Big Spliff

lads (& lauren!), to call on a bit of group solidarity, if everyone reading this thread (who can) could just click the link, even just to click and close and read it here. it'll substantially improve the circulation by moving it up the newsnow ratings, and so everyone benefits. many thanks!

Hi mate,

I clicked and it took me to the gersnet main site. I went to newsnow on my own but can't see it listed. These sites are both new to me, am i missing anything? or can you explain how they work/link in to newsnow please?

thanko mucho

The cynicism on this thread is unbelievable. The lot of you need to get behind the club and those who have done so much to get us where we are today.

haha nobody bit :fish:

welcome guys.

at least one more to come that I know of!

Welcome Norris. Enjoy!

You'll maybe want to strangle me mate, but I've thought of another couple of relatively important issues. The main one is - should someone who comes along now, never having bought a season ticket before be entitled to be a 'member' & thus have a vote on certain matters before someone who's been buying season tickets for over 10 years? I mean there's probably supporters who've put a hell of a lot more into the Gers kitty in their lifetime than someone who just happens to come along at the right time & throw in a grand or two. That's possibly a very difficult issue to overcome. Secondly, who's going to initiate the coming together of these big investors to discuss any such proposal? It seems obvious that the only candidates would be either one of the potential big money investors or SDM himself & personally, I can't see SDM doing it.

 

I hope you don't think I'm negative about the idea, because I'm not at all. Just throwing in some thoughts... :cheers:

Fuck sake mate, you'll never get a job with the Chairman if you're gonna insist on fucking questioning things all the time

Seriously, what your comments show is that it's all well and good talking about a concept (and although a concept may be sound), real support means answering real questions. I've got some off the cuff answers for you, but I'm not trying to pretend that I've thought through all the mechanics - partly because some of it will be tricky and will need creative ideas about how to get round potential obstacles. It needs discussion, collaboration, detail, description, direction, facilitation, pulling together the best people and the best ideas. That's all part of the process as far as I'm concerned.

Having said that, I think we need to start with an idea; a vision, if you will. If we like it, we try to work out how to achieve it. I think that now more than ever, the club needs a new vision.

We need to build up our ideas, whatever they may be, so that courses are charted and obstacles avoided or swept aside. The reason the RST (for example) has disappointed to an extent is that enough people simply haven't bought the vision, or even seen the necessity to buy a new vision. That needs to change - it will change.

Hopefully everybody who is interested is thinking hard - and somebody will come up with that special something. It'll happen.

I think I eventually collected six life bans, all for raising questions about the RST. When I moved to another forum, someone kept feeding me new logins, few of which lasted more than a couple of posts. I'd decided by that time that there really were much better places to enjoy debate and the occasional daftness about the Rangers. After that I discovered gersnet - only joking.

 

Again out of interest, how many people on here regularly post on different forums?

I post (constructively I think) on FF a lot. As well as coming over here, I've also registered on RM and VB, as well as CDL and Union Bears recently. If ever you want to see evidence of a divided support....... :box:

I like it here so I'm gonna stick around.

If I can guess, then you can too!! A guess is just that though & mine was purely based on the type of people that invest that sort of cash. Generally they're looking for a good return on an investment & not just the knowledge that they'll maybe get it back should they sell their shares, but obviously not always, since they make large donations to charity as well. Rangers isn't a charity though & their money would be an investment, not a tax-deductible donation.

 

 

I really don't believe that anyone who wanted to invest �£5m & be an executive member in the new board would be willing to do so knowing that in 3 or 4 years they could be voted out & may not even be able to sell their shares, never mind get a profitable return on them. As for sharing risk, well the type of people who take risks involving millions of pounds are generally taking an informed punt on the potential to make significant profit, so they might well have to believe that there is significant profit there to be made. As for the chance to be a senior partner who pulls the big strings, I agree that there would be an attraction there, but again, probably not if there's a chance of them being voted out, so I think they would need to be in place until they decided themselves that enough was enough & it was time to take a back seat or sell their shares.

 

 

These are big 'IFs' imo. There's no guarantee that they'll profit at all & there's no guarantee that their shares will hold there value. It would be a definite gamble.

 

 

I know what you're saying and I'm sure there's a few such people that might be interested in a non-profit-making investment given some of the benefits they'd receive, but I definitely think their benefits would need to be permanent as well as possibly their executive position.

 

�£5m per investor probably isn't far off the mark btw, but I think 25-30 investors of �£1m would just complicate such a venture. Such a consortium or group would ideally be smaller in number than larger imo.

 

Just some thoughts....

thanks bud, I clearly need to address these issues more thoroughly.

Indeed but let's see what happens!!!!

Yeh, definitely! That makes a lot more sense to me now, so thanks for the clarification.

