Dave King and three fans, Park, Letham and Taylor, have bought 31% of newco Rangers this week, to add to some minor shareholding previously held. King and the others are not presenting themselves as acting in union, as that would force them to launch a formal takeover bid for all shares in the club. So get it right, this is not a takeover attempt (cough).
King’s shares were acquired from Artemis and Miton Group, who were not aligned with the Easdales, Mike Ashley, or any onerous contracts, they were shareholders hooked at the IPO in December 2012.
We’ve long urged those who are seeking regime change to buy shares in newco, instead of trying to force it into insolvency, an inappropriate course of action. The actions this week confirm the view that the current regime are entrenched and only 50% + one share will change anything.
The remaining significant shareholders: Blue Pitch, Margarita, Easdales and Ashley will all have their exit price. Any one, or all of them, will go if the new investors are prepared to offer enough money – and that is likely to be considerably more than was paid to Artemis and Miton Group. The figures paid this week are relatively small beer compared to the tens of millions required to keep the financially non-viable entity afloat over the next few years.
King, of course, was non-executive director of Rangers, charged with ensuring good governance at the club which was found to have operated an illegal Discount Option Scheme and illegally paid five players through Employee Benefit Trusts, with others subject to appeal. He remained a director of the club until a liquidator was appointed to wrap-up its business.
He was also called a “glib and shameless liar” by a judge in South Africa, where he was convicted of tax evasion, so he’s pretty much perfect to take an active role in newco.
Reports suggest that there is not enough money in the business to meet January payroll, so we’ll not have to wait long to see if those currently in control are intent on remaining in control, of if they are prepared to sel-up and walk away.
My hunch – Ashley will not be usurped by people who attempted to put one of his businesses under. He has the profitable parts of newco Rangers and he’ll do whatever necessary to keep them. He also strikes me as someone who would be unforgiving in the face of manipulation.
A walk down memory lane: Fergus McCann offered bought out each member of Celtic’s old regime in 1994, no matter the price, apart from the likes of Kevin Kelly, who declined his cash but offered to vote alongside him. It cost a lot of money, but it was the right thing to do.
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Bt yeah pretty scary but luckily nobody hurt,all the best to you and yours. H H Hebcelt
Neganon
Why say ‘Some of you are hinting….’
Surely ‘some of us…..’ ie fellow CQNers/Celtic people.
Cos it’s not a view that I personally subscribe to. But I’d never allow a ‘them and us’ phraseology to emerge as a result.
Timmish Bolsheviks fighting Mensheviks will only damage ourselves.
I don’t share quite as dark a view of Scottish society and perpetual institutional bigotry as you do. And I don’t agree with your interpretation of RD’s comments.
So we’ll have agree to differ slightly there. And accept that I’m right and you’re almost right …. but no cigar. (Which is no bad thing cos smoking is bad for you anyhow)
;-)
HH jamesgang
burnley78
All of the players were responsible for what happened at Fir Park but I’ll always remember that seconds before McDonald scored their first, Chris Sutton had the chance to boot the ball into the main stand.
He didn’t, the ball was played into the box and the rest is history.
Ffs
ready to have my daily dose of cqn, and whst do I read? Coco spoutin his usual pish, the bunnet stuck his own money in to secure our club, made 3 promises 1 to win back the flag,2 build us a stadium to be proud of and 3 sell his stake for a profit.but dont let that get in yer way coco, absolute clown.
I keep reading about this season of ‘transition’… could somebody who cares please define what that actually means?
HT
Bellamy should have scored a hat trick that day
I thought the reason Neil Lennon left Celtic was under protest because Celtic pumped his assistant Johan Mjällby?
Lobbing-in a wee bag of grenades afore ah go back tae sleep…….
Murdo was dismissed by the DR coz – Celtic didny like the way that he criticised the team and manager.
Sutton(Neils pal) replaced Murdo at the DR and, had hee-haw to say about his pal Neils team being piss-poor in the 2 cups at home last season.
