I thoroughly enjoyed Chris McLaughlin’s interview with Our Hero yesterday; there is so much to digest. It’s tempting to explore the information that in October last year Craig Whyte informed SPL chief executive and chairman, Neil Doncaster and Ralph Topping, that Rangers were very likely to go into administration and that a CVA was likely to fail.
Was this assertion shared with other SPL board members or did Doncaster and Topping keep it to themselves as they pretended all was well while preparing to change the rules to allow a Newco access to top flight football? There is a whole ocean of duplicity here as fans were kept in the dark while being asked to accept revolutionary changes.
Unsatisfied creditors who extended credit after this date, from HMRC down, will all be fascinated by this admission. As will liquidators BDO.
Tempting thought this question is, I’ll leaving it hanging for now. There is a more intriguing topic.
When asked how much profit he made on his Rangers venture Whyte said, “Any arrangements I made with the purchaser [Green] are confidential.”
The BBC headlines from yesterday, proclaiming that Whyte “brought Green in to buy Rangers” points to the most important matter. While Duff and Phelps were busy using creditors money to try to sell the business, Craig Whyte realised he was the Only Game in Town, and operated a parallel sales process. He had security over the stadium and it therefore didn’t matter who else entered the bidding for Rangers.
No matter what deal they put in front of Duff and Phelps. The Blue Knights, Bill Miller and Bill Ng would never in a position to pull a deal together as Whyte agreed a deal with Charles Green.
It doesn’t really matter if Green had any prior relationship with Whyte or if they were brought together by Whyte’s contacts in London (which both seem to agree on). Whyte had a price to hand over his shares (likely to be £1) and his security over the stadium (this is the interesting bit) and Green met it.
The Blue Knights thought they had a deal, so did Bill Miller, but neither had the stadium. Having secured agreement with Whyte, only Green could deliver a deal; no matter how little was on the table for creditors. Duff and Phelps subsequently accepted £5.5m for the assets of the club, the highest deliverable bid received. The only bid from the population of one who had secured use of the stadium.
Which brings us back to the heading at the top of the page, “Any arrangements I made with the purchaser are confidential.” Agree, Craig, this is not something you want to discuss openly.
This statement came in response to Chris McLaughlin asking how much of a profit Whyte made at Rangers. A more reserved interviewee would have dismissed the question by saying something like “No one but Duff and Phelps made money out of this one”, but our Craig was in full flow by this stage of the interview.
With a glint in his eye he confirmed a deal was done. Forget all the adjectives you’ve heard about the man over the last year, “stupid”, “dumb”, “clown”, this clown gave Ticketus a personal guarantee for circa £24m, put the man who agreed to his terms in place, and then made a profit out of the deal.
I’ve no idea who owns the stadium (could be Green, Whyte or Whyte senior) or what consideration passed for it when Green and Whyte put pen to paper, but this is the crux of the entire deal. Did Craig Whyte secure his profit by signing over the Ibrox security for free, did he sell it to Green at an undisclosed price or does he retain an earn-out interest in the property – and, therefore, ultimately the Newco.
It remains to be seen what liquidators BDO make of the confidential deal between Green and Whyte. Will they see the stadium asset exchange as being in the best interest of creditors or as a deal against creditors’ interests? I hear Charles Green yesterday claimed the company’s property assets were worth in the region of £80m. I’m sure HMRC were taking notes.
Is there anyone left who believes that all Craig Whyte received in exchange for passing the keys of Ibrox to Green was £1? Maybe Mr Green will be keen to explain ahead of his share issue, just to clear up where working capital is going.
There is a great Tribute Night for Pat McCluskey coming up at the Supporters’ Club on London Road next Friday, 26th October. Frank McAvennie and top comedian, Pat Rolink, are both speaking after a three course meal. Cost for the event is £40 per person. The Club holds around 200 people and I hear there are only a small number of tickets available from Pat Rolink on 07905 174275.
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(thumbsup)
Hiyall
Liars
Amazing philvis. ;-)
Celtic_First – Yes, Manos: The Hands of Craig was a strange and unexpected cut.
I put it down to amateurism on the part of the Beeb team though. Mr McLaughlin wasn’t on top form so maybe the camera crew weren’t their best and brightest either. (thumbsup)
Mon Wee Oscar!
