Perspective is difficult to find in these times, when information floods in from all angles on a daily basis. With this in mind, The Battered Bunnet put a day aside to give you a detailed summary (below) of how we go to where we are today. He pays particular attention to some of those who plan to be part of the game’s future, with a nod to those currently in control of the game.
It’s a fascinating read:
Scottish Football is in crisis, a crisis that has been 15 years in the making by the Directors of Rangers Football Club plc, compounded by a chronic lack of Governance and Oversight by the cronyistic SFA through the years.
Let’s revisit the cause of the crisis for a moment:
When David Murray bought Rangers in 1988, the club had won but 4 league titles in 20 years, and prior to the arrival of Graeme Souness, had been a Scottish League also ran for a decade. Souness, with David Holmes as Chairman, started the reversal of fortune and effectively restored Rangers as a player in British football.
Murray, giving credit where it’s due, transformed Rangers both as a football club and a business. Between 1988 and 1996, Rangers’ turnover increased by a factor of 5, double double and then some in only 8 years. During this time, the club became dominant in Scotland and competitive in Europe, while considerable sums were invested in the stadium and infrastructure, providing Rangers with a (comparatively) vast commercial resource to fund its football operations. While the club carried £9M of debt at this point, it was profitable, posting £2M surplus in 1996, and breaking even over the period of Murray’s tenure to that point.
By 1996 Murray had a valuable football business on his hands, and perhaps the smart play would have been to sell it. Football was in an expansionary phase, and there would have been a queue of interested and well bankrolled investors at the door. Instead, Murray chose to redouble his efforts, and taking Rangers ‘to the next level’ became the mantra adopted by the man and his increasingly fawning press.
Highlighting that Murray was not alone in thinking that Rangers could indeed become one of Europe’s top clubs, the following year Joe Lewis invested £40M in return for a 20% share. One wonders what Murray might have walked away with had he sold the lot to Lewis at that time, but he kept his hand in the game, and went all in over the following 6 years.
Between 1997 and 2003 Rangers lost an eye watering £152.6 Million. Joe Lewis’ £40M was gobbled up in jig time, followed by £20M of Dave King’s tax efficient stash, plus a £32M investment by Murray’s business, £6M from smaller shareholders, and a further £15M of NTL’s investment in the hopeless Rangers Media venture. At its nadir in 2004, Rangers net debt was a staggering £83 Million, a monument to the ego of David Murray and his ‘dream’ for Rangers.
Unfortunately, burning shareholders’ and creditors’ cash at such a breath-taking rate was not sufficient to fund Murray’s project, and the club embarked upon a series of schemes to pay players and reduce costs. A Discount Option Scheme saved over £2M between 1999 and 2003, while an Employee Benefit Trust framework saved £45M of payroll tax and gross wages between 2000 and 2010. It is worthwhile noting that the cost savings alone from these schemes gave Rangers a financial advantage equivalent to the total payroll of every other SPL team excluding Celtic.
We know now, thanks to the admissions of former director Hugh Adam, that ‘off the books’ payments to Rangers players had started as early as the mid-1990s, and the DOS and EBT schemes were simply formalising a by then established practice.
By 2005, with Rangers reduced to little more than a financial basket case, Bank of Scotland insisted that the club be brought back into balance, and following a failed public share issue, Murray’s holding company swapped £50M of Rangers’ debt for increased equity. The following year JJB paid £15M cash as a future royalty for a 10 year solus agreement on Rangers merchandise. Murray might very well have sold the jersey, but Rangers at long last had gotten rid of all but £6M of debt, and a new ‘sustainable’ plan was implemented, a plan that endured no longer than Paul Le Guen’s 26 games in charge.
When Walter Smith replaced Le Guen, the new plan was binned and Rangers once again embarked upon a ‘front loaded’ business model, with debt increasing on the back of player purchases and wages that the club could not sustain. By 2009 Rangers had £33M of bank debt and Murray’s companies, so long the guarantor of the funding, had utterly collapsed in the property and construction crash of 2008. It is worthwhile remembering that some £70 Million of Rangers’ losses through the years remains on the Murray International Holdings Ltd balance sheet, unpaid to the part-nationalised Bank of Scotland/Lloyds Banking Group.
Early in 2010, following an unusually long Tax Enquiry, Rangers received a Tax Assessment from HMRC for their use of EBTs in the preceding 10 years. The Bill for £24M, had a further £12M of accrued interest attached, and the promise of penalties to come.
