Bluedell 5,348 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 From the Evening Times: PAUL MURRAY today confirmed his Blue Knightâ??s consortium will lodge a bid to buy Rangers and meet this Fridayâ??s deadline for offers. Speaking from London after he held crucial talks with the clubâ??s administrators, Duff & Phelps, Mr Murray also told the Evening Times he would proceed with the plan â?? which will heavily involve finance company Ticketus â?? only after he has shown fans groups â??all the fine detail and receives their full backing with complete transparency absolutely crucialâ?. Mr Murray is hopeful the Blue Knights will be granted â??preferred bidderâ?? status to take control of the club through a Creditors Voluntary Agreement. However, there remains takeover interest from groups in Singapore, North America and also from Scots businessman Brian Kennedy, the owner of Sale Sharks Rugby team. These will also be considered by Duff & Phelps before a decision is made. Mr Murray, a Rangersâ?? director for four years before he was deposed by Craig Whyte after his takeover last May, is fronting a rescue bid for the stricken club, which has now been in administration for four weeks. Major players in his consortium are finance company Ticketus, which advanced Mr Whyte £24.4million for future season ticket sales â?? which he then used to buy the club. Executives from Ticketus accompanied Mr Murray to the meeting with Duff & Phelps joint-administrator Paul Clark. â??We had a very good meeting with the administrators. It was an open meeting with very constructive dialogue and myself and the executives from Ticketus asked a lot of questions, and answered a lot of questions,â? Mr Murray said. â??We are in good shape for Friday. We will be making an offer to buy Rangers. Itâ??s obviously up to the administrators to evaluate any offers that come in, but I think they will have to crack on in terms of a decision. â??I would like to think we would get an answer next week and we are hopeful of being able to take control of the club and stabilise the situation. â??That is the main thing â?? Rangers needs to be saved in its current form and then plans can be put in place from there. â??In terms of the Ticketus involvement, what I want to do is make sure this time we have absolute transparency. â??My colleagues in the Blue Knights will sit with the fans groups and say to them, â??This is the deal.â?? â??We will show them every detail and what we are asking them to buy into. It will be totally up front, with the best interests of Rangers the main factor at all times.â? The decision to bring Ticketus on board raised eyebrows, given that it was shown in a bad light due to its association with Mr Whyte. He entered into an agreement to sell the company, which is an off-shoot of finance house Octopus and which has a net value of £3billion, more than 100,000 season tickets over four years. But he then used the money advanced to pay off an £18m Rangersâ?? debt to Lloyds Bank. But Mr Murray was keen to outline exactly how the arrangement with Ticketus will work. And he did not rule out it could be a short-term partner, with Rangers possibly reverting to a bank for its credit facilities should the club be returned to a sound footing under the stewardship of a new board. He explained: â??It is important to point out Ticketus is a very big business with substantial cash reserves. It has been painted in a bad light due to the Craig Whyte deal, but it entered into the agreement with him in good faith. â??We have held extensive dialogue about how it can work in terms of alignment with the Blue Knights. â??When you are bringing a consortium of 10 people together to put up funding it can take a bit of time. â??Ticketus will, in effect, underwrite stage one of our plan, which will be to back the cash purchase of the club and provide initial working capital. It can show quickly the money is in place. â??The Blue Knights will be a body standing behind them. The individuals will give personal pledges to Ticketus against the money used in stage one. â??We may not need all of the working capital set aside as you would hopefully have season ticket money coming in about the start of May. However, you have the reassurance of it being there as the transfer market opens. etc. â??Stage two would then be a share issue open to all. Again, the Blue Knights would be investing into that, as well as the cash pledges being put up to complete the purchase. â??Stage three would be to renegotiate the terms of the Ticketus arrangement to something the club can afford to pay. Craig Whyte did it short term and we would arrange something far more attractive to the club. â??That said, it could be we may â??take Ticketus outâ?? down the line once the club is on a stronger footing and stabilised. We could look at other more traditional options. â??People may look at Rangers as some kind of financial basket case, but when the business is running properly under the stewardship of the right people there is no reason why we could not have normal credit facilities like other clubs.â? 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluedell 5,348 Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 “Ticketus will, in effect, underwrite stage one of our plan, which will be to back the cash purchase of the club and provide initial working capital. It can show quickly the money is in place. “The Blue Knights will be a body standing behind them. The individuals will give personal pledges to Ticketus against the money used in stage one. “We may not need all of the working capital set aside as you would hopefully have season ticket money coming in about the start of May. However, you have the reassurance of it being there as the transfer market opens. etc. “Stage two would then be a share issue open to all. Again, the Blue Knights would be investing into that, as well as the cash pledges being put up to complete the purchase. “Stage three would be to renegotiate the terms of the Ticketus arrangement to something the club can afford to pay. Craig Whyte did it short term and we would arrange something far more attractive to the club. So Ticketus will provide ALL the cash to initially buy the club and for working capital. There would then be a share issue and after that a deal will be renegotiated with ticketus. Why can't the renegotiation be done beforehand? How much of the share issue will be used to repay Ticketus for them buying the club, whether directly or indirectly? Many, many supporters will not want their funds to be used for that. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 0 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Honestly I don't want the Blue Knights anywhere near the club. I don't trust the old guard to return and run the club properly this time. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,271 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Maybe there will be more transparency in days to come, Bluedell? So far, they tell us more about what they want to do and with whom than anyone else does or did. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluedell 5,348 Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Maybe there will be more transparency in days to come, Bluedell? So far, they tell us more about what they want to do and with whom than anyone else does or did. Hopefully. It's good that they have come out with more details, but as these things tend to work, it only raises more questions. I'm just very suspicious about Ticketus's involvement. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluedell 5,348 Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Honestly I don't want the Blue Knights anywhere near the club. I don't trust the old guard to return and run the club properly this time. It sounds like it's only Paul Murray (so far) out of the old guard, and as a non-exec he would have had limited influence as to how things were run. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
der Berliner 3,271 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I would suggest that the Ticketus involvement is mainly done because no bank will give us a decent floating facility as long as the HMRC stuff is unresolved. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,199 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Is it just me or does this actually look remarkably similar to what Craig Whyte did ? Looks like the Ticketus money will be paying for the purchase and working capital. Craig Whyte did that. The BK's would be personally guaranteeing the Ticketus deal. Did Craig Whyte not say one of his companies provided the guarantee ? (I know, I know, never trust what this man says). The only real difference is that a share issue would be used to create the funds to repay Ticketus. Oh, and the transparency. I have to admit, on the face of it, this looks very, very under-whelming. Happy to be proven wrong though. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rbr 1,247 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 The way it looks we,the fans will be paying twice for the same thing , once to get rid of lloyds via Whyte and then again to get rid of Ticketus via Murray , nice one guys 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
craig 5,199 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I would suggest that the Ticketus involvement is mainly done because no bank will give us a decent floating facility as long as the HMRC stuff is unresolved. Are you missing the fact that he said Ticketus would pay for the initial cash purchase as well as working capital ? Surely we would be hoping that the new owners, AT THE VERY LEAST, had the cash to pay the purchase price ? Sure, rich folks dont use their own money - but this cash LOAN from Ticketus will attract a reasonably hefty interest rate. Are the BK's paying the interest or will it be stuck with the club ? Lots of unanswered questions still. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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