At a media conference a few minutes ago Rangers administrators Duff and Phelps today told the world they have accepted the only unconditional bid got the club, from American Bill (Proxy) Miller. Mr Miller plans to start a new company to operate his ‘Rangers’ franchise. Duff and Phelps had the affront to suggest that the old club, established in 1872 and incorporated in 1899, would somehow manage to convince HMRC to accept a CVA, despite there being zero money available to them.
This will not and cannot happen. The last chance to save Rangers Football Club has gone.
Unfortunately for the UK taxpayer, they are about to take a bath for around £75m worth of medicines, school books, Help for Heroes and care services as Rangers spent all their tax money chasing football trophies.
Celtic Quick News told you this day was coming in our article on 3 October 2008. We didn’t know about the EBT case, ‘the bank running Rangers’, Craig Whyte or Bill Miller, but the available financial information made it clear that the club had debt obligations it would be unable to meet or renew.
Anyone from the boardroom of that club who claims surprise at these events is a complete fool. We should thank their media cheerleaders for refusing to analyse this issue while there was still time to do something about it.
More later, I have three months’ work to catch up on.
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Bill Miller has a company that makes astro turf?
Cue the demands for all clubs to have it, it’s the way forward, suits our weather, blah, blah……
Blue astro turf at Ibrox.
What is this guy in it for? I would guess the usual MONEY!
Another con man in the door at Ibrox. have they had any other kind of owners?
LB
TheGreenManalishi(WithTheTwoProngedCrown) 13:50:
brucecassavetes @ 13:30 said:
One of those helpful chaps on RTC did the detailed accounts of RFC from the mid ninties to 2009, was a good piece of work and demands more consideration than I can give it a the moment but the total losses were circa….
£155,000,000.00
So did my back of the envelop type accounting with interesting results, when you put together the monies invested
BOS – 30mil debt outstanding
ENIC – 40mil invested
Dave King- 20mil invested
NTL – 15mil nulled contract
Share issue – 52mil (50mil+ debt to BoS siting with MIH)
You get – £157,000,000.00
When you consider they had a huge turnover for a Scottish Football club and were paying their players and executives significant amounts “netto” it is eye watering.
If I was a R@ngers supporter I wouldn’t be to concerned where the Seville cash went…..
Craiginho
Alex Thomson of CH4 is far from convinced either.
If it was me exclusively bidding for Rangers I would seek to liquidate (or incubate, or whatever it is) before the last game of the season.
This will give Rangers the upper hand in any negotiations with SFA / SPL.
Allow the NewCo to complete RFC’s fixtures (ie, the last remaining game of the season) or throw us out the league and face an almighty mess in closing out a season with a whole host of fixtures/results being retracted and St J’s came being called off.
It might force the hand of SPL to allow NewCo to complete RFC’s fixtures, thereby setting precedent for allowing a NewCo to parachute straight into the SPL; they’ve played in the SPL already and would be unjust to deny them further games.
Could this be a ploy?
There was a post on here recently (yesterday or today) re.whether a newco could just produce 3 years accounts of one of their businesses and thereby get round the 3 year accounts rule.
The idea was refuted by someone (poss AuldHeid?) who said the 3 years have to be from a football club.
Can anyone re-post this answer or quote the ruling to save trawling back through?
Looks like Bill Miller hasn’t paid to have his google history removed like our hero
http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2010/mar/09/no-home-for-hockey-sullivan/?page=2#article
http://www.bizjournals.com/charlotte/stories/2004/03/01/daily36.html
***
How long before this gets removed/updated?
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/football/spl/rangers/2012/04/06/rangers-in-crisis-us-tycoon-in-running-for-ibrox-takeover-has-history-of-sporting-flops-86908-23814963/
Never mind the blue Knights it will be the Dark Knights at Ibrokes as they cant afford to switch on the floodlights.Millar Lite is not likely to be the answer the orcs are looking for.H.H.
cardiffbhoy on 3 May, 2012 at 13:48 said:
He’s starting to make Craigy Bhoy look positvely Angelic!!
Good fit him and the huns..
cardiffbhoy
Sorry to be a nuisance but I cant access that link in work, Could you post the content.
Cheers.
Bill Miller has less credibility than his fellow Chigagoan, Abe Froman. (thumbsup)
If they cannot agree a cva does that mean Windy will walk away or will he still buy and then liquidate????????????????????
Bill Miller’s £11.2m bid has been awarded preferred status.
This means he now has to strike a deal with Craig Whyte, who is still the owner of Rangers.
If Miller doesn’t offer Whyte what he wants – and his £11.2m is nowhere near enough to secure Ibrox and the training ground – then it is back to square one.