Alastair Johnston, who had replaced Murray as Chairman of Rangers following the crash of Murray’s business empire, had a decision to make. In the summer of 2010, £36M tax demand in hand, and an appeal against which scheduled for October, Johnston was planning the coming season’s business. He could have chosen to sell the top footballers which would have brought in around £20M of proceeds. He could have chosen to run the club on a reduced cost model, one that was profitable on domestic football alone, thereby banking a further £20M from their participation in the Champions League. Had he done so, and ring fenced the cash, Rangers would have been in a position to withstand losing the Tax Case Appeal without bankrupting the club.
Alastair Johnston and his Board chose not to. He chose instead to spend money increasing the size of the squad, with £4M spent on Jelavic alone. Whatever else you hear about Rangers’ sorry plight, remember that in the summer of 2010 Alastair Johnston and his Board decided to prioritise football results ahead of the very existence of the club. That was the last time that Rangers’ fate was in the hands of the Club. From the moment the decision was taken not to act, Rangers’ fate was sealed.
Craig Whyte’s bizarre 9 month tenure of course is attracting all of the headlines, and Murray’s reckless disregard for shareholders and laws have precipitated the crisis, but Alastair Johnston, along with Paul Murray, Martin Bain, John McClelland and the rest doomed the club by their inaction in the summer of 2010.
We are now aware that Rangers’ use of unlawful tax strategies had a consequent impact on the proper Registration of their players. I won’t pour over the relevant rules here, suffice to say that in making payments to players via undisclosed agreements that were not provided for in the football contracts lodged with the authorities, many of Rangers top players have been ineligible to play in official matches for a decade or more.
As if it couldn’t get any more damning, the very Directors of Rangers who conceived, implemented and administered these contractual arrangements, were simultaneously Directors of the SFA and the SPL, the bodies responsible for Governance and Oversight. Step forward John McClelland, Martin Bain and Campbell Ogilvie. That Ogilivie is currently President of the SFA simply beggars belief. It appears as though Football in Scotland has been bent for 2 decades, and the people responsible were running the game.
There is a current SPL Inquiry into this issue, and perhaps that will reveal the true extent of the breaches of rules, but from the information now available in the public domain, there is a prima facie case for voiding the results of hundreds of matches in which Rangers have participated over the years, and stripping the club of any titles won during the period. The expulsion of the club from the game is talked of. In terms of athletes and duration, it represents a bigger sporting fraud than the Balco case, and is on that basis, the biggest scandal in the History of Sport.
Did I say a ‘moment’? Forgive me, but it has taken a little while to describe 15 years of malfeasance and deception.
In summary, in the 15 years from 1996 to 2011, Rangers have spent a staggering £168 Million more than they have earned. They have saved a further £47 Million of payroll costs via the use of questionable tax strategies. They have corrupted the rules of the game from the inside. And now they are bankrupt, with the very real prospect of £100 Million of creditors being turned over in one of the biggest corporate failures in Scottish business history.
Against this backdrop, Scottish Football has to divine the way ahead. We have to figure a way out of this mess and build a new future. Everything must be on the table, everything that is except narrow self-interest.
Following a Liquidation, if a group of supporters of a dissolved Rangers get together and start a new football club, one that looks like and sounds like Rangers, playing in blue shirts at Ibrox or elsewhere, I say good luck to them. Of such like-minded people are Football clubs are born. There is clearly a business opportunity given the size of the support for the old club. The pathway is straight forward: Put a Business Plan together; Invest the necessary Capital; and Apply for membership of the Scottish Football League. If the club prospers on the park they will be rewarded with promotions and will emerge into the top flight in their own merits, self-respecting and respectful. Such qualities does Meritocracy provide.
That is a decision though for Rangers supporters. The rest of us need to figure out a new plan. Without Rangers there will inevitably be less money in the top league, fewer fans perhaps, less TV and sponsorship money. We need to accept that reality and respond to it.
I suggest we look towards Cooperation, Collective Interest, Inter-Dependence.
The hardest hit will be those clubs most reliant on the money lost. Redistribution of TV income should be considered. No question.
Youth Development should be looked at again, not least because for most clubs it will define their future. Closer cooperation amongst the clubs can yield benefits for both clubs and players. A modified Draft system might be appropriate, whereby players graduating from Under 19/20 are available to be signed by other clubs in a predetermined sequence, perhaps with the developing club having a first option on 2 players, the remainder co-opted into the draft.
