So you buy a business and then find that the entire structure and assets of company are subject to a police investigation, where it is alleged that the assets were criminal acquired. That’s a serious problem, but one which will take several years to manifest. Let’s call that Problem A.
Problem B is that you have also established that the business needs to raise cash. This is an acute problem which will manifest in a matter of months.
What’s the prognosis?
It could be 2018 before a verdict on Problem A, the criminal trial, is reached. If it’s not guilty, there are no consequences. If it’s guilty, the rightful owners of the criminally acquired assets can apply to the court to recover them. This doesn’t mean they will apply, but if they do, it’s highly likely that the court will make the award in favour of the rightful owners.
For our example, the rightful owners are creditors of a failed business, represented by a liquidator. It’s the liquidators job to get as much money for the creditors as possible, and in this instance, HMRC is the creditor with overwhelming influence.
There’s an added complexity. Although none of your directors are contaminated by the criminal investigation, there’s a concern that some of the accused are beneficiaries of shares in the company, or commercial contracts which the company has entered into. In short, the accused have left the stage, but they could still have a considerable financial interest in the success of the business, which may steel the resolve of the most influential creditor, HMRC. HMRC know such tactics well and would be reluctant to allow a convicted criminal to profit from their enterprises.
As far as Problem A is concerned, you have to allow the law to take its course and hope for a not guilty verdict. Should a guilty verdict transpire, you then have to hope to cut a deal with the liquidator (representing HMRC et al) to allow you to continue to retain title to the assets.
If the creditor was malleable, willing to come and go with you, this would be possible. Especially as the liquidator may have the opportunity of pursuing the professional indemnity (PI) insurance of some of the accused, who provided professional services relating to the transaction. Grab the PI money for the creditors and allow you, your shareholders, and the beneficiaries of your commercial contracts, to continue to benefit from ownership of the assets.
A great deal of uncertainty surrounds this, however. You would make it your business to get as close as possible to the liquidator. Make sure there’s no limit to the hospitality on offer, but ultimately, HMRC will decide how matters proceed. It may even be the case that PI money is pursued, and the assets are recovered and put on the market. There will, after all, be an eye-watering level of professional fees to cover.
Problem B is, as I said, more acute. Raising money for a business which is losing money and burning cash is difficult enough, but if there is a possibility the business has been built upon criminally acquired assets, the challenge is herculean.
The criminal trial may not conclude until 2018 (or later), and it could take a couple of years thereafter for the liquidator to petition the court for the assets and then dispose of them. In short, the assets could come back onto the market around 2020.
Problem B is for you to fund a trading deficit until 2018, then hibernate for a couple of years, and bid enough to buy the assets at auction in 2020.
In the short term all you can do is try to convince as many people as possible to become co-investors. Or put the money in yourself, of course (sorry, I know how you feel about that prospect). Then you could shower the liquidator with the kind of corporate hospitality illustrated in The Wolf of Wall St, and hope you’ve got enough credit with them to have them batting for you at the creditors’ meeting.
The prognosis? It’s not the fact that you are possibly trading with criminally acquired assets, or that your entire enterprise could be shut down with the drop of a sheriff’s gavel, that would worry me. There’s nothing you can do about that, so ignore it. The big worry is how raise the £25m to keep the lights on until you discover if you’re business’s founding fathers acted within the law.
Good luck with that.
This is an absolute minefield. No one is in control. Three years ago I suggested the best thing to do was to start from scratch at another location, this is the only way to proceed with certainty.
Share premises in Paisley, or Cowdenbeath or wherever will take you. Hope that you can carry some brand affinity (although clearly you’ll not be able to use any disputed IP, including brand names). Appoint reputable people to your board and get back to doing what you really want to do.
Behold to no one contaminated by the decades of misrule. Cut loose those who hold the onerous contracts. Allow the assets to come back onto the market in due course, knowing that by then you have all the customer goodwill you need to ensure there is no point in anyone bidding against you at auction.
The future will be nothing like the past, but at least you’ll have a future.
Celtic are the first UK club to react to the refugee crisis
“This is absolutely the right thing for us to do. Our club was formed by immigrants, many of whom had escaped the devastation of the great famine.” Tony Hamilton, Celtic FC Foundation CEO.
