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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….PFayr supports WeeOscar
21:20 on
7 September, 2014
Magnificent seven
Stop being obtuse ….
SNP are the only political party advocating a Yes vote …I feat you fail to understand
Pointless debating any further, you are well aware that the others are doing their masters bidding, and just for the record I was a no until recently, I have never voted SNP but I might the next time after the performance of the no campaign this time round, to say they are treating the electorate with contempt is an understatement.
Sipsini
If that is the reason behind someone voting …..they should have their vote removed
tictaewin
21:37 on 7 September, 2014
Chaz, is he really any better than McManus?
——————-
Yes, mate, he absolutely is better than McManus. Not World class, I grant you, but far better than big McManus (who I do like, BTW).
HH
BGFC
Very harsh second yellow for Charlie but at least he will have a suspension and keep him fresh for us. Every cloud and all that ….
Who’s that other fudd who comes from Finland???
PF
at your age its always difficult to tell the difference between a feat and your feet !!!
Well done wee GS……not quite guid enough.
Hail Hail
My god, I got a reply.
Pint for you sir, anytime.
Is that better than a podium?
Am I in the in crowd now ;-)
Pfayr – I haven’t got an ounce mate, wish a had a wee stretch of one of those salmon rivers myself.
Ernie – Please think about the poor in society for once.
HH.
16 roads
that’s no’ how it works, Cherlie’s already eyeing it up for an Organic Project he saw in a dream.
HH
Would one of you nats pleas tell me why you think we can’t stand on our own two feet and run our own country on our own.
Why do we need a currency union?
Why do we need to be in the EU?
Why do we need to be in Nato?
Why do we need the queen as head of state?
Are we too stupid?
Are we too wee?
You must have reasons.
What are they?
A full day of TV sport. Hurling, soccer and now the hurling highlights on RTE 2 – unlucky Scotland – great effort
….pfayr supports weeoscar
21:39 on 7 September, 2014
Sipsini
If that is the reason behind someone voting …..they should have their vote removed
Pfayr who died and made you henrik?
Who on here said they are a nat?
Tell ye what
Fantastic performance fae
Scotland the night
Gordon you are a miracle worker
#Getgordonbackascelticmanager
tictaewin
21:41 on 7 September, 2014
My god, I got a reply.
Pint for you sir, anytime.
Is that better than a podium?
Am I in the in crowd now ;-)
——————–
Afraid I’m no in a crowd, so cannae help you there mate :-).
Pint of Drambuie please :-))))
HH
BGFC
UsLonersShouldHaveOurOwnGangCSC
ernie
WRONG WRONG WRONG. It was a various WM MPs who agreed on the matter of Scottish left wing beliefs. You really do embarrass yourself. Jim Mather is an MSP who stands for Argyll and Bute and had no say or interview for Sky News this morning. Now, go away back to your WM bunker and tell your paymasters you’ve been outed. Wit an excuse for a, supposed, Scotsman you are.
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
Gideon, stated this morning, that the day after the no vote ? So the 19th, he will give Scotland more powers and control of its own future
Can anyone answer why we have to wait until the day after a no vote ?
What does Gideon control just now, that he is prepared to bribe us to say No ?
Makes me wonder, why is Gideon and the Union so desperate to maintain control, and what does Scotland currently not get because of the Union ?
It’s a YES for me :-)
Not me
Who wants boris as their next pm? …. Ernie?
Ernie
You have just turned around the question I asked of you and you refused to answer. Exactly what I expected as you do not have an answer to my question.
You are making a complete fool of yourself now!
Try google. That may come up with some semblance of a response.
MWD says AYE
TET
What have I told you about exchanging posts with the Village Idiot?
Forget it! Let him get on with his ‘daily job’ of shovelling manure – it’s all he’s fit for.
Thebhoywith…
Do you think a football result is a sound basis for deciding which way to vote in a referendum?
16 roads – Celtic über alles…
21:41 on 7 September, 2014
‘Ernie – Please think about the poor in society for once’
##
‘Good thinking, or perhaps evict them,sell the land and redistribute the wealth to the poor and underprivileged indigenous people.’
##
As a matter of interest would those of us with roots in Ireland be regarded as indigenous under this proposed scheme of yours?
Desperado :-)
*****Last Man Standing*****
Through to week 4
Cowiebhoy, Dim Sam, Mrs CRC and Greenlion 2
Waiting on the Ruskies
Ard Ri
Bobby evans Superstar
The ExiledTim
HH
CRC
….pfayr supports weeoscar
21:39 on 7 September, 2014
Sipsini
If that is the reason behind someone voting …..they should have their vote removed
____________
I’ll put that down to too much been swallowed, unbecoming of you mate.HH
Scotland a bit unlucky.
Ref a definite homer- the decision to just give a yellow card to their LB was very weak, then he sends Charlie off and does not play 3 minutes.
Scotland were so much better in the 2nd half but, we had little on the bench apart from Fletcher. Not impressed by McArthur at all at £7m.
Still, kept me away from the playground Yes/No interlude.
Cowiebhoy
Otherwise it may be considered a political bribe ?
Ernie…,
By the same token that everyone who votes for independence wants salmond to rule, will you be taking up arms with your brothers of the orange order ?
mayanman
21:41 on 7 September, 2014
——————————————–
Lol Charlie isn’t as stupid as he looks mate, a parasite extraordinaire he is.
The land that he has generates an absolute fortune in revenue each year.
HH.
ernie lynch
21:42 on
7 September, 2014
We possibly don’t need any of things (well we definitely don’t need the queen). One step at a time though, one step at a time.
Sipsini
Pardon?
Basing ones vote on a referendum on a football result …you think that’s reasonable
ernie lynch
21:42
You made up with your brother yet?
How’s the wife?
Cowiebhoy
Said the same today to my wife and your good lady.
Why do they want to keep us so much?
Don’t really want to talk politics but think that’s all will be speaking about for next couple of weeks so might as well join in.
stevo
21:45 on 7 September, 2014
‘Who wants boris as their next pm? …. Ernie?’
###
The consensus seems to be that Johnson will only be in a position to challenge Cameron if Cameron loses the General election.
I’m not sure what scenario you’re imagining that would allow someone who isn’t currently an MP to become the next Prime Minister.
Could you maybe explain what you have in mind?
….pfayr supports weeoscar
21:45 on 7 September, 2014
Pfayr do you think you should be allowed to disenfranchise people?
ernie
You’ll not need to worry if we Scots can manage our own country, you’ll be down in yer beloved London worrying how the hell yer interest rates are going to accelerate and your economy is going to diminish, with the loss of Scotland’s revenues. Believe me, it will. If it wasn’t, WM would let us go Independent in a heartbeat. Explain that please.
Weefra HH praying to Wee Oscar.
ernie lynch
21:42 on 7 September, 2014
Need to grow up at some point!
HH
CRC