We have discussed the Craig Whyte narrative here in some detail since October last year when we first suggested he was preparing to liquidate Rangers and attempt a prepack recovery. I expect this to be put into motion today.
You can ignore any meetings Duff and Phelps hold with prospective buyers of the club, this is window dressing. Craig Whyte and his partner company, Ticketus, are the only people in position to make a viable offer for the business. They hold security on the stadium and Murray Park with Ticketus owning the first 26,000 season tickets (approx.) sold for the next three years. It would cost approximately £40m to release Ticketus security plus whatever is owned to Whyte. No one will offer to cover these costs.
Expect Duff and Phelps to conclude their meetings and report that they are in possession of a genuine offer from Whyte/Ticketus, or their proxy, to buy the assets of the company. The proxy may be required as pretty much everyone who has touched this club in recent years would not be considered a Fit and Proper person and would fail the requirement not to be involved with an insolvency within the last five years.
The offer for all assets will be for a nominal amount and will be conditional on all legal action against Whyte or his companies being dropped. Duff and Phelps will accept the offer.
Whyte cannot afford to allow large scale redundancies as he needs to be able to sell these players in the summer or play those he is unable to sell. With the players not agreeing to a short-term cut in pay, he has to make his move now, despite the enormous risks involved in going early.
Duff and Phelps could have made redundancies 24 days ago and ensured the club would be able to finish the season, or at least survive until the tax verdict, but retaining the football squad was an important part of Whyte’s forward plan – and Whyte’s notional offer will have been known to them from the beginning.
HM Revenue and Customs will take a bath for their £75m, Whyte will emerge with all property assets and the football club, although the club will carry the significant burden of selling tickets for Ticketus.
The SPL board will have to vote within the next week on whether or not to allow Rangers Newco to continue with the same league membership as Rangers FC. Whyte will have to take an enormous chance that his proxy will be presentable enough to allow them to turn a blind eye to the enormously inappropriate behaviour.
The vote could go either way but I expect Celtic will be the only club to object.
The issue is complicated by legacy issues. Neither the SPL nor the SFA have acted on the improper registration of players matter yet. If any of the current Rangers team had their current season contracts registered with the alleged improper procedures, games involving those players will have to be awarded a 3-0 defeat to Rangers.
The SPL will have to come up with a verdict on this matter within days or else revisit the matter in a few weeks, after deciding on what to do with Rangers Newco.
The SPL must also consider the issue of precedent, the consequences of enabling a club to disenfranchise a £75m creditor cannot be underestimated.
HMRC may also have an input here. They stand to lose most from this deal and may seek court intervention, arguing that liquidating the company prior to the FTT verdict is unnecessary and prejudicial to their interests.
Issue six of CQN Magazine, the Fit and Proper edition, is set to become a landmark collectors item. You can browse the magazine online here but you can buy your own hard copy by clicking on the link below. Read with 20-20 vision…..
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Saint Stivs on 8 March, 2012 at 13:45 said:
I have been called worse mate!
So Newco would need a 9-3 vote in their favour to get in by that route not bad odds. Mort I dont see Celtic going to court over this. I am pretty sure they will let newco in one way or another maybe with points penalties or whatever but I think thats the way it will go sadly
The 101 clubs ultimately denied licences were refused for a
wide variety of reasons as the charts on this page illustrate.
From the 159 reasons* given for failure, 42% were financial
reasons and 58% other reasons. The most common
reason clubs did not receive licences was process-related
(31 clubs), meaning clubs either did not complete the
application process** or did not submit their licensing
documents within the set deadline. Overdue employee
and tax payments (23) and the provision of annual financial
statements of satisfactory quality, detail and audit opinion
(21) were the other two most common criteria for licences
being refused.
Paul
I bow to your usual knowledge and insight in these matters and echo the cry of others of putting this things into laymen terms.
However I cannot see how the HMRC can be left out of this scenario assuming the of a bystander to ‘allow’ this master plan to come to pass without a hitch. It is my assumption which may be wrong that they have on their payroll some QC’s who are competent and experienced enough to have come across such financial machinations before to avoid tax. Therefore I cannot believe that HMRC will or can even allow this to happen uncontested purely from a reputation/image point of view in the present economic climate. £60m+ tax just cannot be allowed to be avoided in such a high profile way.