Considering Celtic’s worldwide scouting network, is there potential to share information on overseas prospects with the other clubs? An easy thing to implement.
Looking at income, the huge imbalance created by the participation fees paid to clubs qualifying for the Champions League distorts domestic competition. Can we consider a distribution to all clubs of Marketing fees and likes from UEFA for our clubs’ participation in UEFA competitions?
Finally, what other means do we have, given the collective talent and resources of the top clubs in Scottish Football, to generate new opportunities, new market share, new income? If necessity is indeed the Mother of Invention, we are not short of need. Let’s get innovative.
Of course, all of this is based upon a consensual approach to the crisis we face. It is widely reported that the other 10 clubs in the SPL are meeting next week to consider an appropriate response to the problems we all face. Celtic have not been invited to attend. This in itself is a concern, as it draws something of a line in the sand between the interests of the 10, and the interests of Celtic. One SPL chairman told BBC Scotland: “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change things.” Such change, hatched by the 10 other clubs and forced upon Celtic is not a cooperative approach.
Moreover, Celtic are by a distance the biggest box office in the league. This season attendance at Celtic Park equates to 72% of the total attendances at all other grounds excluding Ibrox. A series of decisions on restructuring the SPL and redistributing the proceeds from the competition that excluded the stakes of almost half of the fans in the league is surely invalid.
Quite what will these clubs do with their self-acknowledged ‘once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change things’?
Perhaps the 10 SPL Clubs will come up with some truly radical and forward looking ideas that are at face value, innovative, imaginative and laudable.
Perhaps though they won’t. Perhaps their ideas will be a little more self-interested. That is certainly the form book in Scottish Football.
Redistribution of SPL TV and Sponsorship income that excludes the Champion team from the divvy? Why not eh. The 10 Clubs will have the SPL voting majority to do so.
What would the implications be should the 10 Clubs decide that gate sharing was the way ahead for the SPL? Certainly, in the absence of Rangers, they would carry the voting rights to approve such a decision, irrespective of any objections from the fans whose money would be redirected.
And indeed, the admission of a New Rangers directly into the SPL, bypassing all meritocratic and long established practices in the game worldwide.
Establishing a new business is a challenging activity. Doing so in the midst of the financial chaos enveloping Rangers is utterly fraught. Those considering such a move need to have confidence in revenue projections and market. In the case of a New Rangers, the arbiter of revenue is the League they will participate in. It is reasonable to assume that informal soundings have been taken by those considering a New Rangers project from those with the power to determine which market they will operate in.
I have no problem with Stephen Thomson of Dundee Utd picking up the phone and chatting to Stewart Milne of Aberdeen. Indeed, I would expect it in the ordinary course, never mind the crisis we all face. However, given the likelihood that those behind a New Rangers are right now making their initial pitch to each of the 10 clubs, it is somewhat distressing that those same 10 clubs should in short course arrange a meeting to discuss and plan the way ahead, excluding Celtic and the interests of half the remaining fans of the SPL.
Paul Murray, Martin Bain, John McClelland, Alastair Johnston, Dave King: The men who brought this disaster down upon the game in this country, who corrupted the game from the inside for a decade or more, who burned £100 Million of creditors money, who are responsible for ripping off the Tax Payer and the Football Fan alike, who failed to act on Rangers’ crisis when action was most needed, these men and their likes are currently negotiating with the 10 Clubs the conditions for the entry of New Rangers directly back into the SPL.
The very essence of Sport, the history of Football, and the future of the Game in this country is to be decided in the coming weeks by the chairmen of just 10 Clubs. In the hands of these men is the legacy of the game accidentally entrusted, and its future precariously placed.
At our moment of crisis, when wisdom and consensus are most needed, what direction will they take? Where will Scottish Football go from here?
To a new, mature, responsible and progressive place? Or to Hell in a Handcart.
856 Comments- Pages:
- «
- 1
- ...
- 14
- 15
- 16
- 17
- 18
- 19
- 20
- 21
- 22
- 23
- »
Goodnight CQN
Tannadichee beckons….big big game, 2-0 for the hoops, big Sammi 1st Goal Scorer !
hh
bjmac
TCR,Will be in tomorrow,big weekend ahead..
