Rangers International’s advice to shareholders, issued last night, for next week’s General Meeting is legally spot on. They have read the contract but they’re not reading the narrative.
As they say, the club would not be bound to repay the £5m loan from MASH if shareholders vote in favour of doing so. Repaying this loan may not be in the interests of “shareholders as a whole” (I dispute this).
In asserting these views, and winning the vote on the matter, Rangers International will surely not surprise MASH.
When someone as thorough and well-resourced as Mike Ashley puts resolutions in front of you, when his motivations are “not clear to the directors”, you have to consider if you’re in a Rope-a-Dope scenario.
Without knowing anything about Ashley’s plans, I can give you an assurance that he will expect shareholders to vote against his resolution. He is asking for his money and expects this request to be declined. He is also asking searching questions about the events which led to the succession of the current board. I do not expect him to be satisfied with the answer.
The real question is, why has Ashley engineered a scenario where he has made a legitimate request for repayment and been rejected?
If you think next week’s meeting is about winning the vote you could not be more wrong. The cynic would say Ashley wants justification for what he’s about to do next.
Those shares in Rangers Retail Ltd (RRL) which are due to be returned from MASH to Rangers International on repayment of the loan are currently worth 26% of RRL. I wonder if they will be worth more than 0.1% of the company this time next month.
This is a classic Rope-a-Dope. Pay him his money, do it quickly, secure as much of your Intellectual Property as you can, as quickly as you can. This is not a matter for brinksmanship. You stupid, stupid, lemmings are walking off a cliff. Again!
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I cant find an official club website for them.
Hail Hail.
Captain Beefheart@ 13 26 .
There is a very good American DVD re Jean Ritchie -Mountain Born : The Jean Ritchie Story .
I also visited the Guardian website – I missed examples of – ” the usual hatred towards religion , Israel and Jews etc.. . Can you give me some pointers ?
S ARABIA getting it in the neck now.
so can anyone tell me out of the 206 countries in the world,how many have the SOU’S
INVADED WOMAN RAPED COUNTRIES PILLAGED AFRICANS MADE SLAVES IN THE AMERICAS …………
jist askin like.
“The [FFin’]dignity of silence.
For the last two decades plus, we have witnessed a voluminous cascade of lies,
slights and slurs launched in the press and on the airwaves against our club. As the
years progressed, the Fourth Estate ramped up the hostility, stoked the fires of
sectarian hatred and told untruth after untruth and laid lie upon lie whilst our board
maintained a dignified silence, never once responding to any of the words, slurs or
allegations laid against our club…..never once did the custodians of the club stand
firm and publicly rebuke these heinous untruths. A dignified silence was rigidly
maintained, the other cheek was predictably and passively turned. As we moved
into the age of social media, the lies, the hatred and the aggression rained down
upon us like an endless monsoon but still the response from the club remained
immutable; silence…. And, to heap yet more misery upon the long suffering
support, in the aftermath of the Fir Park debacle, we have a manager and board
happy to throw one of their own players under the metaphorical bus whilst failing to
significantly highlight the egregious behaviour of our opponents and their fans, save
for a soporific, flimsy paragraph.
Simply put, the dignified silence has been a failure. No; worse than that – it’s become an absolute nightmare, a cross of unbearable weight and an invitation for the haters to say and do as they wish. The dignified silence has transformed a proud, mighty institution into a pathetic, cowering, craven club. A club that has become little more than a doormat for those who have wished (and, indeed, attempted) to kill us to then wipe (stamp?) their feet upon. The sheer pathetic, mind boggling uselessness of our public relations department has become a joke, one that all outwith Ibrox laugh at and rightly so. This is a football club that habitually does not stand up for itself and is seen by all and sundry to be scared to do so. Decades of chronic mismanagement, skewed agendas and wilful ignorance from within the club have resulted in a pathetic, gibbering wreck that is too scared and scarred to confront those who bully and belittle it. To be blunt, in PR terms we’ve hit rock bottom with the latest statement from the club in the aftermath of Fir Park. It could have been handled differently in a number of ways but, yet again, the fundamental echo that reverberates from the club statement is, ‘carry on haters it’s business as usual under the new regime’.
