It is very good news that Kilmarnock fans have voted to give Celtic three stands for next weekend’s game which will see the league title won if Celtic earn a point. As a result, several thousand more Celtic fans will be able to attend the game and avoid listening to their club being belittled as they watch ESPN.
I hope Neil Lennon continues to speak in forthright terms when his team is undermined.
To read CQN Magazine go to the dedicated site the graphic below is just an overview.
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greenjedi
Today’s RTC offering, just for you …
“WE DON’T DO WALKING AWAY EITHER
03/04/2012
“The more you refuse to hear my voice. The louder I will sing.”
On to more pressing matters: yesterday’s excitement- the deal with Ticketus and The Blue Knights. As the emotional pendulum takes its swing to the other extreme, we will try to place this event its proper context.
For those who wish Rangers to complete a CVA and maintain the continuity of 140 years of history, it is certainly good news. It was one of four major walls that needed to be scaled. However, the other three are much higher.
– Craig Whyte’s Debt & Floating Charge
Even on this board, debate has raged over whether the Ticketus deal would extinguish Craig Whyte’s floating charge over Rangers’ assets. At best it means a knock-down drag out court fight. If Whyte wins, then his only practical way to extract repayment is to force the liquidation of Rangers FC. If he loses this claim, it would be another wall scaled. We would need to see the actual Ticketus contract to place odds on an outcome and neither side have made a convincing argument in public so far.
– Craig Whyte’s Shareholding
Whyte holds all of the good cards as long as he owns 85% of the club’s shares. There are those who say that this transaction can be nullified due to ‘financial assistance’ rules against borrowing against a firm’s assets to buy its shares. They might be confusing debt with equity! While Mr. Whyte now freely admits that he is not a billionaire, I am quite sure that he managed the princely sum of £1 to buy his Rangers shares from his own pocket. Even the SPA (still available on this site) does not offer negation of the contract as a remedy for any failure to fulfill promises. (There is a chance of Whyte’s debt and floating charge being cancelled as a result of certain terms, but these are so loosely worded that it is hard to imagine that they can be enforced). Short of an as-yet-unpublished aspect of the agreement surprising us, it would appear to me that Whyte’s grasp on 85% of Rangers shares should be quite secure. This means that he will demand a price from giving up control.
I am quite sure that Whyte’s treatment from the directors of the old board and the assorted supporter banners blaming him for all of Rangers’ ills will have done little to warm his heart about the need for ‘the big hoose to stay open’.
– HMRC & The Big Tax Case
With about £15m owed in unpaid PAYE, NIC and VAT from just the last year, Rangers are in quite enough bother with HMRC. Then there is the Big Tax Case. Allowing for trimming at the edges, my estimate is that Rangers will owe about £20m in unpaid taxes and about £20m in accumulated interest. With a total of about £55m plus a penalty tribunal still ahead, the only way anyone in their right mind would buy The Rangers FC plc as a continuing entity would be if HMRC were to do a deal that paid them pennies on the pound and forgot all about the penalty (which could add £15-20m more to the bill). Many point to the logic of “something is better than nothing”. This might be true, but this situation is more complex. If Channel 4′s reports are correct and Rangers directors were engaging in activities such as document shredding, it will mean that ill-will to the club will stretch back further than just the arrival of Craig Whyte. If Rangers have been involved in a decade of persistent lying to the government, it could make a deal difficult. A pennies on the pound deal for such a company would signal that paying taxes in-full and on-time is for mugs; the smart money takes advantage of every dubious scheme going and pays a tiny amount even if caught. There is an issue of ‘moral hazard’ in letting Rangers get off lightly.
To assess the odds of Rangers avoiding liquidation you would take the probability of Rangers scaling each of these walls and multiply them together. As any smart 14-year old can tell you, when you multiply numbers smaller than one together you get a smaller number. The arithmetic of this compound probability problem does not favour Rangers’ survival. With one wall scaled already, their chances of survival are not zero either. However, playing the odds, avoiding liquidation does seem improbable.”
Bitter Taste
The bitter taste of years of tainted victory
When you expected sweetness on the tongue
How do you reconcile a life of endless cheating?
A strange thing to want to pass on to your young
The bitter taste of years of smoke and mirrors
A reflection on your dubious actions and deeds
How do you reconcile a life of trickery and illusion?
Without looking to see where it all would lead
The bitter taste of years is catching up with you
Will you look back and repent for what you’ve done
How do you reconcile the destruction of football?
With all those empty trophies and titles you’ve won
Folly Folly – “The more you refuse to hear my voice. The louder I will sing.”
That’s my approach to karaoke too.
It nearly got me glassed when I tried it in the Whifflet. (thumbsup)
phylvis will talking whyte be played by Marty Feldman when the movie version of the rise and fall of the third Rangers comes out post apocalypse and liquidation day.
You mean you can sing as well, Philvis?
Indeed a man of many talents!
Hail, hail.
