o Newco Rangers have £1.2m in the bank and the courts have just arrested £620k, leaving circa £600k available. In early September. Football clubs have their cash high water mark in June, after season ticket money arrives, with the low-point coming the month before, so is liquidation just around the corner? Not necessarily.
The club has a couple of significant problems: it’s short of money and has significant monthly outgoings, but it also has assets, and may have buyers for those assets.
Murray Park is an outrageous folly and should be sold immediately. Protests to secure it have been acts of self-harm; swallow your pride and sell. This is a football club in acute danger, pretentions of grandeur, and Murray Park is exactly that, should be shed immediately. Albion car park and the Edmiston House office building are superfluous property assets and could be sold without stopping football operations.
Mike Ashley has an asset Newco want back – stadium naming rights. He could repatriate these rights as a sweetener in a deal to buy Murray Park, Albion and Edmiston. Newco could leaseback the training ground, Sports Direct would be able to build a stonking big tracksuit shop on the Albion site and the club could boast to fans that they negotiated back Ibrox naming rights.
This might sound like a bitter pill but it will keep the lights on a little longer, makes irrefutable sense and is relatively painless. The original Rangers existed for over a century without Murray Park, one of Scotland’s best run topflight football clubs’ Motherwell, train on a school sports field, Newco Rangers could do the same. A little humility right now would be good for them.
There remains a problem: cumulatively, these assets are unlikely to be worth more than the £4m the club hope to raise in their proposed (not underwritten) share issue. This is still not enough to see them through the season. Expenditure for the last season accounts are available, 2012-13, averaged close to £3m per month. The club will need close to £20m between now and season ticket renewal time.
Creditors must be paid or the club will go into administration. To pay creditors, without sufficient income or credit, more assets must be sold, specifically Ibrox.
If they go into administration before selling Ibrox, don’t expect events to follow a similar path to the one Duff & Phelps took when administering Oldco Rangers. Duff & Phelps were appointed by a liquidation specialist with a specific remit. They even tried to sign a player. Newco in administration would follow a more conventional route: redundancies would take place and assets would be sold to pay creditors.
Ibrox is the only significant asset administrators would have to sell. It could generate enough to pay creditors in full and get the club through to the end of the season. Finding a buyer would be the main challenge, but as we all now know, the club can stand or fall, but whoever controls Ibrox can continue to get a rental return from successor club.
An administrator could dismiss the manager and some other highly paid staff, reducing costs to a more manageable level, and pay ordinary creditors in full.
Newco Rangers need to finish in the top four to be in with a chance of promotion, which would be a challenge, but not an insurmountable one with the right manager in place. They could be a top flight club next season.
This is not how fans wanted the Newco to progress but after they were unable to raise more than the £5.5m Charles Green’s consortium put on the table to buy Rangers assets, the future was mapped out.
Costs for police, insurance, electricity, IT, office staff, security and the million other items needed by a football club who occasionally host 50,000 people will be no less than circa £17m p.a – before you employ a footballer.
Newco’s income could rise from the £19m they earned in season 2012-13 (though possibly not this season), but there’s just not enough money to run a football team. Scottish Premiership football would be a chastening experience, the levels of austerity required going forward would be draconian.
Fans can protest that they are watching the same old club all they like, but it’s not going to look anything like the Rangers you or I have ever known – and I knew them under John Greig. And here’s the nub, the most optimistic financial projections are based on Newco selling the same number of tickets Oldco sold. Would a Newco competing alongside St Mirren and Kilmarnock sell any more than the 23,000 season tickets they’ve sold this year?
The long-term financial fundamentals remain unchanged. In 2012 the Blue Knights concluded there was no viable future for football at Ibrox if Rangers were liquidated. Two years later all the evidence reaffirms that position. This is a dead multi-club franchise.
Looking forward to the Maestro Match tomorrow. See you there.
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Bobby Murdoch. Apologies. You are 100% correct? Gordon Brown promised to abolish it, I was in room at the time and applauded it.
Off-topic,is Russia having a pop at Estonia now?
Doubles its borders with Latvia and gives it much greater access to The Baltic.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/07/russia-estonia-police-spying-intelligence-eston-kohver
AULD BERTIE
Touché.
Goal Tipp
charles, Forget about it son, don’t like falling out with a Celt or a GAA man, but you’ve taken me up wrong and there is nothing I can do about it. So lets leave it at that.
Bobby Murdoch, I didn’t men to insert question mark after ‘correct’. Again for the avoidance of doubt Gordon Brown did not introduce the PFI. Funnily enough Lord Major is against it now, funny world.
corkcelt
15:51 on 7 September, 2014
It’s been many a year since I’ve been called ‘son’ – you just can’t help your patronising ways – but I’ll take it as a compliment
I’m happy to leave it – enjoy the game
fact – camels cannot pronounce the letter ‘f’.
it causes much hilarity in Comet when one goes in to buy a fridge.
Charles
To be fair I thought it was Corkcelt engaging in a harmless bit of banter. I have never known him to give grief to fellow Gaels on the site.
Peace and love Charles
Tommy Johnston gives the ball Bhoy his top and sends him on for the last 2 mins. Nice touch Tommy!!
