Leggat - RANGERS Must Move For Dave King....NOW!

[ian1964 10,457]

IMRAN AHMAD has claimed he will help Rangers man Dave King to sweep up the shares he needs to put him in a strong position to run Rangers.

 

That was the message which Ahmad sent me. And he sent it to me directly. I have the electronic proof of the shamed former Rangers commercial director's pledge to back Dave King.

 

And in a stunning claim, Ahmad also insisted to me that 60 per cent of Rangers shareholders want to bail out and are eager to sell, as they believe, what Ahmad referred to as "Craig Whyte's mental(sic) disturbed rants.'

 

In the same email - a copy of which is now stored in a safe place - Ahmad who was booted out of Ibrox for leaking sensitive confidential Rangers business information to a website, also insisted that he has nothing to do with the moves to call an Emergency General Meeting.

 

In his own words, Ahmad wrote to me, 'I have nothing to do with calling the EGM my good friend. The Easdales are grown men and not anybody's pawns.'

 

Ahmad says that should Dave King wish to buy a majority stake in Rangers he will facilitate the King efforts, subject to London Stock Exchange rules.

 

The Ahmad email, which came directly from him, dropped into my in box a mere three minutes into Thursday morning, after I revealed the bid to call an EGM and bulldoze one of the controversial Easdale brothers, along with slash and burn Cockney costcutter Chris Morgan, into the Blue Room as directors.

 

It now remains to be seen if Imran Ahmad is as good as his word, his word which I have the irrefutable proof he has given

 

However, there is no need to wait until Dave King has bought up a strong percentage of the Rangers shares before inviting King to join the board.

 

In fact, such is the danger to Rangers, so perilously poised is the club, that the future of the club could depend on some of the men inside the Blue Room making a bold move. And making it now.

 

For Rangers are in dire and desperate need of a strong man inside the Blue Room and it would be much better for the club if that strong man was a Rangers man with dough, rather than someone such as Chris Morgan, someone many believe would wreak havoc and damage the Rangers hopes of a march back to the top.

 

And that man is surely Dave King!

 

Walter Smith is the only man on the board who knows Dave King and understands just what a good Rangers man he is and what a stout and staunch ally he would if he was sitting with Smith around the Boardroom table.

 

Which is why the time is ripe for Smith to move that Dave King be invited to join the board. Now!

 

My information is that any such motion, proposed by Smith, would be seconded with alacrity by acting chief executive Craig Mather, whose £1M stake in Rangers means that he is the only director who has coughed up mega-money for his shareholding.

 

That would then smoke out those who have dilly-dallied, swinging in the wind, first one way and then the other. It seems certain that any such motion, proposed by Smith, the only man on the board all Rangers supporters trust completely, and seconded by Mather, would soon be supported by financial director, Brian Stockbridge, who has also shelled out his own cash for a stake in Rangers, buying his shares at the going rate.

 

Leaving non executive director and lifelong Rangers supporter, Ian Hart, with a big decision to make. There have been many mixed messages sent to me from a variety of sources regarding Hart.

 

But now, for him, it is make your mind up time. Time for Ian Hart to pick a side.

 

Leading on to chairman Malcolm Murray, the main target for those who want an EGM. Muray has not performed well. But now is his last shot at glory. His last chance to focus fully, to concentrate his mind, to stop vacillating and hiding behind corporate mumbo jumbo.

 

It is chairman Malcolm Murray's last chance to speak for Rangers. And vote for Dave King. Such a move would go a long way to restoring Murray's tarnished reputation and pave the way for some sort of amicable agreement with him to be struck.

 

That would leave Charles Green, who is due to leave the board in a fortnight and Phillip Cartmell and Bryan Smart out on a limb. I have no idea which way Smart would jump, but Cartmell is in the same boat as Murray as being targeted by the men who want an EGM. They want him out. And Cartmell is already under pressure inside the Blue Room for what some directors see as his dereliction of duty as a Rangers director.

 

London based Cartmell has not even bothered to travel to Glasgow to sit around the boardroom table , preferring to just join in by conference call link.

 

It is an entirely unsatisfactory state of affairs. And something which I am pretty sure will not meet with Walter Smith's approval. He is a man who likes to look you in the eye. Which can be an unnerving experience if he thinks you are trying to con him.