Proceeds from Sunday’s Jock Stein 30th Anniversary game will go to alleviating suffering of the refugees. The club will appoint a charity with expertise to ensure the assistance is productive.
I know we go on about the Foundation a lot, but it’s the most important part of our club, today and every day. Never let this change.
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Dallas …
When I was a pup I didn’t drift about the chateu, dangerous times, funnily enough I bump into some of the rogues at the shops nowadays, they greet me with fondness rather than a blade now.:)
I suppose with age appeasment follows.
Barracha
Well done, Barra .Used to be friendly with a family from Castlebay, by name McNeil, surprisingly! Lovely people.
Joe Filippis Haircut
Yes indeed. My dear mother always said “It’s all about money.”
How right she was !
Barrach
Just catching up. Get in there the Barra Bhoys!!!
Jmcormick….
Cider drinking will not help,your fitness, you concentrate on the running and leave the cider for me to deal with, hope you had a great holiday
Dallas
Catholic schools were catholic schools for one reason, the “people” didn’t want their kids at the same school as our kids, my daughter asks me what the difference is (she is nearly 7) my answer is nothing !
Sipsini, my dentist is in the Chateau and that’s the only time I’m there when I have a dental appointment.
It certainly appears to have calmed down a fair bit in relation to what it was like when you were growing up.
I was brought up in Drumchapel and like the Chateau, certain parts were be avoided especially up the hill, which was a dangerous place if you didn’t live in any of the streets up the hill.
Not the View’s Average Joe Miller, fine man that he is, stayed up the hill , in the Drum.
I got to know him in the late eighties , we have a few mutual acquaintances, and he’s a good guy.
He has a picture of himself at John Thompson’s grave today.
Congratulations to those who cycled through to Cardenden today on John’s anniversary.
A wee “a”missing in chateau for the pedan(tics) .
Must admit it is surprising how many that post on here originated from the chateau, the bunnet for one and who could forget Tony d … Polar opposites, can’t ever see Tony turn up with purple winklepickers at a doo.:)
The Jam on sky arts.
Gerryfaethebrig
Good evening to you….holiday was great. In terms of fitness, I put on 2 kilos…I did manage 4 runs in Barcelona but they were more than nullified by the wine , beer and food intake!
Looked at myself in gym yesterday and had a wee smile, I could not care less. I had a blast and will get back in shape within 4 weeks, by the way that shape is far from lovely …..but again CGAF !
The things that are going on elsewhere in Europe leave me despairing that I worry about a few kilos ….I am hopeful our club will rise to the challenge and lead the way in our country in the manner of Bayern and Dortmund in Germany.
Incidentally anyone looking for a great apartment in Barcelona and good food guide….am yer man..
Margaret McGinley
Neganon2
The Green Man
No one on Earth tells it how it is. It’s an impossibility.
“Is” is a flighty beast, she changes who she is one second after another so the only way to even begin to tell it how it “is” is if time stops.
So what each of us tells is their personal perception of what “is”. Let’s call it reality.
No two perceptions of reality are the same but in the interests of not being trapped in our own reality we are given this wonderful medium to each share our perception with others and in doing so our view of reality might change if we are persuaded of the sense of the others reality shared with us.
For that we have to put our own reality aside, step outside our perception and listen to others with the view to accepting that our reality or some of it is not how it is.
And even if it is now it might not be tomorrow because of the flightiness of “is”.
The danger of being trapped in time with our reality is that factors that made a matter true at time A may have changed so that by time B the situation at A is no longer true.
To then call that a lie is chasing the unicorn as well as disrespecting the person accused.
If there is strong proof based on facts known as opposed to suspicion; that facts might dispel, then a person could be demonstrated to have been lying. We also have to guard against making the facts confirm or conform with our perceptions when they might not. Testing them with others helps.
In terms of effectiveness I am hardly likely to persuade a listener of the persuasiveness of my case if I know I might be wrongly judged a liar because knowing I’m only presenting my reality, which I hold to be true but being called a liar, tells me the judgement of the person I’m dealing with is faulty in his judgement of me so what does that say about his judgement of the issue in question?
