We are five days away from the end of the season, Duff and Phelps have spent 10 weeks trying to solicit an offer for the assets of the company and the only one they were in a position to consider has now been withdrawn.
The stadium remains in Craig Whyte’s hands.
The SPL has not offered a place in the league.
The players can choose to become free agents on Sunday.
Duff and Phelps have no money to pay anyone or anything after 31 May.
Are you getting the picture?
Whatever ‘good news’ Duff and Phelps come out with later, or ‘Rangers to benefit from Miller withdrawal’ you read about tomorrow, not one piece of positive news has gone Rangers way in weeks.
This is a dead football club. If there was an accountancy term beyond liquidation, perhaps uber-liquidation, they would be uber-liquidated (there’s not, but if this gets any worse the English language will need some re-work).
Yesterday’s delay was the most complete confirmation possible, for anyone still harbouring doubt, today’s message from Miller should be no surprise to Celtic Quick News readers.
Miller’s parting shot:
“After hearing the message from Rangers supporters and fans loud and clear (“Yank go home!”), I notified the administrators today that I have withdrawn my bid for Rangers”.
…has the makings of a topic for a business doctorate, if anyone is looking for one. I’d elaborate but reckon we’re all a little carried away at the moment for serious debate.
The histrionics since yesterday and, if you don’t mind me saying, lack of appreciation of these historic times, would dishonour teenage girls (no offense teenage girls).
Please stop with all the silliness, indignation and faux trauma. Some football supporters have real issues to worry about.
You can buy a hard copy of the new issue of CQN Magazine via Magcloud here.
The graphic below is just for a flick through, to read the magazine go here to it’s dedicated site.
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Paul67 – are we going to sort out a whip round for the asset sale? I want that bike….
If ever there was a sign of complete and utter desperation it must be the calls to bring back Murray D.
Not so daft was he? Managed to get a quid for that debt ridden mess.
What with all the discombobulation surrounding rangers, why don’t the administrators Duff and Feltch just put a deadline on any bids. This would surely end any unnecessary bamboozlement.
Don’t know why they haven’t thought of it before.
MICK11 on 8 May, 2012 at 21:46
Brilliant…..
Afraid to go into shower tomorrow MORNING and come out only to find it has all been a DREAM.
57
Bill Miller proves he’s a fit & proper person by walking away.
What’s the appeal to a Tennessee businessman of buying Rangers Football Club when he knew very little about it?
Apparently, it had to do with the prospect of the hair on Bill Miller’s arms standing up as he witnessed the passion at an Old Firm match.
No, I’m not making this up. Bill Miller’s friends had told him this was one of the world’s great derby matches.
But to own a half of said contest, and a lot of baggage that goes with it, is quite a price to pay for a bit of follicular stimulation.
We know this was the attraction of owning Rangers because he has, at last, explained it. But he only did so at the end of the statement announcing he’s withdrawing as preferred bidder.
He gives two main reasons for pulling out. One is that he’s had a closer look at the books, and they’re not quite as good as he was led to believe.
“Preliminary information, discussion and analysis were, unfortunately, more optimistic than reality,” said the statement.
Chattanooga poo-poo
Given what was already public knowledge about Rangers’ books, and the business risks hanging over them, it stretches the imagination a bit to think they’re even worse than we’d thought.
Or perhaps, viewed from Chattanooga, the enormity of the debts and the even more daunting complexity of sorting out the business while retaining Rangers’ sporting position had been, somehow, lost in translation somewhere mid-Atlantic
That’s until Team Miller got beyond the limited information made available by Duff and Phelps, the Ibrox administrators, and the preliminary discussions with both the Scottish footballing authorities and team manager Ally McCoist.
A bit more light was shed on this by Duff and Phelps, saying of Bill Miller “there were a number of issues with which he felt uncomfortable including legacy contracts, the limitation of potential revenue streams and the expectation of required investment”.
Yankie doo-doo fan day
That raises lots of questions about what’s meant. “Legacy contracts” could be the deal by which Craig Whyte last year raised more than £24m from selling three years of season tickets to Ticketus, the football finance firm based in London.