 

One major concern that I have with your proposal is that any small group of investors who were to invest (for example) �£5m each in such a venture would almost certainly want either:-

 

a) Their full �£5m returned within their initial 3/4 year spell as an 'Exec' while they had a major hand in the running of the business.

 

or

 

b) To be indefinitely on the Exec board with a major hand in the running of the business until their investment was returned.

 

There's a small chance that an individual investor might want to be only that & leave the running of the business to the others - in other words, someone might be willing to take a punt on it without the hassle of being directly involved, but such in investor would possibly also be the most unlikely to show interest in such a venture.

 

I'm no business or financial expert though, so I stand corrected if any of these assumptions are wrong.

 

Mark

I take your points (and I wouldnt say you are wrong at all), and anyway I couldnt begin to guess what anybody with �£5m to invest in Rangers would want back!

In this model though, your �£5m gives you;

• the opportunity to invest in the new dawn of a "new club".
  
• to be an executive member in the new executive board.
  
• the chance to get involved and share risk with fellow high-investors
  
• the chance to be the senior partner, who effectively pulls all the big strings. (there's lots of cudos, publicity, status in there without room for dictatorship)

• the opportunity to make reasonable % profits providing financial preformance criteria is met.
  
• the opportunity to re-sell your equity on the market at at time, at no loss if the club is run 'correctly'

If there is an underlying business model, then I believe the club can run in a way which means it simply does not lose money. That being the case the downside risk would be relatively limited - all other things being equal. Anybody putting in �£5m would rightly want to be clear about that before going ahead, and be prepared to put in some time to ensure thats exactly what happens, at the same time as helping the club to prosper. For very high net-worthers, they are not staking 10's or 100's of millions. �£5m is fairly modest sum to some of the people we might be looking to attract, and we only need a handful. Remember also that the Exec Board does not run the club day-to-day. The professional management team they appoint do that - experts in their fields. Its more of a supervisory board if you like.

At the end of the day though, its not a money-making exercise - people with �£3m-�£5m 'to tie up for a few years' can find plenty of other ways to do that. This fact may be a killer for some, but you never know. The concept may not even need �£5m people. If �£1m makes you top-tier, then that's all fine too.

I think it may have been in special recognition of my persistence in pursuing certain information.

 

...... or the fact I told them I didn't have confidence in their ability to use it wisely.

Christ you must be some f*cking pain in the arse for them to offer you your money back just so you'll go away!!!!!

Mark, thanks for feedback etc. I knew it was a bit of a rant and could have been clearer!

Here's what I meant;

Let's imagine there are 5,000 'members'. The members vote an Execitive Board, which would initially presumably be led or largely constituted by the small group who would put in �£5m each. From the exec board, one is elected (let's say a senior partner) to lead the group including hiring and firing the entire operational/professional services management team. Everyone is a member, whether you put in �£5m or �£1k. All members get a vote. The Exec are given the first 3/4 years uncontested in return for investing in the club. None significantly outweighs the other or has too much control.

In the event that things go badly and an exec member is voted off after 3/4 years, they are entitled to remain as a member/owner, albeit not as an Exec. If they wish to sell their shares, they do so - they do not just take their money with them, as they've already put it into the club in the form of equity.

In terms of financial incentives for these guys, what I meant was a) entering into something which they believe will not simply be loss-making, hence the need for a coherent plan/business model to be established and implemented from the word go; b) a range of indirect 'benefits' such as use of facilities, resources etc, ; and c) the possibility that their membership may actually increase in value (albeit possibly with certain caps in place possibly linked to RPI or FTSE or whatever), on the back of a successful business emerging. Ideally, all monies stay in the club, but some might want at least small returns which might be reasonable in the circumstances (looking gift-horses in the mouth etc)

Thanks again for asking, I unreservedly welcome the highlighting of any flaws or suggestions to build around and evolve a model like this into something which seems plausible. At the same time I am totally open to binning this for a better solution if there is one. I hope I've cleared things up a little?

Been a member of FF for years, but my mate at work recommended me on to this site. Seems like a great messageboard for hard core bears and bearettes.

Welcome mate, I followed a similar path the other day!

:cheers:

Strange reaction indeed, especially when they have no obligation to do so.

I was thinking that!

Yeah, if you can write up when you get a chance - no real rush - that would be superb. It's exactly the kind of constructive suggestion that the fans should be providing to the club.

 

Of course a similar idea has been investigated in the past (which you may or may not have been aware of) but circumstances are always changing so it would be good to float it again.

Cool thanks, I'll do that and get it back to you.

I appreciate that there may be little new in here, but sometimes its a different combination of the best existing ideas that provides a spark. I'm not particularly aware of who floated a similar idea in the past, or what the details were - I'd like to look at what's already been done if at all possible.

