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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wishawtim
As a PLC, the SPL have articles of association that have to be followed to the letter. If they deviate from these, even slightly a shareholder can take a case against them for acting ultra vires the articles (i.e. not following them correctly). Celtic is a shareholder in the SPL and if there is anything underhand, we could sue.
Mort
The difficulty in expecting the Football Authorities to act in the interests of the integrity of the game, is, that neither they, nor the periphery interested parties, i.e., the media, have EVER acted within those guidelines.
To do so now, would mean that they will have to adopt a position contrary to their norm, rather than employ what should have been common practice.
As stated ad nausem, it is what Celtic does that is vital from here on in.
Just found this, its from a rag so don’t shoot the messenger.
“As it is, should Rangers go into liquidation, a 10-1 majority of all member clubs would be required to vote a newco into the top division, although the SPL board and the SFA would also be required to give assent.”
So if that is correct it is the clubs and NOT the board that cast the votes.
Also never knew that Ralph Topping was CEO of William Hill so with the betting firms association with the SFA could that go down as conflict of interest?
So the scenario exposed in Paul’s article is the real reason that the MBB moved like greased lightning 24 days ago to get Duff and Phelps in as the Administrators?
It was all planned this way.
This stinks to the high heavens!!!
philvisreturns
Cheers!
I can eat my lunch alot happier now… :)
We were the people?
They have declared for decades they are the people.
This arrogant statement of superiority with its tentacles reaching into the political and societal areas of Scotland makes the solving of their problems so much more difficult.
Some of the people may now be wishing they were ordinary people with an ordinary business going to the wall because this would make the path to their demise or reincarnation so much easier to execute
Now their infamous role as cheats within the fabric of Scottish society has made the administrator’s job to find a saving solution impossible
Liquidation is there only option and rising from the ashes in another guise is not a given either if as I expect litigation will strangle any formation of a newco in the short to medium term.
We may even be witnessing the death without resurrection of RFC
For those talking of Celtic resigning from SPL. I don’t think it will happen because Celtic FC is a PLC and th Board are responsible to their shareholders. If Celtic FC resigned from SPL without a destination to go to then it would be our directors in court for failing to protect the interests of the PLC’s shareholders.
Forget it. It ain’t going to happen.
Kraljski
I reckon the media believed that there would be a unanimous vote from the member clubs on this issue.
If it is down to the clubs initially then there is no chance Celtic will say yes.
Dundee United – stiffed for cash from Rangers when they need it
Hibs – Petrie talked of sporting integrity
Aberdeen – hate Rangers
Hearts – Romanov is a loose canon
Dunfermline MIGHT vote no if they will go down – Yorkston is a Rangers apologist afterall.
St Mirren – well run club – who knows?
The other teams?
Likely to be Rangers’ boys especially Motherwell, St Johnstone and Kilmarnock
A restructuring might be on the cards – we should say to Aberdeen, Hibs, Hearts and United – lets break away and make a new top flight and invite some of the division 1 teams in.
Not viable at all but better than a discredited league.
Am I right in thinking Paul Murray’s entire business plan is based on that dodgy site that I alone have pledged about £250,000 to.
LOL!!
god bless her majesty
Yes Mort, but I still think they can change the Articles by a majority vote. Not quite sure what majority is needed – which may be crucial to thwart newco
s , revenue & customs
My head’s hurting with all of this. I’m away to lie down.
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Rangers’ players have been warned that ‘significant redundancies’ will be made unless an agreement can be reached on wage cuts with the administrators.
Discussions over proposed staggered reductions in salaries – from 75 per cent for the highest earners, down to 50% and 25% – broke down on Tuesday evening without an agreement being reached but will resume on Friday in the hope of finding common ground.
The Ibrox outfit’s admininistrators Duff and Phelps were at the High Court in London on Thursday in a bid to secure £3.6million held in an account belonging to club owner Craig Whyte’s London-based solicitors as they look to secure the finances to help the club fulfil their remaining fixtures.
But Mr Justice Warren was told that a number of other organisations – including HMRC and Ticketus – had staked a claim on chunks of that cash, with a four-day trial hearing set for 30th March when lawyers will make arguments on behalf of organisations claiming funds.
David Whitehouse, co-administrator of Rangers, confirmed outside the High Court that there were a number of interested parties interested in buying the stricken Scottish Premier League club.
But with a significant delay in recouping the funds they were hoping to lay claim to on Thursday, he admitted it was no imperative that an agreement was reached with the playing staff, with the prospect of liquidation raised just 24 hours earlier.
Funding
Whitehouse told Sky Sports News HD: “Our position at the moment is that we are still in negotiations with the players. The players know what needs to be done if we can deliver that funding gap purely by wage reductions.