T4
Che
12:26 on
18 October, 2012
jungle jam67
absolutely, and by running the club/company at a £4m loss they were actually more financially astute than the previous and possibly current regimes,
Give it back to D&P I say
They knew what they were doing.
Philvis
My cap is once again well and truly doffed, I have no idea how you do it, but you now have more podium finishes than Michael Schumacher.
Paul67
Check your room for webcams this cant be down to good fortune every other day!
C_F
Are you suggesting I’m Chloe Smith? :¬)
The Sevco business model is ‘unorthodox’. No new business, provided it is well capitalised, should be reliant on external investors to support cashflow within months of start up.
No one has explained why Sevco needs to float so quickly.
Or indeed, why they need to at all.
The smart play would have been to run the business at a profit while they climbed the leagues, and float when they were promoted to the top flight, thus allowing the original investors to get out with a profit in the manner of Fergus McCann.
Doing so now, thus diluting the original investors, when the company oughtn’t need the money, suggests they were not adequately backed in the first place, or there is an undeclared need for cash.
And that’s all the Secretary of State has told me, as of lunchtime today.
Jungle Jam
I am unsure what BDO will be doing once they are in position. They may not be at all interested in D& P, and it might take a formal complaint from a disappointed creditor to the appropriate professional body before there is any kind of formal investigation.
My point is that the relationship between Whyte & D & P is controversial and the BBC has all the relevant evidence to prove this. I cannot believe that any broadcaster would take the risk of impugning the integrity of a firm like D & P without being sure what they were saying was true.
And yet the duffers walk away with £3million for stitching up the admin. and the creditors still have zero….apart from the odd sop or two flung towards a couple of clubs.
Who will get the juicy admin. bidness I wonder when the newcon goes under?
Just_a_Bhoys_game – Amazing philvis. ;-)
Tis but the work of a moment. (thumbsup)
Surely, you would think, in the prospectus for the share issue, all the owners of ALL assets would be listed. Who would buy a share of something you didnt know who actually owned it?
The Big House is the issue,the only issue and nothing but the issue.
Depart from me, ye cursed.
Che – Thank you but I don’t think webcams are behind it.
More likely I’m the Brad Pitt to Paul67’s Edward Norton. (thumbsup)
TBB
Chuckie told everyone last night why he needs the cash input, its to build a shop,
for £20m its gonna be one helluva size, they might even need to take some of the land set aside for the casino and hotel complex
Were they not one and the same, Ive had my suspicions, Philvis?
Che, I think all we can do is marvel at philvisreturns. Although, I have to admit, if it wasn’t me pressing the publish button, I’d think this was a fix.
Really thought today’s slightly off-pattern publish time would have thrown him.
Paul67:
I posted last night about the non-disclosure by Doncaster and Topping. It is arguably the biggest story in town, to coin your phrase.
On the exaggerated valuation of the assets as proclaimed by Chuck. They are worth exactly what he paid for them circa £5.5 million. Where Chuck does have a problem is convincing banks and financial instituitions he has assets and a viable business worth £80 million, taking into account his and oldco’s historic business dealings.
The only ones likely to back him are those fans he will dupe into investing, again and still not owning them.
The interesting thing to HMRC will be the profit our hero made, if he did from selling to Chuck.
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Blantyre Tim from previous,
Is it Third Lanark vs. Cambuslang?
:)
Ive probably picked it up wrong but if Green and Whyte have decided to stiff each other relating to the deal on the qt,how does Whyte get his money if he sabotages the the share issue?
TBB
Thanks. Paul’s latest and your suggestion, in your excellent phrase, “an undeclared need for cash”, make me think Sevco have to pay a large chunk of money to play at Ibrox so that Charles Green can keep pretending they are Rangers.
Maybe the recent admissions from Duff and Phelps and from James Traynor that Sevco is a separate club after all are accidental-on-purpose slips of the tongue. Perhaps the new Green strategy is to set up the big flotation, invite fans of the former SPL football club to the party, break the news to them that they have lost that club but then suggest that, now that they’re all in the door, they stick around anyway.
What did Green buy? What bits of Rangers did he get for his investors’ £5.5 million? What bits were left behind? Who decided what was in and what was out? On what authority did they decide that?