 

But the bottom line is that if Ian Hart and chairman Murray man up and get behind any Walter Smith proposal, seconded by Craig Mather and backed by Brian Stockbridge, to invite Dave King, a man with proven Rangers credentials, an extremely wealthy man, a man committed to the cause and someone who is well able to handle any rough and tumble tactics the controversial Easdales or in-for-a-fast-buck Cockney costcutter Chris Morgan could throw at him, into the Blue Room, Rangers will be in better shape. At a stroke.

 

While all the while King can sweep up the shares from the 60per cent of the Rangers shareholders who Imran Ahmad has told me are eager to sell. With, of course, the help of Imran Ahmad, which I have proof he has promised.

[Stefanovitch 0]

It really is time for all this in fighting to end and for a period of stability to begin.

 

I think King is the only realistic option but I have no idea about how interested he is or how he would go about buying a large chunk of shares or how much it would cost him.

 

The Heralds Richard Wilson alludes to another unnamed interested party and I'd like to know who that was and what his Rangers credentials are.

 

BTW, does Leggat have any proof of this communication from Ahmad? I don't think he mentioned if he does

[the gunslinger 3,366]

60% of shareholder believe whyte. or rather 60% want out because they believe whyte. yet fans are still in denial.

 

frankly if i never hear from ahmed again it will be too soon.

[der Berliner 3,290]

Honestly ... a lot is being made about the power wrangle up there, and some probably hyped upped by the media (incl. Leggat). What matters to me is that the CEO gets on with business and that the club is being run prudently despite all this. Seeing that Daly and Clark have essentially been dealed in, with Law hopefully close to signing too, it looks that despite all the fuzz, the club works "normally".

 

Don't get me wrong here. The mess should surely be cleaned up (and better now than closer to next season), but at times I wonder how much of the media coverage is exaggerated, so they get another "Spring/Summer of 2012" for their audience.

[Davie P 4]

Thought you might be interested in reading an article from a respect financial journalist in South Africa about Dave King and his on-going prosecution by SARS and the National Prosecutions Authority.

 

"TWO years ago, prosecutions boss Menzi Simelane told me that he didnâ??t care if the state spent R1bn sending Dave King to jail for breaking the tax laws â?? it would be money well spent.

 

It was a curious statement, first because it implied Simelane was a man of high principle while at the same time suggesting the Scottish-born King was something of a fiendish Al Capone character, on whom all the might of the state should be expended.

 

The truth, on both counts, is very different. Simelane, as we know, was booted from his position by the Constitutional Court last October, essentially for not being a fit and proper person.

 

But his high-handed statement had come months after the NPA vetoed a â??settlementâ? in 2009 that would have seen King pay R636m to close the book on a tax dispute dating back to 2002.

 

No, Simelane said, weâ??ll put that fiendish King in jail before we do any dirty backroom deal.

 

So, news this week that King has, in fact, reached some settlement over certain assets in the long-running soap opera that has become his tax dispute was a welcome sign. Letâ??s hope this thaw in the relationship is a precursor to a larger settlement of the entire sorry mess.

 

Because, letâ??s face it, governmentâ??s ham-fisted pursuit of King hasnâ??t reflected well on its ability to nail those who it believes have wronged it.

 

In particular, the National Prosecuting Authority has been embarrassed by King in a way that ought to provide a fillip to anyone plotting any halfway well-constructed white-collar con.

 

Last August â?? more than a decade after the event â?? the NPA finally took King to court over 37 counts of fraud for supposedly defrauding companies like Old Mutual and lying to the JSE when he made R1bn by selling shares in a company called Specialised Outsourcing in 1999.

 

It would have been one of the countryâ??s most important corporate fraud cases. Ignore the fact that Specialised Outsourcing does not exist any more, ignore the fact that witnesses would be hard-pressed to remember what happened 12 years before.

 

No matter, the cocky NPA assured us: it had spent the last decade firming up a cast-iron case, it had impeccable witnesses, nothing could go wrong.

 

So, it was a surprise to these witnesses when the NPA simply closed its case last September after calling only five of its 71 expert witnesses.

 

Judge Margaret Victor acquitted King, slamming the NPA for failing to put up a case.

 

One witness called the NPAâ??s bungling â??astoundingâ? and â??incomprehensibleâ?.

 

The bottom line remains: if a guy is really guilty of what you say he is, and you canâ??t prove it in a decade, you really have no business being in the law-enforcement game.

 

For King, this only suggested his claims of being victimised and hounded by the NPA in order to settle his tax case were justified.