“We have also been speaking to interested parties over the last two days to gauge the extent of which we can bring those discussions forward to try and deliver an earlier sale of the business in a timetable which would minimise the level of redundancies which would need to be made.
“We are going to have a discussion tomorrow (Friday) with the players when we know what timetable we can work with and we can determine what level of redundancies would need to be made.
“We are still hopeful that the players can deliver what they were hoping to deliver on Tuesday evening.
“We need to know we’ve got an on-going funding structure, otherwise we will make what are quite significant redundancies among the playing staff.”
When questioned over the interested parties involved in buying the club, he added: “There are a number, we don’t want to go into detail.”
So where are we now?
Who owns the money in the bank.
A few things.
Firstly, whether Craig Whyte, HMRC, Paul Murray or anyone else had a cunning plan to begin with, it is clear that we are now off piste and all of the above are left trying to fudge together and make the best of a bad situation.
Secondly, when asked whether Rangers going bust is a good thing in front of reporters, the SFA, SPL and anyone else with good sense is of course going to say “no, that would be a disaster, cannot be allowed, do everything possible to avert etc.” Try not to read too much into this.
Thirdly, Celtic fans have been telling the world that the SPL would be fine without Rangers for weeks. We are now supposed to tell them that the SPL must bend to our will or we will crush it with an away game boycott. Does not compute.
That’s it from me.
Celtic should buy Portsmouth and merge the two clubs and move the home games to Celtic Park.
The new name being
Celtic PLC
PLC standing for Portsmouth Liquidated Club.
Those cheeky Geordies love us….
Is Forster Set To Ruin His Career At Celtic?
By Nu Mad
Updated Thursday, 8th March 2012
Despite Alan Pardew reminding us that the Scottish Premiership is the worst league in world football … Toon goalkeeper Fraser Forster is set to throw away his career!
Celtic have opened contract talks to keep Forster at Parkhead on a permanent basis.
However, what Newcastle boss Pardew described as “a two-team league”, has sunk even further down the shitter.
What with Rangers close to going to the wall, the position is desperate, making it a “one-team league”.
Tims chief executive Peter Lawwell wants a deal sorted, although the goalkeeper has been hedging his bets hoping an English club would make an offer.
I may be being simplistic here, but if a pre pack “newco huns” takes on the old huns position in the league is this not a tacit admission that they are one and the same company. This would leave them open to inheriting not only the assets of the huns but their liabilities also. Surely a semicompetent lawyer would be able to argue that by taking on the huns league points, position and fixtures they should be treated as legally the same company despite any liquidation/phoenix event?
Or am I missing something here?
Sannabhoy looking forward to seeing you this evening for a small infusion of falling down water.
Breaking Bad Wannabes!
James Forrest was good enough to copy series 1 – 4 of Breaking Bad for me and I have now finished them (slightly disappointed I have to say given the hype!)
Anyway I’m happy to return the favour and send them on to someone else. First person to email me at dougtelfer at hotmail dot com gets them…..
In the worse case scenario: Celtic refuse all co-operation with the Scottish football authorities and withdraw from SPL will this not then become a UEFA issue?
Particularly so considering our qualification into the Champions League…maybe forcing UEFA’s hand would be our best if not our last tactic in this sorry situation?
Celtic_First
I think I replied to you on Sunday on a similar topic?
Anyways, remember the old Deus ex Machina scenario? Well, here we are:
Our Hero is in mortal danger, hanging by a single thread above the abyss.
A beautiful though deadly moth sits upon the thread, knawing it gently.
The thread is tied to the cracked branch of an overhanging tree.
The tree was partially uprooted by a recent storm.
High up in the tree is a beautiful golden pear.
A large bear has noticed the beautiful pear, but not willing to climb into the tree for fear of falling into the abyss below, is instead shaking the tree vigorously, hoping that the fruit will fall into his greedy paw.
Over to you to design the god that saves our Hero from his doom. It’s beyond my imagination :¬)
TBB
The real problem with a newco huns beig allowed straight into the SPL isn’t that it’s showing an unfair advantage to one club, it’s that it destroys the integrity of the entire structure and all the members of the league.
Indeed, the whole thing was meant to happen thus as soon as they were rumbled for their years of wrong-doings.
They appointed friendly administrators to ensure that their own script was followed to the letter behind a smokescreen of side-shows.
As soon as it became evident that they would not win the SPL they volunteered to take the 10 point deduction, believing at that point that they would still finish 2nd and qualify for European football next season.
They took the opportunity to “shake the tree” and rid themselves of some of the dead wood and fruit that would never ripen.
As soon as it became evident that they are actually unlikely to finish 2nd they volunteered to forgo European football until such a time as they have re-established a team capable of actually competing even at a basic level in that arena…
And in this step they are about to also voluntarily take the opportunity to wipe out their debts and shake themselves free of the financial constraints that would otherwise cripple them for years to come.