Paul Murrays plan was a share issue as he does not have “off the radar” wealth of his own. So lets suppose he does get a deal with TicketUs does anyone expect a better share issue than the previous owner got.
I am sure any trust has now gone and the amount of debt will dictate the teamon the park.
PHILVIS RETURNS 0920
How can you be so disparaging towards geckos.
I thought that you worshipped at their feet,and hung on their every word………
Folly Folly – Yes.
They didn’t cast me as “Shepherd # 4” in the 1987 school nativity play just because I look good wearing a tea towel. (thumbsup)
I am NL in NZ Tauranga – I was hoping for a CGI version of our hero in the movie.
A sort of Jar Jar Whyte, if you will. (thumbsup)
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS – Geckos don’t talk.
Unless you mean the one from the Geico advert. And he just wants you to buy insurance. (thumbsup)
PHILVIS
This one.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Gekko
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Not my fault Americans can’t spell,btw. I think the blame for that lies at the feet of Benjamin Franklin.
I am NL in NZ Tauranga on 3 April, 2012 at 09:10 said:
Is Raratonga worth a visit ? Always wanted to go there but missed out last year whilst in NZ. See you’re from Tauranga … Had a few days in Mt Mauganui before heading to Rotorua (loved both).
Thinking about HMRC and the big tax case… given that it finds in favour of HMRC, they have an obligation to extract the maximum they can – How would they recover the greatest amount? A pennies in the pound as part of a CVA wouldn’t seem to gather much, liquidation of the existing club and being at the front of the queue for the asset sale? But what assets can they get to – Am I right in understanding that the stadium, Murray Park and the Ticketus money is out of reach due to CWs ‘redistribution of assets’? I guess that would leave players, but ehy woudl garner what – maybe £10m total? There doesn’t seem much to sell off here for HMRC to get payment… Am I right?
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS – Undoubtedly greed is good, and I can’t help but like 1980’s era Gordon Gekko, HOWEVAH…
His character had become a bit of a bagpuss by the second film. Also I can’t abide a man who would have anything to do with Shia LaBeouf. (thumbsup)
ABZMike on 3 April, 2012 at 09:37 said:
The St Etienne bike, the loving cup and the bottle of lucozade should be worth a few million a piece to interested bears.
Repeating a question from yesterday (sorry if it was answered by the nightshift, I’ve had a quick look but don’t see it)
What’s the reason for the different figures quoted re Whyte’s share of Rangers? I had thought 85%, which is widely quoted, but I was corrected yesterday and told it’s actually 37% – I’ve also seen this lower figure elsewhere.
What is the reason for the discrepancy?
folly folly
cheers
Top of the morning to you all from a wintry Fife where large wet snowflakes are blanketing everything. Hopefully this white-out, which will not last, is not a portent of things to come. We want a Whyte-in for as long as possible.
However all good things must come to an end and in years to come when the movie is made I want Rik Mayall to play Craigie-boy.
I am NL in NZ Tauranga suggests Marty Feldman for the movie version but this suggestion might not prove practical as it has some logistical difficulties not least of which is the fact that he has been dead since 1982.
No I say Mayall is the man to be the man.
Any suggestions for supporting actors for the major roles. Murray might prove a difficult one?
PHILVIS RETURNS 0939
A bagpuss?
That sounds like a bit of an insult to your near-neighours in Oxfordshire.
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http://www.kbsonline.org.uk/
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Not my fault either that people from Oxford can’t spell;blame it on the collective IQ of the city dropping to zero during student holidays.
Ciao ——–
Warm and grey -way down south —–
Yet more corruption in Italian football –
Ex Bari defender lifted and charged in relation to receiving 250 K Euros for his part in throwing a derby game v Lecce. [ 2 people associated with Lecce FC lifted and charged too.] He has admitted to deliberately scoring an own goal. Relevant prosecutor has stated that other players and clubs are implicated in similar scams.
Milan’s trip to Barcelona gets off to a bad start as a wildcat strike by French air traffic controllers delays their flight by hours and hours. Looks like Milan will be able to field a much stronger team tonight.
Auld Neil Lennon heid on 3 April, 2012 at 09:13 said:
An HMRC settlement wouldn’t surprise me either but as you say it would be dangerous for our game if it did happen. However I suspect if this was any other it any deal would be far less likely or championed.
For me all the noise coming from the media & D & D is just that noise. There has been a shady plan from the very beginning with Ticketus (whoever is behind them) being the main part of this whole sham. I suspect we will never find out who might be lurking in the shaddows but I would be very surprised if the next “Fake front man” at Rangers wasn’t whiter the white can be.
You’ll get the oh how very dignified line peddled from the media with no mention of how we truly came to this point & who’s dirty money actually came to the rescue.
However whatever happens to them in a financial sense whether it’s armageddon or they wriggle their way out of this. One thing that they surely can’t avoid is the blatant disregard of fair play (two contracts). However even avoiding proper punishment with this wouldn’t surprise me, as the corruption in our game/society never fails to stagger me. All you have to do is look at recent photos of McCoist with Brown & McCall to see the order of things.