Make no mistake though: this is a crucial moment for the club as it represents for many of us a line in the sand moment. Do we blindly continue with the dignity of silence and allow the status quo to remain or do we enter the modern age and actually begin to fight back against the aggressors, the haters, the liars and the cheats and embrace the art of spin? Do we remain reactive, feeble minded fools that allow free reign to those who hate us or do we, finally, become proactive and begin the fight back to reclaim our name, highlight the truth and expose the lies? For me, it is a simple choice and a glaringly obvious one – it’s no use remaining mute and claiming the moral high ground when that high ground is actually in a hollow and your enemies are perched high above and micturating with impunity upon you as they laugh endlessly at your deep rooted cowardice…. The Stockholm Syndrome style behaviour exhibited by the current board cannot continue…. If Dave King does not begin to fight back against the many lies and half truths that are being spun against him online, on air and in print, then he merely gives credence to those words used against him. DK needs to lead from the front on this one. He needs to confront those who diligently vilify him and utilise all the weapons that he can financially muster to expose and destroy them. By doing so, he will not only display a backbone and a taste for the long, hard fight ahead (and, again, make no mistake, this will be a particularly long and nasty struggle) but he will also be raising a flag around which all of us can rally. We need such an act desperately as confidence in our PR is truly at an all time low….. Sunday provided an open goal with which to score yet we failed to do so. The grotesque manner in which we have dealt with matters related to newspapers, television and online is a dark stain on our club and one that needs to be washed from the very fabric of our soul lest it become a veritable leitmotif embedded within our DNA. The age of the dignified silence has long since passed; Scotland has become a different country in the last two years never mind the last two decades and the concept of turning the other cheek is as cowardly as it is spineless. The time to draw the line in the sand is now – not literally and not metaphorically. Look at the calendar and mark on it that we released a statement on Sunday, the thirty first day of May – then draw a line through that box. From that day forwards, we fight back. Messrs King, Murray et al – the ball is in your court. You can either continue an era of appeasement which will diminish your customer base or you begin the fight back to reclaim the soul of the club and its rightful place within society.
Your call, gents.”
Saudi Arabia where you can be sentenced to death for ‘sorcery’.
You’d think this wasn’t happening right now reading some
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/04/us-yemen-security-idUSKBN0OK0RJ20150604
The City of York, where you can kill a Scotsman if found within the city walls at night.
Hail Hail.
Advocaat set to stay at Sunderland
.
I Remember when we were against CR Smith Double Glazing…
Summa
Germany, Japan, Serbia, North Korea, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, China etc, all have been out enemy at one time, atrocities, genocide, repression, have all been the norm, from time to time.
These nations are all incorporated within World Football.
We have these ‘holier than thou’ ar**holes on here decrying Celtic, for their Saudi connection.
Sanctimonious someone said, I say piss off out of the real world – tickets for Shangri La are available on Radio Clyde, every evening between 18:00 & 19:00
Wee minger, nobody actually likes Sorcerers, bloody magicking everything who needs em.
Hail Hail.
Monaghan1900
Good to see you back mate, wis getting worried that maybe you’d been captured behind enemy lines:)))
Hail Hail
.
So..
Is there 195 or 206 Countries in the World..?
Even Google is Not Sure..
Summa
I wonder what pension broker Celtic uses, and what companies the funds are invested in?
Weeeeellll, I’m just gonna leave this hand-grenade here and slowly back away…
In all seriousness, please do not debate this point. Please.
I have changed my mind, I now think that due to the brutal and excessive kull of Sorcerers they are now an endangered species, they should therefore be protected as such so I have decided to form the Save our Saudi Sorcerers Campaign, donations would be appreciated.
Hail Hail.
Conduct which stirs up or sustains, or is likely or is designed to stir up or sustain, hatred or ill will against or towards individuals or groups of people because of:
Gender, colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origin
Membership or presumed membership, of a religious group or of a social or cultural group with perceived religious affiliation
Sexual orientation
Transgender identity
Disability
As long as the Saudi club signed up to the same principals it’s no a problem
Not sure about sorcerers but I would welcome a few magicians on the pitch at Celtic Park.
Summa of Sammi…. @ 14 08 .
The world according to FIFA has 209 countries
monaghan1900,
Quite a tome for one of the Klan, but micturating! Surely they’re taking the piss!
AR
Antipodean..,
Looks like they’ve simply taken that from a Celtic blog and changed the club
starry plough
14:08 on
4 June, 2015
They had me by the ankles for a while, Starry. Managed to burn them off with a wee crucifix!
HH
Canamalar I am sure there is a problem with that list for a club from Saudi, you should write to them and complain about it, tell them to get the finger oot and move into the 21st century.Or maybe you should start a campaign, the get Celtic to sort out the Saudi problem for you. Or maybe it’s just a story in a paper. Who Knows.
Hail Hail.
And if we had no sorcerers in the world what would we put oor cup o tea on??
Vespacide,
There was a link up on the last blog showing something going on between the clubs but its in Arabic.
My point is that, these rules are imposed on the support but not business partners double standards again
Business is business, why did you not google translate it and post it up here ?
Hail Hail.
‘Rope-a-dope lemmings’ – brilliant and certainly more eloquent than the ‘arrogant, stupid, thick, Huns’ I would have used.
