The truth about TBK bid

[Tannochsidebear 2,306]

This is quite long but stay with it as it is important to anyone with our club's interests at heart.

 

It was generally agreed that Paul Murray and Brian Kennedy gave an oscar winning performance to the media yesterday afternoon and on later interviews on tv, and if only their bid was as good as their words we would have been out of this mess many weeks ago.

 

From information gathered from various sources close to TBK, the administrators and club officials, together with the email from Kennedy's laywer released yesterday afternoon, it is about time all Rangers supporters were shown the truth behind the myth about TBK

bid for the club.

 

Lets start at the beginning of this, which is when D Murray was about to sell to CW after months of protracted negotiations. P Murray came out and told everyone that CW was a bad sort (no arguments there!) and that he had offered D Murray £28M to buy the club but D Murray refused to sell it to him as he wanted to sell it to CW. At the time it sounded like sour grapes from an outgoing board member but remember the figure they quoted of £28M.

 

Fast forward to February of this year and our entry into administration after weeks of speculation. On 1 March P Murray arranged a meeting with some high profile Rangers fans and some fans reps to explain his plan to buy the club with a view to getting some fans support. Paperwork was shown with bits of their business plan and it all sounded very impressive. Items including a massive board of Directors including many fans reps who would represent the new tiers of shareholders which would be created with a massive share issue sometime during the 12-13 season. There were to be three levels of shareholders, the lowest starting at £1000 a share but with pay-up options to ensure fans could contribute from as little as £10pw. Democratic elections of these fans reps would ensure accountability. No issues would be excluded from the fans. All very good news. When it came to discussions of funding, it was claimed at that time that there were around 10 Blue Knights in situ, and discussions were ongoing to take that number up to 20 before the bid was due to go in. To qualify as a Blue Knight an investor would have to part with £1M minimum. Obviously this would give TBK a pot of cash to buy and finance the club of around £20M, plus the income generated from a fans share issue which was estimated could be another £20M. This would pay off the club debts, give it a firm footing, and would ensure the club would come out of admin in a much stronger position.

 

The next major incident came when TBK announced that they had negotiated a deal with Ticketus to take them out of the CVA pot. The deal was that Ticketus would accept a payment of £10M (much higher than they could have expected through a CVA) and in return would offer TBK an overdraft facility at competitive commercial rates of up to a further £10M. This rang alarm bells for some of us who wondered why this was happening when D&P had correctly won a court case to ensure Ticketus were not preferential creditors and were to go into the CVA pot along with other creditors, and would be repaid a fraction of the money they had given to CW to finance the purchase of the club. Up until this point Ticketus were seen as the bad guys who had done a deal with CW for OUR future season tickets in exchange for money to pay off LBG. Now this deal was hailed in some quarters as a fantastic piece of business that secured CW's shares (it was believed Ticketus would get CW's shares in exchange for not pursuing him for his personal guarantee for the £20-odd Million loan) and it was seen as the final piece of the jigsaw that would see TBK win the race to buy the club.

 

On two consecutive weekends it was believed that TBK had won the race and would be declared Preferred Bidder (PB) on the Monday morning only to be scuppered on both occassions by the very same Ticketus that it was claimed were now not the bad guys, but very happy partners. The first time Ticketus tried to shaft TBK by running to Bill Ng looking for a better deal with him than they were getting from TBK. After Ng chased them away they came back to a now raging P Murray who reluctantly swallowed his pride for the good of his bid and agreed the same deal as before. Again D&P were happy to name them PB on the Monday, and this story broke widely over the weekend and things were looking good for TBK. Unfortunately for TBK, Ticketus again pulled the plug on the deal, admitting that they had no agreement with CW for his shares and therefore they were not able to proceed.

 

While none of these two events were directly TBK fault, it shows that their choice of partners was at best suspect, and confirmed to those of us who questioned Ticketus's motives all along that if they were willing to break rules to get CW the club, they could not be trusted to act in the best interests of our club for anything.

 

What the deal with Ticketus proved more than anything however, was that TBK original claims of having a number of investors and a large pot of cash was now fanciful at best. It was clear that they had not been able to convicne invetors to join their group, and instead of going with Ticketus, a deal that was claimed was the only way forward for the club, they should have either asked the fans to join them and bring forward the investment vehicle, or admit defeat and try to join forces with another interested party.