Hugh Keevins was banned for a pea-shooter offence apprently but, for me….it was HK’s match report from the home friendly with Inter Milan just after the huns had been booted oot the league were HK opined – “The decimated attendance could be a sign of things to come as, Celtic fans couldny even be bothered to turn up for a game which was on the SB and, with the paucity of opposition that Celtic will face domestically, respectfully comes nowhere near quenching the thirst of fans demands with a lack of the 4 Rangers games, ””’Celtic’s CEO might just find himself in trouble with his peers for, voting to have Rangers removed from the league as, opposed to having them, retained in the SPL with a points deduction until, all of the £140 million is paid back in full.””””
The Celtic ‘bored’ wont do or, say anything coz, they know that the fans in the main – are a bunch of cojonesless-brainwashed-sheep-happily-clapping-retarded-seals who pose a threat to nobody in the ‘boredrooms’ pocket.
Read my monicker and be big enough to admit to yerselves – “Hey, know what? Yon eejit might just be right?”
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
BT
You’ve done well to sneak her in for nowt youngster.
Least they could offer I suppose on a £600k holiday!
Right. Aff up.
Laters Timdom
HH jamesgang
neganon2
12:05 on 3 January, 2015
“We are doing it to help the Hun back” ………. You need to take a wee break …….. ‘utter dross’ ( to put it as politely as possible) springs to mind ……..
Melbourne mick.
Burnley 78.
Low point for me. Low point of all low points. Crap on the park and treated like crap off it.
Previous Saturday we had actually beat john greigs rangers 3 – 1 at Celtic park.
Is a transition from stability and relative success to uncertainty and concern a wise transition? (without 20/20 hindsight of course)
Melbourne Mick
I was also there as a young 15 yr old Rebel :-)
Is it possible that Willie Haughey ,Michael MacDonald ,in the near future could be running Celtic.I didnt mention Gerald Wiesfield seen him plenty of times going into parkhead,but havent seen him lately, does he still go.
Cowiebhoy
I’d Wondered about the silly pointy polis hat up on the wall at the cowiebhoyCSC pad!!!
HH jamesgang
jamesgang
12:16 on 3 January, 2015
Have you been to Cambuslang recently ……?
Transition
A period when celtic plc decide to change the manager for a less capable one while maintaining the quantity of renumeration to the ceo
Context – used in a sentence
We didn’t win the league as we were in a transition said the ceo as he announced his bonus was up
Bournesouprecipe, bear in mind that GS and NL had a wealth of experience of Scottish football, and NL of Celtic in particular, and that RD didn’t get the back end of a season to get up to speed prior to his “first full season”, then perhaps we could suggest that GS & NL should be more than 5 and 3 points ahead of RD.
Burnley78:
I’m curious… what is the ‘Neil Lennon’ test?
Never been to Tynecastle and never noticed on the telly how steep their stand is behind the goal!
Is it as scary as it looks?
Off oot for a wee hoot in Glasgow..
hail hail
timbhoy2
12:24 on 3 January, 2015
Is it possible that Willie Haughey ,Michael MacDonald ,in the near future could be running Celtic.
——-
willie haughy maybe
but michael macdonald is a bit Doobie-ous
I’ll get my coat ;-)
Saint Stivs:
Now I might be a mug, but even I can see a few things wrong in Celtic’s thinking if your definition is even partly true.
67Heaven
No. Not for a wee while.
But there’s more to life than cambuslang. Thankfully there’s even more to scotland than cambuslang.
Aff oot……. To infinity and beyond and then cambuslang!
HH jamesgang
Favourite vist to Englandshire following the hoops is still the Alan Hunter testimonial at Ipswich (81) now that was a wee bit rebellious at halftime :-)
Muhren and Tysson, now they could play
Hail Hail
Kev Bungle shockeroony Jeez you write this stuff while still awake!!! H H Hebcelt
Sutton and Hartson can only relate to the Celtic that they knew…..a team that was feared in Europe, that was dominant domestically and that played in front of 60,000 full houses every week.