Or that could refer to the deals to sell catering and hospitality rights, or perhaps players contracts.
All of those contracts could be set aside if the company is liquidated. But of course, Mr Miller thought he had a cunning plan to avoid liquidation. It’s not looking so cunning now.
But hark! News arrives of more explanation from one of Bill Miller’s US-based advisers, saying that “There are big legacy costs as a result of doing things poorly over a number of years – structural and commercial problems”.
Bill Pritchitt talks of Mr Miller becoming “very unpopular, given the way things have operated”.
It seems some at Ibrox hadn’t quite realised how much things needed to change, and were asking when the spending taps might get turned on again.
He adds: “The second factor is some of the contingency liabilities: are the players coming or going? What are the final decisions with regard to the SFA and SPL and sanctions?”
So “Potential revenue streams” probably refers to the blow from an exit from European competition for at least one year, and quite possibly more, or the threat that relegation to the third division would hit gate receipts and TV rights rather hard.
And the “expectation of required investment”? Bill Miller had only briefly mentioned the working capital required to fund Rangers, beyond the £11.2m he offered to take over the club. No figure was mentioned.
He was off the hook for one year of squad development, because registration of players is banned for a season. But the club was leeching £10m per season as it was, and that was going to require some deep pockets while he turned things around with what he called “fiscal discipline – no excuses”.
Mr Pritchitt, chief executive of Club 9 Sports, which itself was previously interested in bidding said, tells us that, from Mr Miller’s point of view: “It would take a fairly large amount of money to keep it from dying”. And was it worth his children’s inheritance? Er, no.
Then there was the other big reason for pulling out – the reaction Bill Miller received from Rangers fans, citing the “Yanks Go Home” message. This was the shortened version of several banners displayed at Ibrox last weekend, with references extending to “asset stripping Yanks”.
Mr Pritchett says it went rather further than that, with hundreds of emails directed at him, some full of “vitriol and expletive-filled”.
Miller says he heard the message “loud and clear”. So he’s taking his £11m from his lawyers’ bank account, to spend it elsewhere – presumably somewhere that sports fans are rather happier to see his investment, and local newspapers are less prying into his private life.
Ibrox bonus bidders
So where does this leave Rangers? Duff and Phelps say that, after Bill Miller was given preferred bidder status last Thursday, three other bidders came forward.
Now, let’s be clear about this: we’re expected to believe that three different people or groups have watched Rangers for a year since Craig Whyte’s reign began, and for the three months since he put it into administration.
And it was only last Thursday, when they saw a preferred bidder come forward, that they thought they’d like to have a go, and could find the money. That’s three bids. Seriously?
It brings me back to the simple question that nagged away at the Bill Miller bid: why? Why would he want to take on Rangers, when he had no link to it? And why would someone else now want to do so, when the complexities and risks are so daunting?
We know one reason why Duff and Phelps wants more bidders. It has a responsibility to creditors to maximise the value they can get from the debt they have with the club.
With Bill Miller out, attention turns back to the Blue Knights consortium – led by former director Paul Murray along with Sale Sharks rugby team owner Brian Kennedy. But if they are the only ones left bidding, then they can lower their price.
As they were reported to be bidding only £1.5m, that’s already impossibly low if a deal is to be done with creditors.
Is it worth agreeing to one or two pence in the pound, or could there be more to be had from forcing a liquidation, and selling the assets in a firesale auction?
That’s the conversation Duff and Phelps have to have with HM Revenue and Customs and with Ticketus, among others. And with the end of the season and of players’ temporary contracts looming large, they’re running out of time to find an answer.
The creditors will want to know if these new bids are credible, just as we all do.
They may also be asking about the credibility of Duff and Phelps in their management of this process. They’re looking ever more like Laurel and Hardy.
Article written by Douglas Fraser
Business and economy editor, Scotland
sparkleghirl on 8 May, 2012 at 20:27 said:
Graham Spiers @GrahamSpiers
What a daft tool Bill Miller is. Rangers – as hopeless and undignified as this club now looks – are better off without him. Waste of space.