The joint statement Scotland’s footballing unco guid released just as the opening ceremony of the Olympics was about to start clarifies nothing. It’s a masterpiece in writing down words that have no meaning. No one has asked them to clarify. Everyone has just been left to piece together their own jigsaw from the fragments. Charles Green takes the chance immediately to call Sevco Rangers, unchallenged. The Wikipedia entry on Rangers uses this document as the justification for saying Sevco is the same club.
Someone needs to sit Stewart Regan down in a quiet room and insist that he clear this mess up. That is his role. Does he still work at the SFA?
Che
That aspect is fair enough. Say £1M to buy the property, £2M for the shop fit, £0.5M odds and sods, delivering enhanced revenue. No problem with that if he gets planning permission, is allowed a Liquor Licence, and the revenue meets the forecast.
He doesn’t need a player budget for 3 years, and he oughtn’t need working capital, so one can only assume that he has another few cunning plans for the business that will need the remaining £16M odd.
I’m sure it’ll all be explained in the prospectus!…
…pfayr
From the last thread; “I doubt that, beyond those daft enough to have bought ST`s , that anyone else is paying”.
I’ll have you know that I have paid 17 Quintissentially British Pounds for the privilege of sitting in the away end of the SevcoDome for this weekend’s Glasgow Derby.
So who’s daft now, eh? EH?
Interesting point.
Was it not after October that doncaster signed the new TV deal with Sky about teh 4 old firm games?!?!?!
If he done that knowing a CVA would likely fail then he openly tried to keep rangers in the top tier long before administration was even entered. Scandalous just doesnt cut it for emphasis anymore.
Paul67:
I still think its a fix
HH
hoopeddreams
thanks for your views
on the duff and duffer get out
did the creditors agree to pay them their final payment ?
the only bit that springs to my mind was the statment that duffer and duffer would apply to the court for BDO to take over as a matter of urgency ?
i.e. them may not be getting payed and are stuck with RFC(il) running up more costs that may not get payed
then the lord hodge judgement on conflict of intrest matter……nothing in print made availiable
hope you or someone eles knows diffrent
jam67
Son of Gabriel … very interesting. Sky will not be happy if this is the case, who would, even though we do get a pittance off them.
Dick Byrne
According to wiki, which may now be the most commonplace precursor to a lie, Queens Park FC’s second nickname, after “The Spiders”, is “The Glorious Hoops”.
I think you may have been duped by an invitation to see “The Glorious Hoops”.
What other explanation could there be?
TBB
The added irony is murray sold them the building.
And hes the one claiming to be duped!
philvisreturns
12:37
What a reference!
Phenomenal movie, but an even better book.
HH
Green, Whyte and…
Panceltica…?
Last ever RFC1872 signing named Celik.
You’d get kicked out of creative writing 101 for this kind of stuff.
“He’s behind you!”
A “pantomime” in Ancient Greece was originally a group who “imitates all” accompanied by sung narrative and instrumental music, often played on the flute.
Off for a lie-down.
Che
So many folk seem to have been duped, that I;m wonderg if there isn’t a new Super Hero out there by the name Super Duper.
Tell you what though, if Sevco floats without declaring material interests in the business – for example Paul’s suggestion that Whyte has an ‘earn out’ – there will be no end of trouble for them.
Paul67
I’m of a similar mind to you- hence my repeated question ‘who owns Ibrox?’
I think I know the answer but that will be clarified in the not too distant future.
I think Ibrox is worth £20m nobody sells that for £1 or £5.5m.
Just got a text saying Sir Danny McGrain is the new First Team Coach…….
Congratulations to CQN’s The good ship Celtica, Mrs Celtica gave birth at 5:07 this morning to a son 6lb 13oz. So a big welcome to Fergus Brady, from a very proud Papa Frantic07.
I should make clear in reference to my last post that no Super Hero could possibly compete with Philvis for unadulterated awesomeness and down to earth, anonymous modesty.
It does seem curious timing by Craigy Bhoy – surely not in his best interest to scupper Chaz’s share issue unless there has been a serious falling-out or reneging on deals?
It’s true-In addition, the Hoops boss is delighted that Danny McGrain has recently accepted the invitation to move up to First-Team Coach saying that, “He brings his experience and personality to the training ground. I always want legends around the club and there aren´t many bigger than Danny.”
Good luck to my favourite ever Celt.