I love this blog. I love Celtic. I love you guys, the contributers, the support.
I don’t hate the Huns.
I do hate cancer.
MWD, you and your dear friend are in my thoughts. May she rest in peace.
BroonSauce
Goodnight CQN..
Bjmac – I second that emotion.
Stokesy 1st scorer though.
2-1
Teuchter ár lá, Busty is a fella,a great one at that, did you have a night in Derry with a Busty female?
http://youtu.be/EvFqVgz1AGo
Working Man
Coorslad :)…no tellin’
Bjmac
Brought a tear tae ma’ eye…thinkin’ how every one o’them were fully paid up in their taxes.
TAL
Safe journey to all travelling to Tannadice and please bring back a win.
Celtinental on 11 March, 2012 at 01:28 said:
where in Korea are you Celtinental?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrQnnZJ68Xo
and it happened again and again….
.
Courtesy The Scotsman..
Rangers administration: Plenty of fizz left in drama
Party’s over: the Ticketus deal arranged by Craig Whyte complicates the proposed takeover bid by the Blue Knights.
By TOM ENGLISH
ON A day when Craig Whyte’s grip on Rangers appeared to loosen ever further and when the club’s administrators had some veiled criticism for the apparent front-runners in the takeover process, the Blue Knights, there was further speculation around the validity of the most audacious deal in the Old Firm since Mo Johnston joined Rangers.
As reported in The Scotsman on Thursday, Whyte’s arrangement to sell up to 100,000 future season tickets at Ibrox to Ticketus for £20 million plus VAT is believed to be the subject of intense scrutiny by Duff & Phelps, the Rangers administrators. Yesterday, Paul Clark didn’t wish to be drawn on the Ticketus deal but he said that there would be an announcement relating to it in the next week or ten days.
“There are on-going discussions with us and Ticketus – and now those meetings might include parties from the Blue Knights – in relation to their right, if any, to season tickets,” said Clark. “We’re looking to clarify the position of their rights in the next week or so.”
Quite how the Ticketus deal can be unravelled is unclear, but there would be appear to significant confidence that it can be declared null and void. If that’s case, it would serve as a massive fillip for Rangers fans and could, in theory, send a shockwave through the Blue Knights consortium, which announced on Friday that Ticketus were now part of its group. Ticketus, of course, believes that its rights to the season tickets are copper-bottomed but its claim is now in serious jeopardy.
If the Ticketus deal can be undone, then it’s the demolition of a significant barrier to any sale. Clark is playing down the significance of two other barriers – the HMRC big tax case settlement and Whyte’s claim on Ibrox and Murray Park. Both of these, said Clark, are not obstacles to the future sale of the club. If he is right, then Rangers might well avoid the doomsday scenario of liquidation. There was news, too, on the potential bidders for the club and a bit of a slap for the Knights.
“What we want,” said Clark, “is to have only serious bidders left by the end of the week. So anybody who has just been talking – and there are a few out there who have done a lot of talking – we want to seek them out and, as it were, [get them to] put their money where their mouth is.
“Let’s get them round a table so we know how many parties we’ve got. I don’t care how many bidders we end up with but I want to know who they are, what they are and what their worth is, so then we can have more serious conversations about achieving the end goal which is to get Rangers under new ownership. This is the problem we have got, we have one or two parties prepared to talk to the media and then you have other parties who have been quietly and slowly and diligently getting on with their business behind closed doors outside of the glare of the media and we are taking them just as seriously as anybody who is on the front page of the newspapers saying, ‘I’m going to buy Rangers, you just watch’. If somebody wants to involve the media, that’s fine. And if they become the owner then they can sit on the front page of all the papers saying, ‘I did it’. But don’t be surprised if that owner isn’t one of the people who is media friendly.”
This, clearly, was a reference to Paul Murray’s Blue Knights, the group which has made no secret of its interest in buying the club.
“By the way, I am not ruling anybody out in this process, absolutely not,” said Clark. “I’m just saying that nobody should assume that the only serious bidders are the ones who are in the public domain.”
The Knights won’t like the sound of that one little bit. It’s also of significance that one of its number, Dave King, would be disqualified from taking a boardroom position. King breached the SFA’s fit and proper person criteria by being a member of the board that took the club into an insolvency event (under Whyte). King had little to do with it, but he’s damned by it all the same.
