ian1964 10,431 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Lifted from FF By Mark Dingwall Updated Monday, 4th June 2012 It may be unfair but a huge percentage are hedging their bets. It might be paranoia, it might be safety first, but itâ??s undoubtedly true. In recent days the heads of both the Supporters Association and the Supporters Assembly have voiced wariness about fans coughing up for season tickets. Iâ??ll be upfront about my support for the Blue Knights - itâ??ll save time dealing with the juvenility of â??you would say thatâ? arguments online later on. SUSPICIONS ABOUT A WHYTE-SANCTIONED BUYER Weâ??ve always suspected that to make his scam work Craig Whyte would have a buyer waiting in the wings to buy the club and give him a payday. That might be unfair but itâ??s no more unfair than the questions asked of Bill Ng, Brian Kennedy or Bill MIller when they first appeared on the scene. So when the unfortunately-named Green strolls into town out of nowhere the alarm bells started ringing. Likewise when he didnâ??t seem to suffer the problems in dealing with Duff & Phelps that the Blue Knights, BIll Ng and Bill MIller have all publicly documented. HEâ??S NOT ONE OF US After all that has happened with Craig Whyte is it any surprise that the punter in the street wants to know chapter and verse on Mr X or Mr Y? Craig Whyte was a self-proclaimed Rangers fan so perhaps that goes for nothing - but I think the overwhelming majority of the support want the comfort of knowing the club is owned by Bluenoses. YOU CANâ??T MAKE MONEY OUT OF RANGERS, UNLESS . . . You do a land deal. David Murray couldnâ??t make an honest profit out of running the club for 20 years so what chance anyone else? Forget the club emerging debt-free from administration (and weâ??ll come to that in a minute) weâ??re in the wrong league and the wrong country to operate at the level of playing squad and return big profits. David Grier of Duff & Phelps was hawking Rangers around in City of London presentations as primarily a land deal so suspicions aroused. IS GREEN HIS OWN MAN? Heâ??s been asked to his face if heâ??s the mastermind behind his own deal especially as he claims he has little money of his own due to two divorces. Heâ??s never answered that straight. Thatâ??s his choice. THE PROPOSALS DOESNâ??T HANG TOGETHER Heâ??s still trying to round up money and hoping he might have success getting overseas buyers to believe in a European Super League with Rangers as a franchise, of the G51 project, of Murray Park being re-zoned, of agents investing in players to sell on, etc. Itâ??s all been tried or spoken of before and simply doesnâ??t match up with the reality of what can be done in the Area Plans for development in any of the locations where Rangers have land or the reality of where UEFA is headed with its competitions. Rangers fans who take an interest in such matter know that. HIS PALS AND RECORD AT SHEFFIELD UNITED Green goes on at great length about his pal Freddy Shepherd and how Freddy could put in £20million on his own - but only if he feels wanted. Football fans have long memories and the prospect of being owned by Shepherd with his mocking of Newcastle fans for spending too much on merchandise as exposed in a Spanish brothel in 1998 hardly fills you with confidence. LIkewise with the agent Paul Stretford and Mike McDonald, his Chairman when Green presided over utter chaos at Sheffield United. THE CVA There was a lot of relief that someone got through to exclusive bidder status with Duff & Phelps with a proposal for a CVA. But now that the CVA is being analysed it looks a lot less appetising than the relief of escaping from liquidation initially boosted it up to be. When you look at the fact it consists of loans secured on property, etc, etc, then many are getting cold feet because it all points to Green not being confident he can complete and/or he does not have in place the kind of funding needed to finance the club going forward. Duff & Phelps were in the press over the weekend claiming they had the funding in place to pay wages until the CVA cooling-off period is over. The mechanism for that is not new money from Green: it is players sales, season ticket sales and anything else they can get their hands on - read the CVA proposal if you donâ??t believe me - and if that money is not sufficient then they can ask Green if they can spend some of the money he has deposited to pay for the CVA. Itâ??s a glorified version of robbing Peter to pay Paul. WHAT GREEN NEEDS TO DO At the moment he clearly doesnâ??t have in place the money sufficient to both buy and fund the club on an ongoing basis for the next few months, never mind years. He may be able to do that but unless he is utterly transparent about the level of unencumbered cash available and who the beneficial owners of the club will be - a lawyers office in the Far East is no more acceptable than a PO Box in the British Virgin islands - then fans will, I suspect, hold fire until things are settled and they are confident that they are not funding another financial black hole. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bears 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Sorry but this notion of Rangers fans owning us is poppy cock. To start with we can't get on as a collective group, the fighting that would be embarrassing. I want the right business minded football, preferably with some sort of background in football 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,179 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 (edited) I think MD makes a lot of valid points and the pressure is certainly building on Green to offer some comfort. He may be meeting the RFFF guys today so hopefully we'll get some feedback there asap. Edited June 4, 2012 by Frankie 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ian1964 10,431 Posted June 4, 2012 Author Share Posted June 4, 2012 FROM PRIVATE EYE THE latest saviour of Rangers, Charles Green, suggests that some of the members of his syndicate of overseas investors will come from the Middle East as well as Singapore and Malaysia – perhaps the rich Gulf state of Qatar. Green certainly knows a little about Qatar, as he was a onetime reported "deputy chairman" of Panceltica