They will liquidate and re-emerge as the same entity with a nominal change to their legal company name.
They will be admitted straight back into the SPL.
They will carry on as if nothing ever happened, financially stonger than ever before.
They will continue to win trophies with the assistance of strange decisions and honest mistakes.
And we will all be left to whistle for our stolen taxes, with the added insult of knowing that we paid with our own hard-earned money for them to cheat our club out of all those trophies and all that extra European income.
Of this I am sure.
PAUL money missing here there and everywhere . could this maybe turn up in a warchest sometime . They have got away with everything else .
jimtim
googybhoy ♥ Celtic and Integrity on 8 March, 2012 at 13:37 said:
Those cheeky Geordies love us….
GoogyBhoy – you should try living among them. If ignorance is bliss they are one contented bunch!
wishawtim
To change the articles requires a special resolution which requires 75% majority.
It’s possible but in the timescales it will be pretty obvious what they are doing and if a shareholder objects he can bring a derivitive claim against the company citing unfair or prejudical treatment of a minority shareholder.
Mort
All those advocating that Celtic resign from the SPL ………
Go to Parkhead and ask the admin staff (no, not THAT admin staff), the cleaners, ground staff, NL, Players etc. if they want that.
If Rangers Newco got into the SPL, what about, say, three or four clubs (Hibs, Aberdeen, Hearts, A N other(s) simply refusing to play Rangers. Ask the fans to pay a bit more for tickets to other games to make up for the loss. What could the SPL do? What fun that would be.
Watching the Barca game last night reminded me that in the 1920s the Spanish government shut down the club for about six months, because they regarded them as some sort of threat.
The fans kept the club going by donating money. They used to walk out to the Nou Camp on Sundays and hand over what would have been their ticket money.
Look how they ended up.
Dougie Bhoy on 8 March, 2012 at 13:41 said:
Breaking Bad Wannabes!
pirates ra lot of you.
;-)
Owen:
Common sense, intelligent simplicity, enlightened sagacity…call it what you will…is rarely ever considered when it comes to the law or the absurd machinations of the financial world…nothing would surprise me when it come to the esoteric hand manipulations of committee men in suits.
Get Fergus on the phone to make an offer to Duff & Phelps.
Anything from old Nimmo Smith and the SFA as yet?
If they were to rule that Whyte is not a fit and proper person, how would that affect Newco plans?
chasbhoy on 8 March, 2012 at 13:43 said:
If Rangers Newco got into the SPL, what about, say, three or four clubs (Hibs, Aberdeen, Hearts, A N other(s) simply refusing to play Rangers. Ask the fans to pay a bit more for tickets to other games to make up for the loss. What could the SPL do? What fun that would be.
============================================================
Forgot to add Celtic (big riddy).
From FF.
Encouraged by a mass media which panders to their psychoses, the Celtic-minded hordes are whipping themselves into a frenzy of retribution and vindictiveness. Business professionals and lawyers spend hour after hour on websites and blogs scrutinising the minutiae of Rangers’ use of EBTs from every conceivable angle. The rank and file concoct evermore fanciful scenarios of punishments that should be meted out to Rangers FC. In stark contrast to the orgy of hatred accompanying Rangers’ current problems, it is worth noting that in 1952 the club defended Celtic when it was under threat of expulsion from the SFA due to its refusal to comply with an order from city magistrates to remove the Irish tricolour from the main stand.
From the Celtic boardroom to Baird’s Bar, all sense of perspective has been lost and the wider ramifications to Scottish football and, indeed, Scottish society, have been completely overlooked. This is not normal behaviour and these are not normal people.
googybhoy ♥ Celtic and Integrity
The fact he refers to ‘Tims’ says it all. He will be hurting today about rangers.
LOL!
Both Paul and BRTH make fascinating reading as do many of the other complex scenarios of others.
Quite frankly I struggle to follow the labyrinthine possible outcomes of the ongoing farce that is Rangers FC and I don’t believe anyone can accurately forecast the eventual outcome but I do know with certainty one thing.
The one thing that is absolutely certain is that whoever ends up with Rangers 2012, The Rangers, Rangers Newco, or whatever they are called and in whatever division they play in is guaranteed to have inherited a gilded turd for their troubles.
The people who attach themselves to the Rangers will always behave as they have done in the past and the times of their biggest triumphs on the field will be accompanied by disaster off the field in the towns and cities that host the Hun hoards.
Newcastle 69, Barcelona 72, Manchester 08 will be repeated and worse.
Why would anybody want such a legacy and prospect?
When they win they lose and when they lose they lose.
ASonOfDan on 8 March, 2012 at 12:45 said:
I can’t see it either. Maybe McCoist was on the sauce when someone said to him ” HMRC don’t do walking away” and he said “that’s a great line, I think i’ll use it”
gsu