Blue Pitch Holdings and the Easdales

[Zappa 0]

Article submitted by Scorchio:

 

Blue Pitch Holdings and the Easdales

 

Quite just who the legal beneficiary or beneficiaries plural of the much discussed Blue Pitch Holdings actually is or are is one of the hottest burning questions of the last 16 months since Charles Green, his associates & their financial backers successfully achieved a failed CVA and completed their so-called 'binding agreement' to buy the Club from the clutches of administrators Duff & Phelps.

 

There's been more questions on the minds of Rangers fans since back then in our Club's darkest days than most people care to remember (including ourselves, the fans), but this particular question has been asked so many times that it's absolutely staggering we're still having to ask it. "Who are Blue Pitch Holdings?" has been asked by fans, fan reps, fan groups, influential fans, ex-directors and investors alike, but still there's been no definitive answer.... from anyone.

 

When the question is asked I've regularly seen and heard it met with agreement from fans who would like to know the answer themselves and in many cases feel they have the right to know the answer to who is behind this faceless investor in our Club. Given the fact that Blue Pitch were one of the few initial investors and essentially a key player in the takeover, it's quite hard to argue against the idea that their identity should be revealed. After all, the fans are bigger investors in the Club than any other.

 

As can be expected though, others say that shareholders and investors are completely, rightfully entitled to anonymity and confidentiality because company and market regulations and laws say so. Now, while this is technically correct, it could easily be suggested that if a shareholder wishes to remain anonymous, then perhaps they should remain in the shadows lurking behind their own curtains rather than the curtains in the Rangers boardroom.

 

Perhaps a shareholder, investor, group (or family?) who wants to take such a back seat that they can't even be seen or heard shouldn't lodge a formal EGM Requisition calling for the removal of two board members including the Chairman whilst proposing motions for the appointment of their own men. That's what Blue Pitch Holdings did back in May when they formally staged a boardroom coup to oust Malcolm Murray and Phil Cartmell from Ibrox and replace them with Chris Morgan and James Easdale.

 

Inevitably, it was a coup which was met with resistance and almost a further two months passed by before that particular resistance became futile and the Club finally announced on 9 July 2013 that Malcolm Murray and Phil Cartmell had left the board. Crucially though, there had been a compromise and the director departures ran parallel to Chris Morgan stepping away while only James Easdale was appointed as a non-executive director of the company.

 

It's difficult to say whether or not Blue Pitch were happy with this compromise, but they certainly agreed to it and got James Easdale into the boardroom in place of not one, but two directors they wanted removed. Let's leave the question of why they wanted Murray & Cartmell removed for others to ask and just say that the coup was certainly (and at the very least), a partial success.

 

Since the name Blue Pitch Holdings was first mentioned, one of the interesting facts is that right from the the word go Charles Green started mentioning names in connection with BPH and in doing so he instantly gave off the impression that he wasn't trying to hide anything about this particular investor. If we go back to 14 June 2012 immediately following the CVA failure, Green dropped the name Alessandro Celano when he said the following in an official statement:

 

"In terms of investors in the company, to date our investors include Chris Morgan, a UK-based businessman representing family trusts; Glenmuir, the renowned Scottish clothing company; Ian Hart a Glasgow-based businessman; Alessandro Celano of Blue Pitch Holdings and Zeus Capital"

 

http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/1316-charles-green-statement

 

Following that Green had a lot on his plate with the SFA, SPL, doing interviews, meeting supporters groups and clubs all while ultimately building towards the IPO. Over roughly a 4 month period it would appear as though he wasn't able to keep his story straight about Blue Pitch Holdings which eventually culminated in him releasing another 'Charles Green Statement' on the Rangers website on 20 October 2012 which went as follows:

 

"There has been renewed speculation and media comment recently regarding the current shareholders in The Rangers Football Club. A full list of current shareholders will be published in the share prospectus which will be issued within the next few weeks. A lot of attention has focused on investment funds which have taken a shareholding in the Club to date. For example, I would like to clarify that in the case of Blue Pitch Holdings, the legal beneficiary is Mazen Houssami and not Arif Naqvi of Abraaj Capital. Mr Naqvi is a personal friend of mine and I approached him early on in the process about a shareholding but he has not proceeded on the basis that the investment fell outside the core geography he invests in."

 

http://www.rangers.co.uk/news/headlines/item/2451-charles-green-statement

 

A crucial point to make here is that when it comes to the subject of Blue Pitch Holdings, people's interest in Green consistently (and inconsistently) dropping names like Celano, Naqvi, Houssami or anyone else who isn't actually the legal beneficiary of Blue Pitch Holdings is very limited because all of these names most likely need to be filed under 'Charles Green's version of the truth'. In other words, probably nonsense which resulted from the opening of a mouth and the rumbling of a belly.

 

Rafat Rizvi is another name that's been mentioned and pondered quite frequently in connection with Blue Pitch due to leaked recordings now in the public domain of a meeting between Brian Stockbridge, Imran Ahmad and Craig Whyte. It was a meeting which took place before the failed CVA and and subsequent newco takeover which appears to suggest that a large sum of cash (circa £5m) from Rizvi and some of his friends was going to be used to help finance Green and co’s takeover.

 

It's entirely possible that Rizvi and his associates were indeed initially the legal beneficiaries of Blue Pitch Holdings and amongst the original takeover backers/investors. Rizvi's reputation and interpol problems would certainly have provided Green with a cracking excuse to tell numerous porkies about who was behind this mysterious investor. It's not as if Green ever needed an excuse to be economical with the truth right enough.