In fact today in the High Court D&F (RFCIA administrators) found that their sole claim to the money held by Whyte’s solicitors approximately £3.5m was disputed by HMRC (and others) forcing a trial on 30 March. It the court finds that the money is not ‘owned’ by Whyte there is still going to be legal argument about who then gets some or all of it.
The ‘beartrap’ (no pun intended-eh!) in the Murray/King/Whyte planning must surely always be the HMRC. It wants its tax and/or to frighten others in the football industry. If not it would have just gone for a winding up order. This game is too high profile and as such HMRC must have rehearsed its response to all of the options being branded about if not then a few head’s at Hector would be on the block.
Apart from that the whole financial position at Ibrox is obviously a mess and any take over even a pre-pack would presumably need ‘due diligence’ and take several weeks if not months. Further as anything that even smells of Whyte including any proxy is toxic at present and I cannot see any such move being undisputed. Whtye’s role at best would be ‘king-maker’ by getting the best price for his assets
Let’s say 120,000 worldwide Celtic fans each proffer an average of £500, raising a total of £60M, then form a Green knights consortium.
Buy Rangers and shut the cesspit of indecency, lies, deceit, dishonesty and criminality down for good.
Job done!
Gordon_J backing Neil Lennon
He will have to do it by proxy
Hail Hail
BigChipsUK :
I’d chip in my share.
Celtic Underground @celticrumours
Reports on @huddleboard that Nimmo inquiry gone badly for rangers.
Rumour’s???
Anyone else getting fed up with rumour’s??
Hail hail
Latest from Duff & Phelps
here
St Martin’s Bhoy on 8 March, 2012 at 13:43said:
!
EPL.. is that not also.a two horse race.????
Or a one City race..Manchester.
ASonOfDan on 8 March, 2012 at 13:47said:
And hurting more and more each day….
Jelly?????
Nup.
Is it just me or are Duff and Phelps just feeding the Orcs sugar on top of their S**T
In between meetings here…
falkirkbhoy / Celtic First,
Ross County plans for the seating are well in place – I’ve read several bits about it over the last couple of months…no time at the moment.
ibleedgreenandwhite1 on 8 March, 2012 at 13:59 said:
Anyone else getting fed up with rumour’s??
It was good when it first came out but hasn’t aged that well for me but I still like “You can go your own way”
Mort
Fleetwoodmac.csc
I’ve a hyptothetical postulation to war game with you:
Saying it were to come to pass that The uruk hai were liquidated, their assets hived off by the MBB, or sold to whoever, and end up parachuted into the SPL, leaving the tax man taking a £75milion haircut, what would UEFA think of that in terms of FFP? would we be allowed to play in UEFA competitions? If celtic coted against this brazen fraud, deception and bare faced cheating, would we not be in a position fo saying to UEFA, “hang on a minute here, we’re enitrely blameless in this carve up, we want out of this poisonous wee backwater of a league, let us join the Blue Square in England and let us work our way up”.
Anybody got any thoughts?
What´s pingback ?
googybhoy ♥ Celtic and Integrity on 8 March, 2012 at 13:59 said:
St Martin’s Bhoy on 8 March, 2012 at 13:43said
EPL.. is that not also.a two horse race.????
Or a one City race..Manchester
I hope I don’t incur the wrath of a certain blog host but an article in keeping with your thinking may well appear in a very stylish magazine near you soon but I didn’t tell ye if anyone asks! :-)
Is that the first ever “pingback” on CQN?
Next question – What is a Pingback?
Mort
Pingback is a method for web authors to request notification when somebody links to one of their documents. Typically, web publishing software will automatically inform the relevent parties on behalf of the user, allowing for the possibility of automatically creating links to referring documents.
For example, Alice writes an interesting article on her Web log. Bob then reads this article and comments about it, linking back to Alice\’s original post. Using pingback, Bob\’s software can automatically notify Alice that her post has been linked to, and Alice\’s software can then include this information on her site.
Any idea what a pingback is ?
Grant Russell @STVGrant Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Rangers’ administrators say club does not have to be sold in the next 24 hours, talks ongoing with prospective buyers news.stv.tv
This is getting more and more ridiculous.
I’ll try again :-(
1. Liquidated Club = ALL points wiped out = newco @ bottom of table = relegation to 1st div
2. Liquidated club = all player registrations revert to SFA (SPL?) ownership = Newco has no players
right or wrong ? Somebody? Anybody? Bueller??