The only folk who then pay attention are those whose perception of reality aligns with our own. That could be many or few but even if many there is no assurance in numbers that the reality of the many “is”.
It came as a shock to many that the Earth wasn’t flat.
McGill not McGinley
Gordon64
Am on it…………now that Strictly has finished.
I read an earlier post which told of the sad passing of former Dundee UTD player Ralph Milne.
From my teenage years I remember Ralph as a superb player, fast and skilful and a big part of a great D UTD team.
Got me to thinking , in a Charlie Nicholas kind of way.
Pity we didn’t buy Dundee UTD players back in the eighties as we do now.
How about this for a line up…
Bonner.
McGrain
Malpas
Narey
Hegarty
MacLeod
Provan
McStay
Nicholas
Burns
McClair
I think that Celtic team would have won the European cup!
Just a thought.
RIP Ralph
Thick as Thieves. Feckin’ superb!
Gerry, your post earlier about the Specials song the boiler , reminded me of what a great song it is about a particularly horrible subject.
When they played it at the Apollo, the lead singer from the support band that night,sung it withso much emotion , the crowd were very quiet and what a round of applause she got when she finished.
Going underground. PW the voice of my generation.
JMCCORMICK
I have enjoyed my visits to Barcelona and am a big fan of Guadi .
That Casa Batlo is my favorite.
I’m in Spain for a couple of months from Oct Costa Del Sol after a cave week near TET and a visit north or even after Xmas when I intend to return might be a possibility if you contact me via Paul.
That awkward moment when Z turns up on the X factor
GORDON64 on 5TH SEPTEMBER 2015 8:43 PM
Going underground. PW the voice of my generation.
——-
I thought that was Roger Daltry. :-)
Sipsini
I had a brief sojourn in the Chateau before escaping to the West Indies after which everything is downhill.
The spine of my office title wining team from scratch was all Chateau built.
JMcormick….
Exactly, I am a little buoy lost this weekend the great love of my life (apart face the wife) is away with my 2 elder sisters in Rothseay, my wee daughter has never been apart from me & her mother for near on 7yrs, I was hoping she would be a weirdo like her father and not go but the shoite went yesterday after school and is having a ball, I am well chuffed for her but as a very very protective do father there are not many people on this earth I would entrust looking after her, the refugee stuff is heart breaking and I think Germany are leading the way, e dry single person on this earth has a responsibility to make somebody else’s life a bit better, am worried about my daughter being looked after while kids are needing looked after (and their mums and dads) apologies for the post but those pictures we are seeing are very disturbing and we all should do something more
LIONROARS67 on 5TH SEPTEMBER 2015 6:45 PM
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/09/finnish-pm-offers-home-asylum-seekers-150905110149687.html
What about Cameron offering Chequers court, the country residence of the prime minster ?
Some right numpties post on here.
Is’nt it not so long ago that, on a mike he did not realise was still turned on, IDS was lamenting on how hard it was to get by on £68,000 let alone take in refugees.
To the guilotine with the whole feckin lot of them.
The Chateau forms part of lower East Kilbride?
Well done to all connected to the Barra Lads.
In celebration I give you this week track from the magnificent sounding Barra MacNeils.
It may not be the right season for it but this is absolutely beautiful singing and musicianship.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZK3H9U56zU
Egg-chasers making a better fist of it than the Sphericals…………..
HT – France 6 .v. Scotland 9!
Dallas
I wasn’t slagging the Specials, my favourite tune as a bhoy was Gangsters even though Ghost Town wasn’t too shabby, my post was about me getting sent to Confession then the tune getting banned, seemingly the single goes for around £20…. It’s yours if your mate or good lady keep me on the right road a week on Monday !
Ray Winstone, thick as thieves was the late John Peel’s favourite Jam song.
Its in my top ten Jam songs .
Looks like this concert is from the Sound Effects tour in 1980.
Set the house Ablaze , na na na
Auldheid you are of course correct in terms of everyone’s reality being different.
But I fear that you are in danger of over complicating the simple.