 

Now, there are some good, solid professionals at the NPA, who do know what theyâ??re doing. Not all of them have been suspended, like Glynnis Breytenbach.

 

But there are others â?? usually in management â?? for whom a weekly fitting of red noses and oversized shoes wouldnâ??t be an entirely inappropriate use of money.

 

Partly thanks to their blundering, King almost has government over a barrel.

 

In recent weeks, King has -rightly -used the judgment to travel overseas to â??unfreezeâ? cash that had been seized in Jersey and Guernsey.

 

By all accounts, the overseas courts werenâ??t amused that all this cash had been frozen more than a decade earlier, yet King hadnâ??t pleaded to the numerous criminal charges he faced.

 

Simelaneâ??s sentiment was that a conviction would send a message of â??no toleranceâ? to South Africaâ??s businessmen. So this is why government has thrown vast sums of money -estimated at more than R400m â?? on this principle. Along the way, it turned down R636m from King.

 

Altogether, thatâ??s hundreds of millions at which the government has turned up its nose.

 

Disregarding the merits of the actual charges against King, the really worrying thing is the message that this decade-long circus act will send to the real Al Capones of South Africaâ??s corporate sector.

 

Do your worst, it says, and if youâ??re really, really unlucky, youâ??ll face a trial in about a decade or so.

 

The best thing for the state agencies would be to settle this sorry mess, bank a settlement from King, and sit in a dark room until the red cheeks fade.

 

* This article was first published in Sunday Times: Business Times

[Davie P 4]

I should make it clear that I hold no candle for King, but I do think that he ticks the boxes

1. Passionate about Rangers

2. Hugely succesful businessman

3. Independently wealthy.

4. Has indicated an interest in acquiring a majority stake in Rangers

 

I submitted the above article as there seems to be suggestions that he is shady character. I have no doubt that he would take all legitimate short cuts to achieve his end goals, but to attempt to suggest that he is an "Al Capone" type gangster is just ludicrous. He has been intimidated by the authorities with threats of criminal actions in order to get him to accept the SARS demands. I have not met a single South African who actually thinks he is guilty of anything, but back home, primarily by CG supporters, he is viewed in the same light as convicted VAT fraudsters. I suppose its true what they say, 'a prophet is never appreciated in his own country'!

[Bluedell 5,356]

I should make it clear that I hold no candle for King, but I do think that he ticks the boxes

1. Passionate about Rangers

2. Hugely succesful businessman

3. Independently wealthy.

4. Has indicated an interest in acquiring a majority stake in Rangers

 

I submitted the above article as there seems to be suggestions that he is shady character. I have no doubt that he would take all legitimate short cuts to achieve his end goals, but to attempt to suggest that he is an "Al Capone" type gangster is just ludicrous. He has been intimidated by the authorities with threats of criminal actions in order to get him to accept the SARS demands. I have not met a single South African who actually thinks he is guilty of anything, but back home, primarily by CG supporters, he is viewed in the same light as convicted VAT fraudsters. I suppose its true what they say, 'a prophet is never appreciated in his own country'!

 

Tax avoidance is something that I have a bit of knowledge of and it can be a very grey area as was seen with the BTC. People can sail close to the wind and there is often no definitive correct answer, again as was seen with the split decision on the BTC. From the little I know about the Dave King case it seems to fall into this category. If it was clear cut then the case would have been settled a long time ago.

 

I'd agree that there's a fairly big difference between that and deliberate fraud or other criminal activity.

[pete 2,499]

Tax avoidance is something that I have a bit of knowledge of and it can be a very grey area as was seen with the BTC. People can sail close to the wind and there is often no definitive correct answer, again as was seen with the split decision on the BTC. From the little I know about the Dave King case it seems to fall into this category. If it was clear cut then the case would have been settled a long time ago.

 

I'd agree that there's a fairly big difference between that and deliberate fraud or other criminal activity.

 

Is that an admission of guilt.

[simplythebest 0]

We've heard bugger all from King himself yet he seems to be getting played up as our ultimate saviour or something.

 

I'm aware of the money he's put in in the past but i'm still rather skeptical.

[bluebear54 0]

Is it just me that finds Leggo a wee bit over the top most of the time, and distinctly less than believable some of the time.

For my money, journalists, bloggers and forum posters have morphed into one.

Not many report news. Most either pontificate, create mischief or practice self-promotion.

I'd rather read D'Artagnan any day of the week.