They weren`t around to witness the Celtic situation of 10 years before that, of being out of the league title race by November, of being out of Europe in the early stages, of playing at home to 18,000 crowds and of toiling against the likes of Motherwell, Partick Thistle and Falkirk.
This season`s league table is the tightest it has been at the New Year/ halfway stage for 22 years with only 5 points separating the top 5 teams. So the question has to be asked:- are we declining, are other teams improving or is it a mixture of both?
We`re not quite as bad as we were in the early 1990s but things are coming full circle to an undeniable extent. In the early 1990s our competitors for the league had players like Aitken and McLeish (Aberdeen), Lambert and Coyne (Motherwell), Leighton and Jackson (Hibernian), McCoist and Hateley (Rangers). I don`t see players of the same quality in the teams challenging Celtic at the top of the league this season. Andrew Considine and Ash Taylor could never hold a candle to Roy Aitken and Alex McLeish, for example.
Furthermore I don`t think we have got any players of the quality of Tom Boyd, Paul McStay and John Collins in our current team.
So I think a lot of what Sutton and Hartson say is fair comment. We clearly are struggling to draw away from a pack of teams that do not have the talented individual players found in rival Scottish teams when the league was last this tight. Aberdeen are on an exceptional run this season, of that there is no doubt, but Inverness and Hamilton still remain within touching distance of us and their form has been more patchy.
The question is – is this all the manager`s fault? Probably not, as there are many factors outside of his control that have got us to where we are today:-
1. Lack of quality young players coming through our development squad and establishing themselves in the first team;
2. Prevalence of loan players in the first team squad;
3. European qualifiers and competition mean we play much more games than anyone else, hence incurring more wear and tear and injuries;
4. High level of turnover in the playing squad, losing the likes of Hooper, Wanayama, Forster, Wilson, Ledley in the last 18 months – the spine of the team has gone to replaced with only really the goalkeeper position not being significantly weakened.
We still of course have much more financial resources than anyone else in the league, the squad inherited was still good enough to win the league comfortably last season, so I think the manager and coaches could do better but its not all their fault that we are where we are.
So I think for the most part what Hartson and Sutton says is fair comment – what is being served up on the park is not good enough at present – although I do think there is a bit of the old pals act going on as well, any criticisms from them were much more muted when we lost games under Neil Lennon.
BT
I will be in the brazen around 3 if ye fancy a beer
POOR START TO THE YEAR THAT NORWEGIAN ASSHOLE IS STILL AT THE CLUB
big georges fan club – hail, hail, wee oscar
We have put together a wee group to get this just right – there are four of us working on it at moment. Auldheid, BRTH, James Forrest and myself.
We also have a strategy to get maximum impact. We are asking all supporters’ sites to publish the feature at the same time and we will be issuing a press release – having briefed key journalists outside the SMSM – on this.
We are also looking at any international angles possible – any other ideas are welcome.
Cowie
the celtic support blew the lights that night peeing over the top of a fuse box, flute band on the park at half time.
lawwellsacountant
Were you hosing down the firhill pitch on Hogmanay so you could type that?
;-)
‘RD’s Celtic have failed to scrape together so much as a point this year….’
You could write Tanner’s lines for him!
HH jamesgang
bournesouprecipe
12:07 on 3 January, 2015
Aye but Deila has had an easier time without FC Midden to play in the league.
Apples and Oranges.
Masty
meeting PF,oldtim and richie at 2…
Ill text if we are coming over..
Ffs another clown.
Bigchipsuk get a grip you say? Halfway through the season and we’ve dropped the same amount of points as we did last season.
Only in Europe through default.
I like Ronny and think he needs time, the point I’m making is that we should be spending less time looking across the city and concentrate on our own problems.
If big VVD is sold or injured we’re struggling. Our top scorer in the league is Stokes with 7 goals – 7 goals for a Celtic striker who plays out on the wing.
BT
fair nuff mo chara,
Masty
Indeed he should mate.