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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Well so much for being a sporting occasion the police telling the Celtic players not to over celebrate if they score on Sunday.Also the fans should not sing chant or cheer as this may upset supporters of the deid team. However,I am willing to bet my mortgage that the huns support sing there bigoted songs about fenian blood and many others and of course I blind eye will be turned.So much for equality in this wee bigoted country. H.H.
They believe they can shut Celtic up…by sending the polis….think about that for a moment.
Freedom of speech has been removed….good eh.
Shhhhh
HH
Anyone smart enuff going to the game on Sunday…be street smart…..if it comes to it …..give b4 given…..;-))
H.H.
Postie just delivered Inter tickets. From other CQN posts it sounds close to a full house….canny wait!!!
HH GMB
Masty. I think he has had a clutch on the nether region for some time now. I am curious about Paul`s comment on Ibrox specifically.
Regards to Tony.
JJ
So in summary this is bad news for Rangers?
Sunday’s game could have severe psychological consequences on the Bears.
It’s likely they will blame us. All they had to do was start a new club and rent Hampden. Why did the blue brogue bear billionaires club or whoever no just say we are a bunch of rogues but don’t buy the Charlie Green snash?
They must have been duped as well. After all Mr Angry and the oldest young manager sold the tickets.
How does it feel Ally and Walter. A metaphorical sore backside from getting it.
Old karma again. A living purgatory for serial cheats.
Auldheid
13:24
Will do, though we are particulary looking for accounts of historical Institution Sectarianism from Police service, press etc.
As far as I know only the church os Scotland has ever came out and apologised for it’s anti catholism. Came across a few adverts in old copies of The Herald that make your jaw drop but civic scotland is harder to find any examples of religous discrimination.
Back of the bus timmy
jj
will let him know ..
The polis I imagine would have attended as a matter of course to both clubs, if you listen to how the papers portray it, well we haven’t really learned anything!
Ayrshire is Green and White
Does anyone have any evidence to support the claim that the police visited Lennoxtown and requested Celtic players to do as has been claimed? Anyone?
JJ
The Green Man @ 13.41
I dont know if you seen it or not but there was a report last week…
a very very small one mind, that Sevco owed police scotland 48K for this season…
they let them off without paying it.
this was tax payers money.
LurkinTim, deleted. Yellow card.
Margaret McGill, chill. Complaints flyin’ in about you too.
Am I right in saying that Celtic have not lost a goal in domestic matches since before Christmas at Tannadice?
Amazing stat that for the sieve.
LB
Greenwells Glory
13:06 on
27 January, 2015
Hi Ghuys, Salve salve;- Auschwitz Liberation day :- never forget.
I have read many books on the holocaust and a couple of years ago fulfilled a long held ambition and visited Auschwitz I will never forget it.
For a definitive book n the subject, The Holocaust by Martin (now Sir Martin I believe Gilbert.
For the best dramatic interpretation of life in Auschwitz this :-
The Grey Zone
Warning, this will move you.
Greenwells.
Sunt lacrimae rerum et mentem mortalia tangent.
>>
Primo Levi – if this is a man
Paul67
What about the floating pitch?
bournesouprecipe
13:53 on
27 January, 2015
Paul67
What about the floating pitch?
——————————————————
it sank.
Its like when we used to play football as 12 yr olds…against 12 yr old huns.
Naw…rat wizny a goal….ye took too many steps.
Naw..nae goal…it was a foul
Naw…im taking ma baw back…youze fenians ur cheets
HH
unfortunate we have to play this mob to reach a cup final.
I really hoped they wouldn’t make it to this day again.
its not the same team but the same rancid support.
is there anyway we could be rid of all of them forever…
aye…a ten nil scuddin on sunday will see to that.
Paul67
Any more transfer news expected ?
Or we in for another underwhelming window…
Eh? Deleted…..why…..which post? I apologise for any offence, but please help me, which post is so offensive?