 

Instead they continued with their black propaganda campaign, heavily involving their supporters from RST/FF and certain media outlets, into blackening the name of any other interested bidders, pressuring D&P to name TBK as PB when they could not realistically do that due to the level of bids involved, and continuing with the emotional balckmail of Rangers fans into believeing that they were the only true bid to take the club forward.

 

This was never more carefully orchestrated than when Bill Miller was named as PB by D&P. Bill Miller spent hours talking to McCoist and Jardine but didnt want to go public to the fans until the deal was done so as to not get the fans hopes up too much. The feedback from these conversations were good, he answered all the questions asked of him, and it looked like the best way of explaining his interest would be to compare it to what McCann done for celtic. He wasnt a fan but a businessman from North America who spotted the chance to buy a massive institution for a low price, turn it around and make it work properly, and sell it on for a much higher price some years later. He also refused to comment on the negative campaign being waged against him, as he believed it gained nothing but a split in the support. How right he was. The reasoning of his decision to withdraw may or may not have had anything to do with the over 1,000 negative emails he received, but he certainly took into consideration that if there were 1,000 fans taking the time to contact him negatively BEFORE he took over, it would make his job much harder to convince them to buy season tickets and back his custodianship, and it can be argued that it may have been the tipping point that made him withdraw. We will probably never know for sure.

 

The one thing that we can be sure of is that Bill Miller had a much better chance of success than TBK of getting a workable CVA. That is why they were named PB. In cash terms TBK offer was only £1.5M, with other later add-ons bringing it up, but only £1.5M of cold hard cash to buy the famous Rangers Football Club. Quite a far cry fromt he £28M P Murray was supposed to have offered a year previous.

 

This brings us up to the present time. With the collapse of the Miller bid, there was talk of new interest including from a UK consortium, later publicised as being fronted by Mr Green. Lets cut to the chase now on what is happening with the two bids just now. The Green bid is £8M cash. Write a cheque, put it into the CVA pot, and move forward. Nice and simple.

 

TBK latest bid is £9.1M as per the email from BK's lawyer to D&P which was publicly released yesterday in conjuction with the heart-warming press conference. Lets examine the £9.1M bid. It includes extra payments into the pot from Eurpoean success in the next few seasons, including a mention of some extra money if RFC makes the CL QF. While I would love us to be cometing at this level, even the most optimistic Bear would admit the CL QF stage is not something I would want my future income depending on, so it has to be ruled out by D&P. TBK have also added in other conditions which mean that extra payments will be made to creditors during the course of next season. Of course, this means that it is not TBK paying this, but the club (i.e. you and me). It would not be too far a push to suggest that the share issue is in mind to pay for this. David Hinchcliffe (DH) (BK's laywer who wrote the email) tries to argue with D&P why they are taking out £3.5M from the £9.1M because it is money due to the club from other football clubs. How can you possibly include £3.5M of transfer payments due from other clubs for players previously sold into YOUR bid for the club. That is quite shocking.

 

Instead DH asks why D&P are not giving TBK credit for saying they will meet the 2012-13 expected trading losses of around £10M. Again, why should this be relevant at all. If TBK take over the club for the start of 2012-13 and make a £10M loss in their first year, why should they be given any credit for funding this. In any event, again it looks likely that it will be the fans share issue that is funding this shortfall, not TBK investment.

 

This is why the word "quantum" is being overly used these days. TBK bid is all pieced into future payments. It might all add up to around £9.1M, but it is clear that the cash offer is no more than £2M. While £2M is an improvement on their embarrassing £1.5M offer of the last round, it is still embarrassing and hardly going to be acceptable.

 

Do TBK really believe that they should be allowed to purchase RFC for an initial investment of £2M, plus add-ons?

 

D&P are well out of their depth in this administration. That much is a given. Have they made mistakes? You bet they have. Is it their fault TBK are not the owners of RFC? Absolutely NOT. That fault lies 100% purely and squarely with TBK and their failure to raise sufficient funds to buy the club in a professional manner.

 

I hear that the Green consortium will be named PB by Monday, but having been caught out before I take that with a pinch of salt and ask others to do likewise. However time really is running out for TBK to come up with the cash up front that would buy them the club.