Tremendous post above Big Spliff...

 

May I use the content (and edited slightly) for a main site/NewsNow article - obviously you'll be credited as author?

Thanks Frankie - If you tell me when you need it, I can write it "properly" , I was just on a rant there

Hopefully will get some thoughts/discussion when people have time (or inclination:))

There was a request for suggestions put up on the RST website on 13/11/07. I believe that there was an email sent out around this time as well.

 

I wouldn't deny that consultation in respect of the first tranche of Gersave cash could have been improved, but to send letters out to all members would have been a time-consuming exercise.

cheers, must have missed that!

I seem to recall that a request for suggestions was made both on the RST website and by email to RST members.

I dont recall either Dell, but I could be wrong. Communication is acknowledged by all parties as a problem where the Trust is concerned, pretty much always has been.

I'm assuming that by 'large injection from a group/groups', you mean from corporate business? In what form though? The buying of significant shares or purely in the form of sponsorship deals? TBO, in the current climate, I can't see there being much chance of serious investors or potential sponsors banging on the door with offerings of substantial cash injection. I could be wrong though...

Hiya mate; it�s rather rushed (believe it or not!) but here you go, in response and to yours and other recent posts too -

If we are talking about club ownership, the 'conditions' I refer to set the tone for would-be investors - this is really important. I'm using a bit of licence here to illustrate the points, but here goes! The conditions look something like this;

Consortium

A group of high net-worth people approach SDM & a price is agreed for the club. The 'people' must be a credible bunch acting in concert, fronted by someone who will command the respect of fans. Let's say a Sir Tom Hunter figure, or a Bannatyne, or even a Gordon Smith. Dont want to get into the merits of these people just now, its just for the sake of discussion.

Funds

The club is 'worth' circa �£50m. This seems ridiculous in the current climate for a business which has demonstrated repeatedly that it does not make money outside of extraordinary conditions (and even then..... ), and it seems clear that the current regime appear to have maximised future revenue to the best of their abilities. SDM has said he'd be "easy to do business with", and he wants out asap. So lets say the negotiated price is in the region of �£40m with arrangements in place to structure a portion of this in some favourable way. So we need, say �£25m now + �£15m over 5 years (ignoring interest).

Our 'Execs' (aside from putting in say �£5m each for partly-emotional reasons) must also have a financial motivation. Any group must be able to run the business as an inherently profitible one, which i believe is possible. The club needs to be restructured early on, so that waste is eliminated and revenue maximised.

Management Team

Our ââ?¬Ë?Execsââ?¬â?¢ identify and hire a management team to run the club. Quality professionals on say Ã?£150k per year are appointed to run Marketing, Operations, Finance, HR, Communications, Development etc. A CEO is appointed, say Ã?£300k. Big hitters. The best people for the job. Remember we are only a Ã?£50-70m club and itââ?¬â?¢s not exactly c complicated business to be in is it? You only see your customers once every 2 weeks for Christ sake, they ALL want to be there, there is NO competition for these people to wander off to. What a dream!

Our ââ?¬Ë?Execsââ?¬â?¢ stand for confirmation/election, and agree to be re-elected on a 3 or 4 year cycle. They are responsible for the performance of the management team they appoint so they can hire and fire. They stand or fall based on re-election by the wider membership, who will judge based on performance over the period. The wider membership may vote in keeping with their proportional investment. Votes are cast anonymously on-line, or by postal proxy.

The team manager is a key appointment. The club will be run on the basis that it maximises its resources, and really concentrates on youth development. Its scouting network is taken seriously because unlike most other large clubs, there is a fundamental obligation/necessity to rely on it. Itâ��s not optional and not something we bail out of. It becomes the heart of the culture of the club. Rangers becomes known as the place to be for excellent youngsters, and we play them in the team. Presented properly in the right context, I honestly believe fans would support that, under a credible new leadership. Compare this to the apparent �£6-7m of salaries in the squad who are surplus. These people are culled, taking one-off hits (yet) again and the club vows never again to go down this road. The team manager is obviously a key to all this. Identifying and supporting this man is crucial.

Revenue

The whole stadium experience is professionally reviewed which a view to maximising revenue - especially on match-day but also across the week. How many people buy burgers and pints outside the ground? Why do they? Would they buy from the club if the product was easily accessible, priced correctly, served by smiling blue-noses (even rotating volunteers!)? Bars/food outlets in the concourses, knocked through to the paved areas outside? Proper smoking areas arranged. Merchendise on sale. Nice working TV's. FP's mingle. Sense of community. Fans would arrive earlier, use it and spend more.