By the way, you can’t buy or incubate the history of a business/company/football club – liquidation, like death, is the end. The fact is a new club, so new it has not even been formed yet, will try and tempt the hordes who currently follow a club called Glasgow Rangers into supporting them instead. This club is so new it has no history at all – not even a name yet.
The tax case has still to be resolved as well. And there is likely to be years of court procedures lying ahead over the ground, training complex ect, ect, ect…
Folly Folly
agree with you. I get the feeling that D & P have to be seen to be moving things along as time is not on their side, They are under pressure to walk away with some dignity amongst the Rangers fans who are a force to be feared if you want to see your children grow older and as bad an option as Miller is it is the only one on the table.
In regard to the the Stock car lawsuit Mr miller eventually settled out of court.
He also faces an enquiry from the justice department into creating an unlawful monoply in regards to the tow truck business.
Paul67,
I’m baffled by the conflicting opinions and statements from all parties.
Miller is nominated by the administrators as “the preferred bidder”.
This means that his “bid” is now going to be taken to the next stage; which is…?
Go to Craig Whyte for his opinion / acceptance / rejection?
firstly would hmrc and creditors not have a right through the courts to challenge
this ? it is so blatant at what might be being prepared to avoid paying their debt,
could a court challenge delay it even thus making no rangers next season?
Thems history? 7-1 C F/ 6-2 5-0 4-0 C F / 3-0 4-3 and on and on and on. <o)))))
THE American tycoon who has launched a bid to buy Rangers has a history of failed sporting ventures and bankruptcy.
Record Sport can today reveal Georgia-based businessman Bill Miller is the money man behind the US bid that yesterday became one of three front-runners for control of the stricken SPL champions.
Miller – who has amassed a fortune from a vehicle towing company – had originally been part of a 12-man Chicago based consortium, including Club 9 Sports, that had been preparing to bid for Craig Whyte’s shares.
But the consortium unexpectedly backed out at the 11th hour on Tuesday night.
And now sources in America have confirmed the wealthy 64-year-old – who impressed administrators by providing proof of “substantial” personal wealth – is heading up a splinter group determined to follow through on the original plan.
But Rangers fans, still reeling from damage done by Whyte’s shamed regime, will be alarmed by some of Miller’s previous exploits.
As will administrators Duff and Phelps, who are determined to ensure the club’s next owner will be a fit and proper person.
Miller is known in the US as the financial muscle behind Club 9 Sports and has forged close links with the men running its parent company, Prometheus, Jon Pritchett and John Prutch.
Record Sport can reveal Pritchett and Prutch were the leaders of the original consortium Miller had agreed to back until the decision to pull the plug.
This followed a furious reaction from Rangers fans to Club 9’s involvement and the overall American plan to liquidate the club and reform as a new company.
It is not yet clear if Miller plans to stick to the same strategy or if pals Pritchett and Prutch remain in the picture. But they have been involved in a string of previous deals, one of which saw Miller and Pritchett at the centre of a £32million law suit.
Miller is described in a document from the original US group as a “highly successful business leader, entrepreneur, investor and philanthropist”.
But there is no mention of his disastrous move into motor racing 11 years ago when he was appointed by one of Pritchett’s companies to head up a new stock car league billed in the US as a potential rival to NASCAR.
The ambitious Team Racing Auto Circuit (TRAC) project crashed and burned before its first race.
In February 2004, Miller and Pritchett faced a massive legal action by shareholders who claimed to have been duped to the tune of £32m.
Named in the suit were Miller, ex-chief executive of Team Sports Entertainment, and Pritchett, ex-president.
More than a year later and after a great deal of legal wrangling, the case was settled out of court for an unknown amount.
Shareholder Edward Garland said of Miller: “The company and its directors thought they were getting an experienced CEO.
“Instead it got a man full of greed who wanted control of the company for himself.”
Team Sports Entertainment changed names but is now bankrupt.
But Miller’s main empire was going from strength to strength. He has been CEO and chairman of Miller Industries since the mid 1990s. Known as the “towing tycoon”, Miller has amassed a personal fortune from his companies which boast a £253m turnover.
More recently, Miller agreed to fund another of Pritchett’s schemes, a Club 9 Sports plan to relocate a minor league hockey side.
But the plan fell through because they could not strike a deal to set up a local sporting arena that would have required a £700,000 up-front investment.
Now Miller is eyeing his next move. And yesterday his chances of completing a successful Rangers takeover were enhanced when the administrators made his bid one of three remaining front runners, along with Paul Murray’s Blue Knights and a Bill Ng led consortium from Singapore.
Record Sport tried to contact Miller several times last night but he was unavailable for comment.
Bill meet Hector……..
