunday. …the whole place has gone loopy. It’s a football match…no more , no less. I, for one will be absent from media till about 5pm Sunday.

  7. the glorious balance sheet on

    BRTH 2314-

     

     

    I liked the last paragraph. Finally a statement from Ibrox which acknowledges the existence of onerous contracts. But which claims that Sports Direct were the victims of the onerous agreement and that The Rangers/ Sevco 5088/ whatever they`re called were the beneficiaries of the onerous agreement.

     

     

    You really couldn`t make it up.

  8. I’ve never been a hippie or a fan of hippies – so much time, effort and intellect spent in denying the obvious. So of course my favourite moment in Woodstock has got nothing to do with music at all – it is when the heavens open and the chant goes up from the loyal punters ‘No rain, no rain, no rain’. Perhaps that is why I love Chris Graham’s twitter account so much.

     

    Buy a shirt.

     

    Buy a share.

     

    The Gods of Rain are watching our every move.

     

    We are the Gods of Rain.

     

    We are the People.

  9. jude2005 is Neil Lennon \o/ on

    BCW

     

     

     

     

    U got give him 5* for that performance. He reminds me of the Great Soprendo piff paff poof as he goes thru ur pockets!!

  10. Off to bed.

     

     

    Just seen that Kenny Dalglish is promoting 666bet.

     

     

    The slippery slope, is waxed to the max.

     

     

    Anyone that promotes 666 is an antichrist….

     

     

    “Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time.”

     

     

    God Bless all God Fearing people of this World.

  11. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Did Kenny Dalglish really call me a psychopath? Nah, canny believe that.

     

     

    Maybe he meant:

     

     

    psychoacoustic

     

    psychoacoustics

     

    psychoactive

     

    psychoanalyses

     

    psychoanalysis

     

    psychoanalyst

     

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    psychohistorical

     

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    psychotomimetically

     

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    psychotropic

     

    psychotropics

     

     

    Definitely no psychopath:_)

     

     

     

    Ha Ha.

  12. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Well done to Ronny D for treating the BBC reporter with the contempt he deserved. Pity more of our ex-players and managers cant learn from this guy who is just in the door and learning his place at Celtic.

     

     

    Respect to Ronny Deila

     

     

     

    WITS oot.

  13. A Ceiler Gonof Rust on

    Pools is even worse than golf and the less said about bowls the better.

     

     

    Jimmy Forrest to rag doll the huns.

  14. Margaret McGill on

    The raison d’etre of the club that cheated Scotland out of 22 trophies and a billion pounds in a gargantuan effort to bury the memory of the legend that is Jock Stein takes the field against Celtic again on Sunday in the most publicly contrived excuse of corruption in the history of Scottish football.

     

    The longest football history in the world.

  15. Margaret McGill on

    And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from Feb 12th 2012 until now for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our grandchildren …”I’m sorry my grandchildren..but at the time I preferred to have a big dirty protestant cock up my arse. Itzma culture”

  16. its late i know, but i am late in tonight , and dont know the mood of the blog.

     

     

    however,

     

     

    following recent posts, the stuff i read today about the survivors returning to Auschwitz

     

    made me feel, well i dont know what. what must they have felt, then and now.

     

     

    remembers this europe when so many want to demonize now the muslim people.

     

     

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2928081/Almost-impossible-human-mind-comprehend-Hundreds-gather-mark-70th-anniversary-fall-Auschwitz-remember-1-1million-Jews-executed-there.html#ixzz3Q4oFNjFb

     

    Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

  17. Margaret McGill on

    Saint Stivs

     

     

    01:51 on 28 January, 2015

     

    …That what happens when you have only read one book…

     

    The Koran

     

    The Bible

     

    Stig of the Dump….

  18. i dont know whats happened with you this wee while back Margaret McGill

     

     

    but,

     

     

    that response to a post about holocaust survivors was just so low.

  19. Margaret McGill on

    Saint Stivs

     

     

    02:06 on 28 January, 2015

     

     

    Come on..what has changed? Its not happening now?