forlanssister 3,050 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 The 41 year-old, whose business career began in a blaze of publicity, has studiously avoided the limelight for over a decade now, which only makes his decision to pursue ownership of the Glasgow club all the more difficult to understand. Often described as a lifelong Rangers fan, there are those who can remember the Motherwell-born entrepreneur travelling to Hampden in a supportersâ�� bus 20 years ago to witness his hometown club defeat Dundee United 4-3 in the Scottish Cup final. A self-made businessman (he started an accountancy course but failed to complete it), even before leaving Kelvinside Academy Whyte had amassed profits of �£20,000 through gambling on the stock market from the age of 15 and he started his business career by buying a plant hire firm. In 1993, aged 23, he acquired security company Vital UK and built it into a conglomerate before it went into voluntary liquidation, with debts of over �£600,000, three years later. The tycoon appeared at the High Court in 1999, where his legal team admitted he owed �£3.5 million to a single creditor. Before his fortunes took a turn for the worse, Whyteâ��s personal fortune was rated at �£20m and, tellingly, among his luxuries was an executive box at Ibrox. With his empire seemingly collapsing, Mr Whyte relocated to Monte Carlo in 1999 while the government launched an investigation into his affairs and former employees pursued him through the courts for unpaid wages. He returned to Scotland in 2007 after re-inventing himself as a venture capitalist, buying the 15th-century Castle Grant, at Grantown-on-Spey, for �£720,000. One of his neighbours is Bob Dylan, who bought nearby Aultmore House several years earlier. Whyteâ��s business interests include a variety of complex offshore companies. He founded Liberty Capital, a group which claims to specialise in buying under-performing companies and transforming their fortunes before selling them on. However, quite how Mr Whyte has been able to persuade the Rangers directors that he has access to the funding required to effect a similar transformation for their club has yet to be explained. Many of the companies he has been associated with have either gone bust or are worth little. Consequently, the source, and extent, of Whyteâ��s wealth remains opaque. Whyte split with wife Kim, whom he had married in Naples, Florida, in 2000, last year. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 I have read that before or something very similar. The bit about not being a Rangers supporter because he sat in a Motherwell bus is crap of course. I sit in a Dortmund bus but I am not a Dortmund supporter. Well only for a day. Personally I don't give a shit what he has done in the past it is what he is going to do with Rangers that I am worried about. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
metlika 0 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 They also say he is 41 right up on their factual knowledge... Anything to put a bad light on a good story for us. I am sceptical myself but this is what I expected negative press after the takeover. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bluebear54 0 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 Pretty sure it's more or less lifted from a thread on FF quite a while back. Lazy journalism. How the Telegraph has fallen. I'd love to ask the journalist for their sources - or don't editors do that anymore? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 Who wrote this article?? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete 2,499 Posted May 6, 2011 Share Posted May 6, 2011 Who wrote this article?? Not sure but Bluebear could be right as i have read the article before. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zappa 0 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 Not sure but Bluebear could be right as i have read the article before. It just seems really anti-Whyte to me... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
biggordy 0 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 I smell shoite drifting in from Donegal. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CumbernauldGers 0 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 Load of crap, i was at that game in the cup final as we gor free tickets at the boys team i was playing with, so would that make me a Motherwell fan? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Hovis 0 Posted May 7, 2011 Share Posted May 7, 2011 When was this pulled from the Telegraph?? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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