To take on MASH and believe they can win, King et al. really must be level their own hype and WATP nonsense. However, there is a teeny, tiny bit of me that asks ‘ are they really, really that stupid?’. I take Paul’s analysis of the situation one step further: King must know that Ashley knows he will not win the vote and must surely be anticipating Ashley’s next move.
I’ve thought about King and co taking the clumpany in to administration/liquidation again and blaming it on bid, bad Mike, but Ashley would hold all the IP and who knows what other assets, so that’s unlikely to happen.
King must think he has an angle somewhere, surely? Only time will tell, but meanwhile I’m happy to believe the weight of history which show conclusively they are probably arrogant, stupid, thick huns.
“My point is that, these rules are imposed on the support but not business partners double standards again”
Canamalar,
And I’m sure there’ll be rules imposed on business partners that are not imposed on fans. It’s how things are.
Vespacide,
Yep business is business
As for the translation I don’t need to I’m satisfied the club have made the agreement and will now be linked with every atrocity Saudi perpetrates. It’s a simple fact of life, whether you want to make up convoluted excuses or not.
Geordie…,
The support are business partners, a business agreement is made with every season ticket holder, it’s just that less is expected from some business partners than others.
Have Celtic made the agreement ?
Hail Hail.
Hello again all you young rebels.
What a week on the blog it’s been very entertaining for this
auld rebel over in Oz, first we had the stickies result and yon
big thug kicking and punching anything that moved, took me
back to my playing days in the Glasgow amateur leagues.
Then we had the 3 beers and gash holding a gun to big Mash
well, thats a statement, personally i think they should take big
Moshnie tae the AGM.
Now it seems our club have a tie in with the Saudies, i’m sure
that horror news will sustain the hand wringers until the next
blog.
Vespacide.
I think your save our sorcerers campaign would be magic
my donation will arrive when the rabbit comes out of the black
top hat.
It’s magic you know it’s gonna be ten in a row.
H.H MICK
P.S Cowiebhoy
Hope you’ll be fit soon to run after those lovely girls of yours.
Philbhoy/ Olivia
Prayers for you all.
If So, what is the agreement ?
Hail Hail.
Any truth in the story John Riyadh is to return as chairman?
The RRL dilution scenario is a topic that first crossed my mind some time ago, and started to crystallise when SD provided the loan to RIFC in January.
Because we have no sight of the loan document, or any side letters to it, or indeed, the RRL shareholders’ agreement between RIFC and SD, there’s no real telling how it all might play out.
But we do have a number of public documents, including Stock Market Notices and of course, the Articles of Association of RRL.
Using these, other publicly available info, and drawing some inferences, I posted the following a couple of months ago.
Given Ashley’s latest move, RIFC’s response to it, and Paul’s leader today, I thought it was maybe worthwhile reposting it.
If you don’t think it’s a worthwhile repost, scroll on past. You’ll save yourself quite a few minutes of your life.
———————-
13 April, 2015
Play mischief for me…
Consider:
In 2012, TRFC Ltd entered into a joint venture with Sports Direct, such JV named “Rangers Retail Ltd”, the purpose of which is to maximise revenue from the sale of Rangers branded merchandise.
SD had 49 Ordinary A shares, with TRFC having 51 Ordinary B shares.
While TRFC has a nominal majority of the shareholding, A shares carry twice the voting weight of B shares on all Financial matters. [That’s a curious matter in itself]
Proceeds from the JV are distributed to shareholders via dividends from profit, such dividends being voted on. As a financial matter, SD’s A shares carry the vote on dividends.
[NB The Board can elect to distribute different levels of dividend to different classes of share]
TRFC borrowed £5M from SD recently, the loan being secured on the training ground and other properties owned by RIFC, and additionally, the Intellectual Properties of the ‘Rangers’ brand, including all trademarks, and the legal right to trade as “Rangers FC”.
SD has since been assigned formal ownership of the IPs and the thus the “Rangers FC” brand.
Further, under the terms of the loan, SD is permitted to nominate 2 Directors to the board of holding company RIFC plc for the duration of the loan.
Additionally, as a condition of the loan, TRFC transferred 26 of its B shares in Rangers Retail Ltd to SD.
On transfer, these B shares automatically became assigned as A shares.
RRL’s share structure as of now is:
SD 75 A shares
TRFC 25 B shares
Both the ownership of the IP and the 26 transferred shares revert back to TRFC once the loan has been settled.
There is no set timescale on repayment of the loan, but it is understood that the loan can be settled by TRFC or called in by SD at each party’s discretion.
With 75% of the ordinary voting rights of RRL, SD is now able to unilaterally approve Special Resolutions to change the Articles of RRL, for example, to issue more shares. In such a circumstance, all shareholders would have a right to participate, provided they have the means to subscribe for (cash to purchase) new shares.