It wasn’t the kind of news that Paul Murray, pictured above left, would have liked to hear, nor is this feeling that the Ticketus arrangement with Rangers could be about to collapse. How that would impact on his consortium is hard to fathom at this point.
“I don’t want to be specific about bidders but there is at least one party from the Far East and we’ve had some interest as well from the American continent,” said Clark on the rivals to the Knights. “We’re talking about Scotland, wider UK and some overseas parties. There’s been a number of meetings over the last few days and more planned for next week. I’ve got two calls to two different parties over the weekend. We have an online data room for those parties so they can go in and take information over and above what we’ve told them in our meetings.
“You’ve got different people asking different questions. We hope and believe that a new owner will be installed before the end of the season so that it’s not us in charge at season’s end. That’s our objective. What we’ve done so that people realise they need to speed themselves up is to say that on Friday we want to receive absolute proof of your funding so we understand who you are and which camp you are in because some people have feet in various camps.
“We want to know who exactly has your money. More importantly, we want some form of indicative bid, so that will distil down however many parties we have got at the moment to the final few.”
Another week of drama is granted
Summa
MWD
Her pain is over, and you’ll never forget.
YNWA
MWD just back from the mountains on logged on to see what’s happening to the hoard. Then I read you and I hear your pain mate. I know something of what you feel. I can only say take care , keep Christine in your heart and mind and she will stay with you in some way. Slante . Life.
Tom English
See what you can do when you don’t wear you’re BBC muzzle :o)
Hail! Hail!
IF, Lennons Lions win the treble then, THAT, would be the correct time to announce to the listening/watching world that, Celtic FC will be tendering their resignation from corrupt football played out to a background of, anti – Irish/Catholic/Celtic prejudice from an establishment that finds itself on the run from, the truth of TIMDOM :o)
We, as a club should, IMO, resign from the SFA at the end of the season and, sit tight as a proposal will be put our way to get us, either, an escape route out of sectarian Hunland or, the forces of darkness will see the light and, rip it up and start again :o)
Hail! Hail!
Paul 67
The Battered Bunnet
Please take a bow.
May God’s Light Forever Shine On You Both
Hail! Hail!
Paul67 I think we need to be prepared for your hell in a handcaty scenario. I come from a West of Scotland town that might be close to 50/50 in its representation of protestant and catholic Scots. I never experience much bogotry or sectarianism when I was growing up but I knew that my father couldn’t walk down some streets and my grandfather more in their days. For that alone I will see them gone. I think very highly of my wee toon but the local rag has recently published a repeat article on kick bigotry out of touch. Sounds good , problem is that they illustrate this with photo’s of Celtic supporters quote strong condemnation of IRA songs sung on the trains to the town, moral outrage and all that and associate the whole new legislation as a crusade against ‘hymns’ of hate supporting terrorists. This may be the editorial rants of a dying philosophy but it may also be a hardening of opinion and cementing of the establishment view that Celtic and catholic somehow threatens Scotland. Crazy and scary. What I am saying is don’t count on sensible reasonable and ethical people acting as they should. I’ll take what we get and I will be extremely surprised if the govt takes a creditor break and allows anything except liquidation. What happens after this is anyones guess and I am far enough away not to make a guess of what post apocylipse rangers landscape will look like. First things first though beat the Dundee Hiberniansin the Scottish Cup.
I think the work done on Samaras by Neil and, his management team has been remarkable.
I’m sure Neil must know that there seems to be a sort of, lucky-charm element from Sammi.
Sammi missed out @ Aberdeen last week and, the long winning run came to an end. Sammi played in every one of those winning games.
Please get Sammi in the team today Neil :o)
God Bless
Hail! Hail!
Time for predictions.
Rangers liquidation? Yes.
Newco? Yes.
Newco into SPL immediately next season? Yes.
Celtic swallow this? Yes.
Fair. No.
Repercussions? No.
I am NL in NZ Tauranga on 11 March, 2012 at 06:21 said:
//////////////
If, for example….the huns are liquidated and, annonced defunct next Friday, how do you think the hun fans will react ?
I know you have alluded to this point in your post but, I think it will be like NI in the 70’s without the guns! Hopefully without the guns!
Hail! Hail!
annonced = annnounced = typo :o)
http://mediacentre.dh.gov.uk/2012/01/16/nhs-to-get-100m-cash-injection-to-improve-services/
NHS to get £100m cash injection to improve services.