Holdings, a Jersey-registered but Qatar-based construction company that had a short and, for investors, unhappy life on the AIM market. Although not listed as a director of the Jersey parent, Green, then living in Dubai, was very much involved in the promotion of Panceltica. Panceltica was floated in March 2008 with a placing of 10m shares at 100p, providing a market capitalisation of £230m. It was touting a new technology using lightweight, steel-framed buildings to build houses and apartments. "It's like putting together a Meccano kit," Green told the Daily Telegraph. Clearly there were some missing pieces. By June 2009 problems with its main contract for low-cost housing in Qatar – which was on behalf of its major local shareholder, the government-linked Barwa Real Estate – had delayed the accounts and threatened the survival of Panceltica. A month later Barwa terminated the contract. In August, the Qatar subsidiary went into liquidation and Panceltica shareholders were told there would be nothing for them. The shares were delisted. Panceltica and two Jersey subsidiaries were wound up in 2010. Rangers shareholders and fans will be hoping that the Green-backed company voluntary arrangement to be sent out to creditors this week has much better luck. Meanwhile, more light was thrown by last week's BBC Scotland Investigates TV documentary on the murky dealings leading up to the acquisition of Rangers last year by Craig Whyte, which resulted in administration in February. The programme showed the October 2010 "comfort letter" provided to Rangers owner Sir David Murray's lawyers by Whyte's now ex-lawyer, Gary Withey. It referred to an unidentified "UK financial institution" – previously identified here as Merchant House Group — which had confirmed that Whyte had "up to £33m" available for the deal. So desperate was Murray to sell that he never asked to see the MHG letter. Withey blamed MHG, telling the BBC it had confirmed Whyte's resources as being in excess of £33m to his then law firm, Collyer Bristow. "I have no reason to doubt their bona fides," wrote Withey of MHG. But what he did not reveal was that at the very time MHG was vouching for Whyte, Whyte's Liberty Capital was (and had been since 2009) its major financial lifeline. Liberty Capital first became a major shareholder in MHG in November 2008, when it surfaced with a 9 percent stake, costing around £120,000 following a share placing earlier that year. In December 2009, Liberty transferred £500,000 of preference shares in another Whyte company, Tixway, to Merchant Capital, an MHG subsidiary, to enable it to meet capital requirements for Irish regulators. Liberty received a £500,000 unsecured, no-interest convertible note from MHG due in 2015. Around this time, Merchant Capital agreed to push all its investment fund business through Prichard Stockbrokers, where Whyte was company secretary and a major shareholder. In February 2010, Liberty provided another £100,000 to meet capital requirements in Ireland in return for almost 42m shares in MHG. This took Whyte's stake to 29.9 percent. The following month, Liberty sold 35m shares at a big profit for £175,000 ahead of a deal whereby it acquired another 50m new shares for £250,000, restoring the Whyte stake to just below the bid-trigger level of 30 percent. But by July 2010, Liberty had managed to unload 59m shares on to a falling market which could have realised as much as £3m, thereby more than recouping its investment. However, MHG was still in need of Whyte's help. In June 2010 Liberty had agreed to "provide financial support" for at least 12 months. So Whyte agreed in August to pump in £617,000 by way of 400m new shares and a new convertible loan. This pushed Whyte's stake in MHG from 5 percent to over 20 percent, making him again the biggest shareholder as well as its main financial backer. And that was the position at the time Withey wrote his "comfort letter". No wonder Withey did not identify the "UK financial institution". MHG would have no doubt been prepared to say anything Whyte wanted — especially so long as it was not identified. Had MHG been named the warning signs would have been flashing even to the desperate Murray. As for Whyte, Liberty sold some MHG shares and convertible before dealings in MHG were suspended in April — due to concerns about its financial condition. But it is likely to take a six-figure hit on the remaining shares, convertible and preference shares. But then nothing a supposed "billionaire" like Whyte could not afford. Lifted from FF 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseyjones 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I think MD makes a lot of valid points and the pressure is certainly building on Whyte to offer some comfort. He may be meeting the RFFF guys today so hopefully we'll get some feedback there asap. That should be an interesting meeting! 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
simplythebest 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Dingwall certainly doesn't lose his sense of self importance. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frankie 8,179 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 That should be an interesting meeting! I forgot to add taking the p!ss out of site admin as a banning offence... 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
caseyjones 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I forgot to add taking the p!ss out of site admin as a banning offence... It's a fair cop, Guv. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
CumbernauldGers 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 I have no idea if Green and his group will be good or bad for Rangers but i would trust anybody before i would trust Mark Dingwall The man is liar and should not be allowed to try and speak for the Rangers support. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny 0 Posted June 4, 2012 Share Posted June 4, 2012 Dingwall is too anti anyone non-TBK to have a valid opinion on any subject. He's objected to every bid apart from that one. Anyone that focused on politics doesn't have the club's best interests at heart. 0 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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