In the meantime, in given circumstances – such as irreconcilable dispute – the Articles provide that SD has the right to buy out TRFC’s shares for a sum equivalent to 50% of the previous year’s profit.
Here’s where the mischief comes in…
SD can, with a Special Resolution, dilute TRFC’s shareholding by issuing new shares to a level that TRFC cannot afford to subscribe to. Say, the issue of 400 new Ordinary shares at a premium of £25,000 each share, thus injecting £10M of new capital into RRL.
In this circumstance, assuming TRFC does not have the cash to participate, the revised RRL shareholding becomes:
SD 475 A shares
TRFC 25 B shares
At a stroke, TRFC’s holding in the company is diluted to 5%. Even were TRFC to pay back the loan, they would only gain an additional 26 shares – being the original 26 shares transferred under the loan agreement – giving them a smidgeon over 10% of the revised shareholding, with SD owning 90%.
However, remember that as a condition of the loan, SD as a right to nominate 2 Directors to the board of RIFC plc.
Lets say, for the sake of er.. mischief… that SD formally nominated Derek Llambias and Barry Leach, such nomination being executed prior to the recent EGM.
As we know, the EGM voted to remove Llambias and Leach from the board of RIFC, thus POTENTIALY creating a default on the terms of the SD loan.
With the loan in default, SD now hold the whip hand, and can direct matters as they determine.
Mischievously, SD might elect to:
1) Pursue a share issue at RRL as described above
Thus causing an irreconcilable difference between the parties and…
Institute the measures permitted under the Articles in the event of such a dispute and effect the buy out of TRFC’s shareholding.
And/or
2) Insist on the appointment of Llambias and Leach
Thus causing an irreconcilable difference between the parties and..
Institute the measures permitted under the Articles in the event of such a dispute and effect the buy out of TRFC’s shareholding.
And/or
3) Vote to distribute dividends from RRL only to holders of A shares, thus excluding TRFC from a share of profits from its own retail division.
Thus causing an irreconcilable difference between the parties and..
Institute the measures permitted under the Articles in the event of such a dispute and effect the buy out of TRFC’s shareholding.
You get the idea. SD can legitimately create the circumstances where the parties are demonstrably in dispute and take RRL off TRFC’s hands for the small sum of last year’s profit.
Thereafter…
In attempting to recover some of the sums due under the loan, might SD elect to sell the brand properties…
Remember, I like mischief.
…supposing SD elects to sell the brand rights for the same sum as they were last bought for on the open market, when, of course, Sevco Scotland Ltd (now TRFC)bought them from the Administrators of Rangers plc, and paid the princely sum of… One single pound sterling.
[NB That’s the true sum paid to D&P]
How could TRFC possible complain that the rights were sold for less than market value when they themselves paid the same sum for the very same rights less than 3 years ago?
Not just small mischief…
…SD elects to sell the brand rights to… none other than Rangers Retail Ltd, the now subsidiary company of SD.
Erra Gers intellectual properties, All furra pound.
Thus might TRFC lose its retail merchandising division, assorted trademarks, and the very right to trade as “Rangers FC”, to its very own merchandising division, now owned by SD.
In the meantime, SD has the small matter of the remaining outstanding £4.99M balance of the loan, such loan being further secured on the training ground, car park and a building on the Ibrox apron.
Quite the dilemma. What to do?
As Paul Murray noted last night in a statement written by Edward J Smith, and issued by RIFC:
“..the position is not as alarming as it may first appear.”
Mischievous guy that Paul Murray. Great sense of humour. And great hair too. What’s left of it…
———–
Update: Crosses my mind that an EGM decision to reject the SD resolution to repay the loan might, amongst other things, be considered prima facie an irreconcilable difference.
Just sayin’, like.
TBB
Is it just a story in the press ? at the moment I can verify it Is a story in the press.
Hail Hail.
Fans of Hajer FC in Saudi Arabia are up in arms at the news of an official tie up with their club and Celtic FC from Scotland.
Club Chairman, Sami Al-Melhem, defended the link:
“I know some of our fans might not see the advantages of this link-up to our club, but we have to do what is best for the club. The history of the UK as the former colonial masters of UAE, Yemen, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan and Israel, its record of military occupation, exploiting the region’s natural resources and more recently the illegal invasion of a Muslim country – are matters that need to be seen in context.
Further, Scotland’s ongoing sectarian problem, as witnessed by the Orangefest, an anti-Catholic event which will close down Glasgow city centre this weekend, and the country’s poor tradition of undemocratic legislation such as the Offensive Behaviour at Footbal Grounds Act (enforced by brutal policing) are regrettable. However, we want to work with our new partners in Glasgow to help them overcome these challenges.”
Source: AP
Halal! Halal!
The celts are here
geordie munro
14:43 on 4 June, 2015
Any truth in the story John Riyadh is to return as chairman?
::::::::::::::