3-2 btw
i dont believe for a second that most yes voters are only doing it because they think they will be better off
self determination i reckon would be the major reason
on the other hand i think a sizeable percentage of no voters are voting no because they think they will be worse off, with another sizeable percentage of them just being butchers apron wavers
Neil canamalar Lennon hunskelper extrordinaire
15:36 on 7 September, 2014
‘Ernie..,
I’m now coming down on the yes side for one simple reason, there will be a few less illegal wars’
###
You’ll need to explain that one to me, because it’s not self evident.
Steph bhoy……
IMHO James Forrest is one of the higher quality players in a bloated Celtic squad, which is populated by mostly journeymen….. recent European performances and results proved this.
He won’t struggle to find a decent level next employer, if he is so inclined.
Potentially every bit as good as Aiden McGeady.
Hope he stays at Celtic, stays fit, and we build a team around him.
AllaboutopinionCSC
Watched Darren O’Dea here in TO for a while.
Well past his best and not good enough anymore even for TFC and that’s saying something right now as they are rank rotten.
Ernie..,
I doubt the British army will have the funds or strength to continue to be the US lapdog
auld bertie
15:36 on 7 September, 2014
Bet you’re now wishing you’d chosen a different log in, eh?
Never mind I don’t suppose you’ll be on after the 18th.
Didnt Offaly do the double in 1983 ?
I’d also expect the UK to loose its permanent seat at the UN top table
Neil canamalar Lennon hunskelper extrordinaire
16:02 on 7 September, 2014
‘Ernie..,
I doubt the British army will have the funds or strength to continue to be the US lapdog’
###
Sorry, still not getting it.
The UK can only afford to go to war because it’s subsidised by Scotland?
The UK will have reduced income and reduced manpower, I may be wrong but I was advised the British army has 40% scots
Anybody that can access game(.hurling final) should do so. Mahers using camans like harry potters wand. Brilliant game. Skill,commitment and energy with not a 300k per week pay packet in sight.
PetetheBeat. Offaly never won the double, 1983 Kilkenny won hurling & Dublin the football. In 1985 Offaly did win the hurling beating Galway (was at the game) but a couple of weeks later lost to Kerry in the football final.
Ernie.
Thanks for your reply.
I note the date of that BBC article as 22nd January 2014. At that point there were a significantly higher number of undecided voters. Since then, I believe the debate has shifted to a more fundamental basis in the minds of many. Neither the SNP or the pro union camp can really predict what will happen economically.
The debate I hear is one of the democratic deficit. It’s unfortunate that the SNP continue to ‘promise the earth’ and that the Better Together lot predict doom.
I and many others that I speak to will vote YES because it’s the democratic thing to do. I suspect there will tough times and tough choices to make in an indi Scotland, but there would be tough choices in the UK.
At least with independence, those choices can be addressed by the will of those living and paying taxes in Scotland.
HH
Have a financial interest on Kilkenny-2 in the hurling,not
looking like I’ll be collecting, at h/t losing by 2
gearoid1998
16:08 on 7 September, 2014
Fantastic game – only one wide for Tipp in the first half
That hurling is just mental.
Disappointing turn out and support for one of our clubs absolute legends today.
MWD says AYE
stephbhoy
15:47 on
7 September, 2014
signing up DOD would stall the progress of our young centre backs,
*actually I see the opposite. In December 1951 we signed a 29 year old centre half mainly to mentor the reserves…….he was initially nowhere near the first team but due to injuries was finally drafted in…the rest is history.
Corkcelt.
You re right. Amazing that i believed the offaly double business for 20 years or so.
Neil canamalar Lennon hunskelper extrordinaire
16:08 on 7 September, 2014
‘I may be wrong but I was advised the British army has 40% scots’
###
You’re never going to believe this, but guess what, you’re wrong.
It’s about 10%.
And here’s another thing. They weren’t conscripted!
And if Scotland leaves the UK Scots could still join the British armed forces. They recruit from all over the place.
So, as I say I don’t get your point. It makes no sense. But then, if it’s based on nonsense, it’s not going to make sense, is it?
By Yoda. Tims worrying about the breakup of the British Army because of Independence. Whatever next?!
MWD says AYE
skyisalandfill
16:10 on 7 September, 2014
‘At least with independence, those choices can be addressed by the will of those living and paying taxes in Scotland.’
###
Not if there’s a currency union.
Monetary policy will be dictated by the Bank of England.
And, depending on the terms of entry, the EU might well be dictating terms as well.
Check it out.
Johnny Clash 16.14. LOL
Good well balanced game, great intensity, some understandable errors on both sides. Tipp have edged the first half but its still wide open. Kilkenny will spring Henry Sheflin in the 2nd half, could be a vital move.
Ernie just because Bertie Auld says NO, does not mean I follow his advice. I think for myself, I thought you would have worked that out. You do not acquiesce with your hero Ernesto Che Lynch Guevara. Think he would puke about your Right Wing rants. While pretending to be a Left Winger. Samaras was more convincing. I see you didn’t counter any of my points? Come the 18th Ernesto you will live in a more social cohesive country, I hope! get yer money out now Ernie,
Kilkenny out the traps!!!
Brilliant game of hurling !!!
Nye Bevans’ rebel soldier
16:24 on 7 September, 2014
Kilkenny out the traps!!!
Some finish