 

They either put up a sensible cash up front bid of £8M and take our club forward with all their great ideas and fans share issue, a large democratic board, Rangers men in all significant positions. Or they give up trying to steal the club for a bargain basement price and then get the fans to pay for everything in later years and let/back the Green consortium get on with the job of ensuring there is a Rangers left to follow.

[forlanssister 3,050]

Of course the first casualty of any was is truth.

[Max Rebo's Big Blue Nose 0]

Tannochside. I admire your effort and you make some very good points but this Rangers fan has almost had enough therefore I can't even begin to enter a major discussion on the finer points of this shambles. I feel like hiding under my bed until August and then I might pop my head out to see if we still exist.

Either way, the actions of a few wreckless men have brought my club to it's knees and whether we are in the SPL /3rd Division, an old co./new co., have owners that are looking to strip every last piece of silver/plan ahead with a new vision, I genuinely feel what has happened over the last few months will change my realtionship with my club and football in general. Things will just never be the same.

[Bears 0]

Thinking out loud. With TBK's presser yesterday. It does give D&P an easy get out of dodge ticket. If TBK's fuck up its blood on their hands

[caseyjones 0]

Thanks for posting.

 

Can I just ask what role you actually play in all of this?

 

I always thought that you were in with TBK in some way or another given your previous posts on all the different fan sites. This thread certainly appears to have a different tone to the previous ones. Has there been a fall out within the camp since Kennedy came onto the scene?

[tangent60 0]

I'd agree with the majority of what the OP has said there.

 

The only slight edit I would make is that I'd be open to seeing Mr Kennedy (who appears to have reasonable resources) go alone with a solid cash offer (i.e., a "very liquid" offer), if, that is, he can.

 

I believe a (liquid) cash offer involving ~£8m-£8.5m to the creditor's pot would do it. It could be a good idea to remove the reliance on European football from the bid, which reads like a gamble, and is money that cannot be seen as "unconditional". There are other elements that should perhaps be rephrased or removed, such as a stipulation that football creditors were to be paid in full, and yet, not HMRC -- which could be troublesome for any CVA agreement (either for a straight CVA or a CVA on the old company after assets are purchased into a new company).

 

The only thing better than that, in my opinion, would be to see a party such as McColl enter and blow everyone else away.

 

As to the exact nature of any plan -- (i) straight CVA or (ii) asset purchase into new company, plus CVA on old company -- I am open to either, so long as the bidder has sufficient financial resources.

Edited May 14, 2012 by tangent60

[Tannochsidebear 2,306]

Thanks for posting.

 

Can I just ask what role you actually play in all of this?

 

I always thought that you were in with TBK in some way or another given your previous posts on all the different fan sites. This thread certainly appears to have a different tone to the previous ones. Has there been a fall out within the camp since Kennedy came onto the scene?

 

My role is that of impartial Rangers fan who only wants the best for the club and doesnt really care for personalities. I post on all the major forums, I am a supportive member of all the fans organisations (RST, Association and Assembly) so I dont have favourites as such.

 

I am supportive of TBK "plans", but there is little to like about the way they have gone about it throughout the bidding process when they have known all along a bid of around £10M cash would always have been good enough.

 

A lot of this info has been known for a while but not released so as to give TBK every chance to get the funding together to succeed, so I am certainly not anti-TBK in principle.

[chilledbear 16]

Whoever we want to win the bidding, it must be obvious how poor their bid appears, especially after all this time.

[Danny 0]

Last time you came out with 'the truth' TB, and I'm not having a go - but you posted categorically that TBK were the preferred bidders. So you'll forgive my dubiety at any other similar type of claims that you, or anyone else tbh, has about this fiasco.

[caseyjones 0]

My role is that of impartial Rangers fan who only wants the best for the club and doesnt really care for personalities. I post on all the major forums, I am a supportive member of all the fans organisations (RST, Association and Assembly) so I dont have favourites as such.

 

I am supportive of TBK "plans", but there is little to like about the way they have gone about it throughout the bidding process when they have known all along a bid of around £10M cash would always have been good enough.

 

A lot of this info has been known for a while but not released so as to give TBK every chance to get the funding together to succeed, so I am certainly not anti-TBK in principle.

 

I don't care about the personalities either, so that wasn't my point. If you are just an impartial Rangers fan, where are you getting the detailed information about the bids from? I could understand if you were an insider on one of the camps, but how do you know what the Green camp are proposing?