I wonder how they will fund it?
It requires honesty and integrity in the corporate sphere and the undertaking of paying one’s dues to the Revenue Commissionaires.
More seriously: who exactly will lose out from Rangers’ escapology?
A hospital? A school? A fire station?
annonced=annnounced=announced=typo:o))
Slan_Abhaile on 11 March, 2012 at 06:34 said:
//////
The Celtic board or, more noticably PL has been making all the right noises in public…
“We don’t need Rankers….”
“We stand alone…” etc
But, when the REAL chips are down then, there is only one way Celtic board can go and, thats to vote for the hun. IMO!
Celtic’s hierarchy, most of whom, don’t have to live in amongst the huns on a, daily basis, might surprise everybody and, un-hatch a long term plan but, I won’t hold my breath.
The bottom line for me is that, an entire generation of Celtic supporters will have to realise that, WE are the Interlopers in this country!
Hail! Hail!
Slan_Abhaile on 11 March, 2012 at 06:40 said:
/////
You’re very pertinent examples of the victimised area’s of, hun tax-dodging will be, swept under the same carpet of the Manchester riots etc. IMO!
Hail! Hail!
IF, our game @ibrokes next week does go ahead then, if there is any crowd trouble, from the huns, well, if I was PL I would strike a blow for all of Timdom and, ban the animals from CP and, make it clear that, the huns animalistic/riotus/religious hatred will NOT be tolerated @ CP. END OF.
Hail! Hail!
MWD
Sorry to hear of your sad loss of a dear friend.
The only immediate confort you can take from this is that she is no longer in pain.
“Bon courage”.
MWD
I’ll light a candle for her mate.. one for you too..
KeJungle
I think a lot of the stuff we are seeing and hearing at the moment is geared to keep the huns pacified. There is a huge risk to civil disorder and domestic abuse if the hun go bust. Neither the Big Tax Bill or liquidation will happen until after the Ipox game.
The government know this, HMRC know this, the police know this, everyman and their dug knows this.
There will inevitably be a bit of trouble at the game: the media will make sure we are tarred with the same brush.
After that, it Manchester to the power ten.
MWD
Please excuse me for not reading back the blog before posting m8.
My heart felt condolence’s.
May God Shine His Light on you both.
God Bless.
sixtaeseven: No NewCo in SPL and it’s Non-Negotiable! on 11 March, 2012 at 07:16
/////////////////////////////
Oh, how I wish that, the NI settlers would up-sticks and, come back HOME to here where WE live and then, WE could go back HOME to where we should be!
Hail! Hail!
Good morning Bhoys, Great article TBB and sorry for your loss MWD. May she rest in peace.
Big game today 3-1 to the good ghuys, but sammy and scott must play and if hooper is poor brozek must get a game.
HH Bhoys and i’ll be on later for the build up.
KLV
A Magnificent piece of writing by TBB this should be essential reading for ALL football supporters in Scotland.
Morning All (bonjour, sixtae seven.)
The begging bowl is now well and truly out and Ran*ers fans have been asked to dig deep and tighten the braces and hand the dosh over to the people who have spent their millions so wisely over the last two decades. (The Rangers Fans Fighting Fund.)
Some money saving tips: Succulent spam is a much more economical meal, flip-flops for the marching season, no domestic violence (hand over the ‘fine’ money), get Dingbat to pay up the £90k he has stashed away, and on no account give anything to charity.
Ran*gers fans – the fans who just keep on giving.
MWD
I have never met you but have read and appreciated many of your posts, please accept my condolences forthe loss of you friend.
HH
Good Morning,
Looking forward to a huge game for us today.
Laughing at all the headlines about CraigWhyteCSC.
So the administrator is saying it wasn’t his own £1 that was used? At the end of the day that is what was paid for rangers.
I am no legal genius but if I bought a run down shop for the same price and then borrowed money to do it up, someone can come along and say it is not mine?
I dont think so…
HH
I see that D and D are still peddling the line that the BTC needed be a barrier to potential bidders. I guess that might be right, you can imagine the following…..
‘Dear Mr Clark, I would like to make a conditional offer to purchase RFC (IA) of £1.50p conditional on there being a CVA stiffing the creditors at 2p in the £ and RFC (IA) win the BTC…….otherwise please put this offer letter in the shredder’
Just in case D and P are reading this the above does not constitute a formal offer!
HH