SPARKLEGHIRL
My apologies.
I was the idiot who mentioned 37%
I incorrectly thought that your question about “the majority shareholder” referred to ourselves,and to DD in particular.
I feel like a bit of a choob,TBH,but no need to fret.
I have a lot of experience in dealing with that!
Again,sorry for misleading you.
Big Nan
Wan of the Oompa-Loompas could pay SDM with their Orange skin but would have to dye their hair.
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 3 April, 2012 at 09:19 said:
There is a much stronger argument that I just remembered and that is any HMRC deal on the basis I presented could arguably be said to be the equivalent of state aid.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/264&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en
Celtic are aware of this angle and thanks for the reminder, too much info for mt auld heid to hold nowadays/.
Auld Neil Lennon heid on 3 April, 2012 at 09:13 said:
(first paragraph should have read)
“An HMRC settlement wouldn’t surprise me either but as you say it would be dangerous for our game if it did happen. However I suspect if this was any other club then any deal would be far less likely or championed.”
BOBBY MURDOCH’S CURLED-UP WINKLEPICKERS on 3 April, 2012 at 09:49 said:
Thank you, I think. But after your post yesterday I went a-googling and was sure I’d seen 37% quoted elsewhere. I can’t see it now though.
Whyte doesn’t actually say he will walk with nothing, he says he will walk, but he wants paid.
“”But I am willing to walk away if it is for the good of the club. I wouldn’t make anything out of it.
“I have £30million in cash and guarantees on the line but I would walk away if it is best for Rangers.”
.
VHman..
Got email Yaldy Yaldy Yaldy..
Yir a Guid Un..
001Bhoy
Criag Whyte owns 85% of Rangers shares. That’s what he got for his £1. Although I’m just waiting for someone to pop up and say that he lent Whyte the quid so the club is really his.
Celtic U19 semi final win
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S81eGR76yE
SPARKLEGHIRL 0952
My Mum always told me never to contradict women.
She’s always right.
Even when she isn’t,there’s no way I’m brave enough to mention it.
Celtic top in the Orange Lodge in Kilwinning-nae bother. Argue with my Mum-whit,d’ye think I’m daft?
I’m pretty sure RTC quantified it at 85.3%
If you read the Scotsman interview with Hugh Adam,where it mentions that each share was valued at £3.45 a few years earlier,that meant RFC were worth about £460m at that time.
Some difference,all overseen by Mr Murray.
Tried using the link creator, it didn’t work…….
AULDHEID 0951
Too much of that intoxicating Ayrshire ozone!
The state aid angle is a good one,and I’m sure the board are leaving every avenue open.
BTW,my uncle used to own that big white farmhouse halfway up the hill from Butlins as you approach the Heads of Ayr.
Jee-zoh,needed an oxygen mask when we went to visit!
Sky News reporting that price of Ice Cream set to rise by 10% this summer.
No news as yet regarding Jelly prices.
Mmm
Geckos on the blog —
It’s springtime -way town south . Lizards lounging, birds chirping , butterflies fluttering , large flocks of migrating birds in the sky.
The Geckos aren’t out yet —– it isn’t hot enough at night . When it is , my house will become home to lots of geckos . My 2 dachshunds love to try and catch and eat them . They rarely succeed .
Favorite hang out spot for Sicilian geckos is behind the lights above cash machines . The lights [ and a steady supply of human blood ] attract swarms of flies and mosquitos . The flies and mosquitos attract geckos..
Geckos are called Geckos because they make a sound which sounds like Gecko – Gecko .
Off to plant some cacti .
tigertim on 3 April, 2012 at 09:53 said:
Whyte only used £1 of his own money.
The rest of the money came from Ticketus.
Whyte presumably gave some form of guarantee or security to Ticketus.
If he can be relived of that undertaking he will walk away.
Maybe he won’t take anything from the sale.
Maybe he’s already had his cut from the Ticketus money.
Perhaps a management fee, an introduction fee, a fee for professional services and advice rendered for setting up the deal.
Some way or other he’ll have made a substantial profit.
And it would take a heart of stone to begrudge him his money, in view of the entertainment he has provided us all.
Blue Jeans and Moonbeams…
Chris McLaughlin @BBCchrismclaug Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Being told that Blue Knights deal with Ticketus not signed and sealed yet. Discussions continue. #Rangers
Oh dear and the Auld Triangle went jingle jangle..
Let me get this right so,
Tickle Us are delighted to announce the chance to take 10 million over 10 years with no payments for 2yrs – all for lending someone £24m up front.
* no giggling at the back*
Can anyone tell me if the rumour is true about another late bid being put together from the Glasgow Consortium of LordLorne of Brigton Sausage Knights. I think Jangle is holding back for a four page spread exclusive tomorrow.