<Angst, Petulance and Hysteria!
was on the phone to my friend about an hour or so ago and kyle lafferty yes that
one was in raffo’s chippy at the top pf the whiterock in the heart of west belfast
ordering battered sausages i kid you not and my friend asked him what he was doing there and he replied he was with one paddy mcourt in the rock bar on the
falls road having a drink with him,he swears to me its the truth.
THE EXILED TIM on 8 May, 2012 at 21:48 said:
Why the e-mail?
Above article by Douglas Fraser, BBC Business and economy editor, Scotland.
Lubo
Serious question.
Will Duff and Duffer announce through a presser that they are winding the hun up.
Or will it be something else ???
Ma big pals just heard about the Yankee Doodle Dandy pulling out!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foahtz9xnw8
Douglas Fraser @BBCDouglsFraser:
Lone #Rangers bid goes tonto, as club gets the Chattanooga poo-poo http://bbc.in/J0pCoc
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
Bhodran Man 20.27
Brilliant. :))
All was going to plan ’til Bill saw the size of Swally’s Greggs’ bill.
You’d have thought Willie miller would have enough on his hands with them chip shops in Aberdeen without bidding for rangers
‘crushed nuts?’ ‘Naw, Layringitis!’ on 8 May, 2012 at 21:50 said:
Shared, mate. A cracker!
estorilbhoy
Why not, just sent him a welcome message to Glasogow, and let him know what the bares thought about him……
Almost time to buy a Rangers top.
Place in a prominent position in the home.
A good laugh every time you pass it.
Or ,maybe a wee shrine……….naw,that would be triumphalism
Stars and stripes, well stripes anyway!
Anyone be kind enough to paste quotes from FPLG from last week, when King Bill was announced prefered bidder? Be interesting to hear what the fat wee sh*te thinks of him this week, probably never know, as nobody from MSM will have the balls to ask him.
Spiers reckons the huns are better off without Miller?
They couldn’t possibly be any worse off than they are right now.
Wonkyradar im thinking of changeing from sky to virgin. im on a deal with sky till november 80 odd pounds a month full package etc etc ,how much with virgin ,broadband is supposed to be a lot faster.
It’s no longer Miller Time, Bud!
Douglas Fraser @BBCDouglsFraser
Bill Miller adviser on #Rangers: “It would take a fairly large amount of money to keep it from dying.”
Keep the Faith!
Hail Hail!
given Bill’s antics today, the story about D&P not cooperating with the bizzies has disappeared under the radar.
has Doncaster resigned yet????????????
Danso 1888 @21.51.
Not the first time either, he was in the west club on the falls road at the end of last season, at that time he shared the same agent as naill mcginn and paddy mc court, strange times indeed!
What are D&P up to, are they really just milking this for as long as they can? I understood their priority was to look after creditors interests? Or are they just incompetent?
Anyway, I confess I’m beginning to like em
Lubo on 8 May, 2012 at 21:51 said:
It’s a good one lubo
BBC2 Newsnight 11:00pm should be good for a laugh!
Have really, really, really enjoyed Radio Snyde rewind tonight.
Bit like a wake really. They’ve more or less given up hope, stopped looking for straws to clutch. Loving the pain boys, loving the pain…
Panic at Rangers as ‘Yanks go home banner’ sees Edu, Bedoya and Bocanegra board flights to the USA , Kyle Lafferty also on board because he misread it!!
The three new bidders revealed:
Nitromors
Ronseal
B+Q Own Brand
Yip, everyone an asset stripper!
HH
Bye bye Mr American Pie…….
Douglas Fraser @BBCDouglsFraser
Bill Miller adviser on #Rangers: “It would take a fairly large amount of money to keep it from dying.”
Fairly large? As in Pavarotti is a fairly large man? Everest is a fairly large mountain? Kyle Lafferty is a fairly large waste of oxygen?
Bill Miller cancels bid after wife uses imac on his arms whilst asleep:
No hair raising on his arms so no bid
HH