Talking of merchandising, how many people have tried to buy Rangers gear and cant? Its ridiculous. Distribution and merchandising deals need to be done which maximise availability and revenue. A hybrid of the Celtic/Rangers model if you like. We have the best deal on paper - they have the best distribution. You can get a Celtic, Man U or Chelsea top in every sports shop in the UK, why not Rangers?

Our 'Exec' go public. The story is that they intend to buy the club with fan's help. SDM is seen to be participating and generous relating to structuring of payments etc. The story is positive. A credible new future is defined. They have raised �£25m with plans to provide the additional �£15m. They need fans to match their �£40m to reduce debt, to build a reserve and to fund player purchases.

Fans are asked to contribute. Scenarios I've seen suggested which fit this model are 8,000 x Ã?£5k or 4,000 x Ã?£10k. If the big boys were not fully available these numbers could be tweaked to raise more. Fans (either as individuals or as businesses) can buy shares and become ââ?¬Ë?membersââ?¬â?¢ . Caps are in place to prevent anyone contributing more than say 5% (Ã?£2m). Some type of distribution model is worked-up to spread ownership. Shares are for sale at, say, Ã?£1000 each. Companies can buy these too. In return members benefit from a variety of things;

Firstly, access to the stadium. Ibrox is vastly under-utilised, nearly every day of every week. What if your company put in Ã?£10,000 as a one-off investment (donââ?¬â?¢t forget tax offset, meaning the cost is actually Ã?£7k)? You have lifetime access to Ibrox Stadium and Murray Park. Good quality access, where you are treated like a member, not someone who has no real right to be there. You can book meeting rooms, seminars, tours etc. The place is kitted out with wi-fi, state of the art communications systems. The stadium is full of lounges and restaurants etc, what if we could use them? How many bluenoses organise meetings in Glasgow hotels in a year and at what cost? I must have spent Ã?£5k on meetings in the last 2-3 years and Iââ?¬â?¢m by no means a meeting-junkie. A new members community springs up, they can cross-promote their products to each other, and to the wider fan-base. They can use each otherââ?¬â?¢s services. They can harness collective purchasing power. Etc etc etc. There is something tangible and worthwhile for them to invest in. We are near an airport, a city centre, a developing business community, visitor attractions, motorway, subway blah blah. Ibrox as a business hub. What a dream! And Murray Park. ââ?¬â?? how might it be used more effectively?

I believe there are thousands of businesses and individuals worldwide who would contribute to such a concept if the conditions are right. I really do.

The absolute key points in all of this are; 1)the business and concept is attractive enough for people to want to invest, 2) the business plan is coherent 3) there is a top quality management team.

This post is too long and lacks a bit of structure, so I�m going to draw a line under it for now! Hope you find it (if not all new) then at least worthy of discussion. Obviously, the more you write the more holes there are likely to be but I'd be very interested in any thoughts. (flaws as much as positives)

Cheers!

Your 1st point is a complete show-stopper. No way a club like rangers can survive without serous financial security, which is something I doubt the fans can ever provide & without a huge overdraft facility the club would be into administration & cease to exist within 3 years TOPS.

 

Your 2nd point is also a real worry in any concept of fans running the club & probably a show-stopper as well IMO. In-fighting & power struggling amongst the people with more clout would undoubtedly be a major major issue as there's a lot of seriously inflated egos floating around. The supporters rarely agree on issues which they don't have any control of & I see no reason why the divisions of opinion wouldn't widen even further if the support were to have any measurable control. Obviously there would need to be some kind of democratic system put in place for decision making, but ultimately I see it as being riddled with problems over & above the inevitable bickering & unrest.

 

I'm absolutely convinced that no matter how well thought out & set up, fans somehow having complete control of the club rather than a wealthy businessman or financial investor, would spell THE END for Rangers, the complete downfall of the club. You think this transfer window's been a 'fire-sale'??? Well you better think long & hard about what it could be like.

IMO, its all possible but the points raised here are all huge ones.

Capital and security are a pre-requisite. The organic fan-ownership model may work over a couple of lifetimes at the current pace, but its obvious that it's going nowhere fast and isnt going to make a dent in itself. What is needed is for a large injection from a group/groups, supplemented by supporter cash. The starting point needs to be sufficient to clear the decks and provide reserves. This could perhaps be structured over a period of time in the right conditions.

An executive board would need to be elected, probably based on share ownership. Provided no shareholder had too much control this shold not necessarily be an issue - albeit a difficult transition. There needs to be a handful of real LEADERS involved, people who can demonstrate their credibility and credentials to the rest of the support and other shareholders. The Exec board goes up for re-election periodically. It appoints a management team, a professional management team which runs the club, from marketing to operations, to finance, to football. The Exec board hire and fire.

I know it takes a leap of faith, but without that and a plan to go forward what else have we got? SDM, or the next SDM? No thanks.