H.H.
Jamesgang, just how does Sashley make more money from Rangers than he will currently by getting to the champions league?
Champions league has approved sponsors. SD not one of those.
What’s this I’m hearing, about anti-hun propaganda (i.e., telling the truth) appearing on noticeboards at the Glasgow Caledonian University campus?
Miss Tally attends that educational establishment, and returned there yesterday for the start of the second term.
Will need to ask her tonight if she knows anything about this!
HH!!
theunseeneducatedfenianhandCSC
rt rev david hay
Im astounded at their cheating…..its way beyond a joke.
HH
Just spoke to a poor sevco soul there and informed him that the next time Mr Ashley addresses them the proper response now is “SHAKIN IT BOSS”
He never took it well :))))))))))))))
The postie has just delivered my inter ticket, accompanied by a police man.
He said it’s to make sure I don’t receive the tickets in a provocative manner.
It’s true because I made it up myself.
Paul,
please e-mail me – am astonished i got a coloured card, not happy
H.H.
rt rev david hay
13:55 on 27 January, 2015
unfortunate we have to play this mob to reach a cup final.
I really hoped they wouldn’t make it to this day again.
its not the same team but the same rancid support.
is there anyway we could be rid of all of them forever…
aye…a ten nil scuddin on sunday will see to that.
—
Heard it best described as Different “Jobby” same flies .
Till later all
Ps I dont think Mash has finished with them yet,
joe filippis haircut
13:12 on 27 January, 2015
I’m the same…..terrible, terrible atrocities…man’s inhumanity to man
“please e-mail me – am astonished i got a coloured card, not happy”
Lurking,
Who do you think you are? Benedict Cumberbatch? :))
What’s P67 email? Any1 tia
H.H.
TheLurkinTim
Accept your booking….or you will be up in front of the beaks:)
HH
Livibhoy,
What’s that you say??
You wanting some stats on the sieve do ya???
;)
Celtic knock back £3 million for Ambrose from Olympiacos and his contract runs out next season ?! Really ? Ambrose must have really good training sessions.
Greenwells Glory,
I appreciate that you may have good reason to mention the holocaust on the blog but for someone like me who has no real connection with it other than from a historical point it does get too much. The BBC site has a constant affinity with articles regarding it put out on a monthly basis and the education system has a large proportion of the history & modern studies curriculum on it. There are also many shows on a daily basis as well as the annual seasonal remembrance shows on most popular channels. I sometimes think it as though there is a very rich Zionist lobby with a raison d’etre to push constant reminders to over shadow and forsake the human suffering inflicted on Palestinians and others in the current world as opposed to a time in past.
Please take no offence but I know I am not only person who thinks this. Meantime, Channel 4 are making a comedy about the Irish Famine / British genocide. Would like to see out cry if even the thought occured for the holocaust. Just a thougt.
Geordie.
Mine hasn`t arrived yet……just the policeman. I was quite annoyed. I said to him; ” Haven`t you got better things to do……..at Lennoxtown? ”
JJ
Joe Filippis Haircut
13:12 on
27 January, 2015
Salve salve; – Sorry to be so tardy in my reply, I would advise you to make the visit, to Auschwitz , the sadness and sorrow you will feel there will completely overpower any anger you feel and will only serve reinforce your humanity. Take the walk through the gas chamber where so many died see the ovens where the bodies were burned, close your eyes feel and smell imagine the terrible screaming and pray that it never comes again. More than anything else, the sheer scale of the place will overpower your senses. Remember, the more people who go and see such places the less chance of them ever being rebuilt.
As an aside, Cracow is a beautiful city with very friendly people and a visit to the salt mines will truly amaze you.
Greenwells.
Pax.
Another version of the snake……just for sevco
http://youtu.be/XfCAejc35GQN
Geordie,
no, am astonished that anything I’ve posted is so bad…. am curious is all….;-))
H.H.