Thanks Awe Naw
StevieS
1. Liquidated Club = ALL points wiped out COORECT = newco @ bottom of table = relegation to 1st div WRONG
2. Liquidated club = all player registrations revert to SFA (SPL?) ownership = Newco has no players CORRECT EVEN THE JAMBOES PLAYER
Re: pingback.
Is Pingu Back?
Will Philvis Return Again?
Will Awe Naw’s American cousin, Aww Yeaaahhh, make a shock appearance? (thumbsup)
only read page one, (getting there) so apologies if this has been mentioned before… but…
it strikes me…
if some sharp eyed legal eagle were to have owned a season ticket at celtic park since, let’s say, 1998 when the SPL was formed, and let’s say, index linked, that was worth on average £500 a season, (figures purely for ease of arithmetic) that would be worth £7500 overall. that is no small claims court sum of money.
would said season ticket holder be able to take a test case to court against the SPL to recover the cost of those season tickets, if it can be demonstrably shown that by lack of diligence on the part of the SPL, in applying the rules of their own charter, that those season tickets were not in actual fact for the product that they were sold as being for.
in short, if the SPL find against rangers for massive and fundamental breaches of their membership criteria, but give them a slap on the wrist and embrace newco… does it not effectively negate a contract with the season ticket holder that they would provide a fair competition to spectate?
£7500 may seem like a relatively piddling sum to a mega-coglomerate like the almighty SPL… but as a test case, with, let’s say, 40,000 other similar actions pending… the SPL would stand to be out to the tune of a whopping £300,000,000.
now i don’t know how fanciful that is, but in the interests of fairness, and at the risk of losing their case, would the SPL think twice about warmly cuddling newco if such pressure was applied?
just a thought.
‘four-day trial hearing set for 30th March’
Dirtymac likes this
So, no chance of putting the blockers on Ross County moving up to the SPL, who will have, by the 31st of March, put in place an agreement with the SPL to upgrade Victoria Park (they applied for planning permission at the same time as the orcs applied for administration, hehe).
Cheers AweNaw but why the “no” for relegation? (I’m making the assumption that they would not have time to catch teh team above them)
Philvis Cracked me up. Again! :-)
Is all this fevered activity merely the violent death throws of a headless hydra?
Celtic_First
I neglected to describe the Moth’s story.
She was in earlier times a Temple Priestess, Keeper of the Faith, who was seduced by our Hero and disgraced.
She prayed to the gods to be permitted to visit him at the last, to avenge her disgrace.
In return the gods turned her into a Moth in order that she might spin the thread by which our Hero now hangs.
Thought that clarification might help.
pingback,i knew a lad with sticky-oot ears who had that done. ;-)
ibleedgreenandwhite1 on 8 March, 2012 at 13:59 said:
Anyone else getting fed up with rumour’s??
It was good when it first came out but hasn’t aged that well for me but I still like “You can go your own way”
Mort
Fleetwoodmac.csc
LOL
One question though,,what the hell is a pingback??
Hail hail
philvis
I’m bringin’ pingu back (Yeah)
Them other bhoys don’t know how to act!(Yeah)
I think you’re special what’s behind your back.(Yeah)
So turn around and I’ll pick up the slack!(Yeah)
(Take em’ to the bridge!)
Philvis you Dirty babe…(Uh Huh)
You see these shackles? Baby I’m your slave(Uh Huh)
I’ll let you whip me if I misbehave!(Uh Huh)
It’s just that no one makes me feel this way(Uh Huh)
(Take em’ to the chorus!)
(Uh Huh = Thumpsup)
Hail Hail
The Battered Bunnet
Was it you that stole the contents of my old Holborn tin ?
Very jealous btw ;-)
Hail Hail
Watch out for 2 things:
1. McMoist is with Murray not Whyte. Don’t be surprised if the players now deliver an acceptable cut wage proposition to get them through to the end of the season. This will give Murray more time.
2. Madvlad. He wants out of football. The best way if for newco to be refused and then to liquidate Hertz. He gets £22m site in Embra as secure creditor. To achieve that he has to vote NO. Hope we’re talking to him.
HH
jock tamsom
bloody good idea , it would drum up more media interest
BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking Reply Retweet Favorite · Open
Administrators of #Rangers FC urge players to accept offers of a wage cut in next 24 hours or face redundancies bbc.in/wDvGTW
Is it just me – or does there seem to be a helluva lot of money being spent on absolutely nothing happening?
u