 

Rolling forward to the present time, the facts at our disposal regarding BPH don't point to Rizvi and friends hiding from interpol in London or Singapore, they point in other far more obvious directions closer to home because key events have taken place and certain things have been said which just don't make any sense unless you cast aside those previous names and start joining some of the dots we actually have sight of in the form of facts on the timeline.

 

On 23 April BBC Scotland told us that Charles Green had agreed to sell his shares in the Club to the Easdales and that they already had a 6% shareholding at that point. We were told that they wanted a place on the board and that they might look to take overall control of the club. A little over two weeks later on the 9th May James and Sandy Easdale did an interview in a McGill’s bus where it was reiterated that they already held approximately 6% of the shares in Rangers and that they wished to be involved at board level.

 

The obvious issue (and one which has previously been covered by other commentators) with those public claims via BBC Scotland back in late April and early May that the Easdales already owned approx 6% of Rangers, was that they weren't listed amongst the shareholders with a notifiable interest of 3% or more. Indeed, a leaked email dated 24 May from Stephen Keys of Cenkos Securities which he sent to all of the Rangers Directors lists the Easdales as having 1.1%, not 6% (or even around/about 6%). The same Cenkos email did however list Blue Pitch as having 6.14%. Of course it was no secret that Blue Pitch held 6.14% since it was a notifiable interest and Blue Pitch Holdings was already listed amongst the major shareholders as it had been all along.

 

Incredibly, just 7 days after the Easdales' 9 May McGill’s bus interview it was announced on 16 May that a group of shareholders had sent the Club a requisition for an EGM. As I mentioned earlier in the article, these shareholders were formally staging a boardroom coup to oust Malcolm Murray and Phil Cartmell from Ibrox and replace them with Chris Morgan and perhaps more importantly, James Easdale who was later appointed to the board of directors. The shareholders staging the coup were of course none other than Blue Pitch Holdings.

 

A lot of fans back then (myself included) were astonished by the news and completely bewildered as to why James Easdale was being proposed as a director because there were questions regarding his suitability and how appropriate such an appointment would be, especially given that there was no apparent evidence of the Easdales actually having this large stake in the club which was being claimed. The conclusion which I think most of us came to at the time was that one of the Easdale brothers was getting put forward for a seat on the board as part of the agreement to eventually buy Green's shares.

 

It seemed a fairly logical conclusion to draw at the time, but what if we were wrong? What if the Easdale family were actually at that point the legal beneficiaries of the Blue Pitch shareholding or say around 5% of it taking into account that they already had 1.1% according to the leaked Cenkos email? Would that explain why we had been getting told for several weeks that the Easdale family already owned around 6%? It's a concept which is far from being out of the question or impossible, but there are other possibilities.

 

Chris Morgan, who Blue Pitch proposed as a director alongside James Easdale was originally described by Green as a "UK-based businessman representing family trusts" and while I wouldn't suggest taking Green's words with anything other than a pinch of salt, it must be said that not everything which left his mouth was actually a lie. The leaked Stephen Keys (Cenkos) email actually clarifies which trusts/funds Chris Morgan was representing back in May when it lists Margarita Funds [4%], Norne Anstalt [1.84%] and Putney Holdings [0.7%] as being Morgan's "investor group".

 

We're not exactly clarifying the mud here, but let's just say that it's not beyond the realms of possibility that Chris Morgan was actually representing an Easdale family trust as part of his investor group. It's certainly another possibility worth throwing up if we're working on the basis that the claims of the Easdales already having around 6% back in April/May were true.

 

Looking at it all from a current perspective, if we take into account that James Easdale's brother Sandy has since been appointed to the Club board of directors (as opposed to the PLC board) and that Sandy has supposedly been given the proxy votes of Blue Pitch, Margarita and other shareholders to take him to approx 24% voting rights, it must be said that the Easdale family certainly appear to sit in a position of quite significant strength.

 

Since we were told as far back as late April that the Easdales intended to get themselves into a controlling position, then it shouldn't really come as a surprise and neither should it come as a surprise if it's ever revealed that the Easdales own a larger percentage of our Club, than what's technically listed next to their actual names on the shareholder list.

[bluebear54 0]

Quite what does this speculation mean?

I can see the logic in suggesting that there's an Easdale family trust hidden there but why keep it hush hush for so long - and even more so now.

Since it's being suggested that a much larger Easdale stake could be kept under wraps, does this suggest that the investment is being kept low profile for a reason, eg as regards HMRC?

[stewarty 1,876]

Certainly an interesting theory. My money is still on Naqvi though.

[Zappa 0]

Quite what does this speculation mean?

 

All I can really gather from the article is that the question being put forward is: If the Easdales already had 6% in April as was claimed, then which shares were they? They either had that 6% or they didn't. Chris Graham (aka Fury) suggested a while back in his article "The Easdale shares mystery" that they didn't have the 6% claimed at all, while Scorchio is suggesting that they did, either via BPH or amongst Morgan's investors.

[Zappa 0]

Just read Bill McMurdo's blog from Wednesday entitled "No More Scare Stories" and although I disagree with him on a lot of the current issues there was an interesting BPH/Easdale related paragraph (exact quote):

 

Knowing what I do about Blue Pitch I am more than satisfied that Rangers are in safe hands where they are concerned. I also have confidence that the Easdales will run the club efficiently and steer Rangers back to where the club belongs.