Chairbhoy on 3 May, 2012 at 13:52:
It’s beyond eye-watering – it makes their current attempts at trying to wriggle off the hook even more unethical and contemptible.
Hope Bill Miller has read Dante’s ‘Inferno’:
The inscription written over the Gate of Hell:
‘Through me is the way into eternal woe,
Through me is the way among the Lost People’
In order to ensure that the assets, once transferred, are beyond the reach of creditors they must be purchased by a wholly separate limited liability company.
This means that two companies have bought rangers, one has bought the assets, the other has bought rangers football club. Putting aside the obvious issue of how you continue to play as rangers with the assets and club in different companies (and putting aside how ridiculous it sounds to put aside such an important issue!). As far as I understand it the assets alone were never advertised for sale therefore other parties who may have been interested in the assets, but not the club, were not given the opportunity to bid.
How can the administrators claim they have achieved best value for the assets? They’re about to be sold for around one tenth of their (apparent) book value. I think D&P are on very shaky ground here.
Also as the plan is not to liquidate rangers football club, but to reunite assets and club after a worthless CVA is forced. If I was working for HMRC I would delay delivering the bill for the ‘big tax case’ until the two have been reunited, then I’d immediately issue the bill plus a winding up order.
I wonder if we’ll see Doncaster and Regan driving shiny new 12 reg tow trucks in a few weeks time? :-)
Off to put an X somewhere now and a few pints of the Pure for afters!!
HaiL HaiL
Sorry about my post at 13:58, it had so many errors I thought I was Declan there for a minute.
Predictive text is not always upto scratch.
I wonder how much sally will be getting for a war chest next season then?
THE EXILED TIM – I wonder how much sally will be getting for a war chest next season then?
He’ll be working on a lorry as assistant to an orangutan named Clyde. (thumbsup)
SonsOfErin
He doesn’t intend to buy Rangers until after the CVA has been agreed. Until that point in time there will be a NewCo playing football with the assets of Rangers while the real Rangers remains 85% owned by Craig Whyte, in administration, and trying to negotiate a CVA with no assets other than cash.
I believe in his original communiqué Miller proposed buying the post-CVA Rangers for “a nominal amount”, i.e. £1, which is fast becoming the de facto standard offer for Rangers PLC.
Will this replace Penny Arcade??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdrYYUuT07Q
SonsOfErin
Oh, and in the creditors letter it did say they had invited bids for the shares or assets of Rangers PLC (in administration) so the assets have been advertised (as a job lot).
traditionalist88 on 3 May, 2012 at 13:38 said
How, whats happening at 4 bells..?
TET
He’s 500k down already if miller sees p81 in the D R today!!
philvisreturns
That’s spooky, I was thinking about that film when I typed my post !!!
The powerofthoughtCSC
Chill my fellow tims!
As someone said in an earlier post bidding is not buying. we are in real terms no further forward than we were 8-9 weeks ago. Looking at Dumb and Dumber’s faces at the ‘press do’ they knew they were spouting a lot of bull. Hence the reason they wanted only sports journalists (MSM) that would be gullible to believe all this toxic oldco/newco guff. This is still all part of the charade..
It is a bit like the band continuing to play on the Titanic. It may help reassure the passengers but it is doing nothing to stop the ship going down.
Patience the big players, the ones with most to lose have not come into play yet. Ticketus and HMRC. In fact they may already be in play at the creditors vote. I ma sure that if the creditors had voted in favour of D&P they would be pushing this out as good news and there was hope of a CVA. However there has been no mention of the vote from them However they are saying a CVA is not a goer so how do they know this -creditors vote? .
If Ticketus do nothing then it is still a Whyte scam and Miller is a stalking horse (put up or shut up).
So guys chill, watch and enjoy it is a story that will keep on giving..
alex thomson @alextomo
TOMOBLOG – The Miller Deal http://bit.ly/IoV0e7
steinreignedsupreme.
Correct. In every respect. There will be some silver tongued sophistry attempted by the SPL/SFA/MSM to try and pretend at the existence of an invisible cloak for them, decorated with baubles and garlands acquired by the rotten corpse of the oldco, but this time there will be more than a lone wee boy shouting about the naked emperor.
If you walk away from the debt, which is the biggest sole factyor in the most successful period in their history, you walk away from the trophies acquired by virtue of that debt.
I have this sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that our self termed hero, Agent Whyte, is somehow connected with Billy Boy Miller and at the end of the day they will find a loophole to resurrect TFOD from the ashes totally debt free. Whyte has been too quiet of late and I don’t beleive for one minute that he hasn’t been forming some end game in the background. Hope i am wrong.
If you keep your history, you keep your debt…..simples
TIMS in Ohio
Ii think they are, indeed, in cahoots………to sell the assets and head for the Grand Canyon…..