When Lawwell used to say every penny taken in will be spent on the team he clearly lied. He later changed it to reinvested in the club. When he told us we will get stronger every window he lied.
When Celtic told the support that they didn’t pass our details to the police they later had to change that story. They lied.
When they told us that Glasgow City council had safety fears and were threatening to close down the stadium, the council told us they didn’t. Celtic lied.
Now the thing is I of course can’t say for certain thatceltic were involved in the corruption around the Hun. But the media have called out PL and he has said nothing. It is also, in my opinion, inconceivable that PL and Celtic were not engaged in it. Celtics silence adds to the evidence considerably.
You see the thing is Auldheid the club has recent history of lying and it has done so several times and for sometimes trivial reasons (some not so trivial). I think that shows both disdain and a lack of respect to the support. Add to that the boards behaviour to GB and banning supporters etc then there is no and cannot be any trust.
Many on this site choose to ignore this. In some instances that’s because they can’t abide any criticism levelled at the club. In some it’s for whatever agenda they have.
But ignoring what’s in front of you is very unhealthy.
And while I love an intellectual debate Auldheid, using that to cloud some simple things is an old trick. I watch the SNP do the same with the recent report into sectarianism. Obsufucation of facts is the language of the facist and right wing.
If it sounds like a duck, acts like a duck and walks like a duck it’s a duck.
Just like my wee duckee turkebhoy.
Repost
Right bhoys n ghirls its that time again CQN badges and now CQN cuff links!!!
Please have a look at the following link, myself DOC and CRC have designed the badges n cufflinks (tho my design is obviously bestest :p) anyway have a look and if you like what you see email cqnbadges@gmail.com with design you like and how many etc to register your interest until manufacture and sale :-)
1st two designs are badges and 3rd is cufflinks
https://goo.gl/photos/DtHXqC7jo4ry1CGi6#sthash.6ODckWl2.dpuf
Badges will be £5 and cufflinks £8 (plus postage)
p.s help me beat DOC n CRC to the prestigious honour of TOP CQN BADGE designer\seller hahaha (mines is shamrock design badge ;-) )
HH
Bundoran Bhoy
HT you cheeky imp. How are you amigo ?
Errrrrzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaa………………………………………. CQN badges n cuff links
But they aint 2furra£1.
But they are worth it:-)
Cheers Hamiltontim and BigShuggy
this is what’s overlooking the Castlebay bay right now
https://www.facebook.com/114459491897680/photos/a.160859463924349.39149.114459491897680/1059737407369879/?type=1&theater
if you cock your ear to the west you’ll probably hear the racket coming out of the Craigard right now!
{-)
mon the Barracelona!!!!
HH
Negation jeez take a chill pill amigo. You are going to make yourself unwell. We get it. Just support the hoops.it’s only football for God’s sake. HH
Neganon2
You also missed the attempts of hierarchy at Celtic holding secret meetings with supporters representatives from CSA & The affiliation and possibly others in order to turn the fan base against the GB a few years ago. It took one of The Affiliation who was sickened by these attempts to resign and go public before it stopped. Disputable!!!
The PLC is wholly untrustworthy when it comes to it’s customers. To the PLC we are not supporters. We are a means to a profit.
MWD said AYE
Gerryy, sorry, the typed word can come over the wrong way.
A lot of people forget about the Boiler because it was banned from radio play due to it’s subject.
Your daughter will get a an extra big hug from you when she gets home.
My wife has been working in that section for six months and will be asking you for help. Lol
Bundoran Bhoy, since I am traveling to Bundoran in November with my Mothers ashes it seems right that I order three pairs of cufflinks please.
GORDON64
Watched The Specials then Mrs TGCW came in and said “The X Factur is Owen.” One of these days she might let me wear the trousers but I doubt it.
Not long back from the Irish Association of Celtic Supporters Clubs AGM in Wicklow Town.
Almore spoke very well and as a result the Committee agreed, with unilateral support from the delegates to fully support Dublin2016.
To be honest, I spoke to a large number of people who were delighted that so many are coming over.
The AICSCs will put a link on their website to promote the event, they have approximately 50 member clubs.
Dublin2016@mail.com
HH,
Clogher