Rangers rescue plan B: ask fans to help buy the club

[ian1964 10,724]

Published on 1 Nov 2009

 

Talks have been held about inviting thousands of Rangers supporters to help fund a rescue package for the financially-stricken club.

 

South Africa-based millionaire Dave King remains the leading contender to buy out current owner Sir David Murray, with his intentions expected to be revealed this month.

 

Scotland-based businessmen Douglas Park and Paul Murray have also been linked to a joint bid with Mr King to rescue Rangers, who are �£30million in debt, but no moves have yet been made.

 

But the Sunday Herald can reveal that tentative talks have taken place involving parties interested in taking over Rangers about creating a revolutionised club answerable to "members", who would pay an annual fee on top of their season ticket costs.

 

This is the successful and popular model of "social ownership" found at leading clubs such as Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain.

 

Essentially, this could be ââ?¬Ë?Plan Bââ?¬â?¢ if Mr King, or others, donââ?¬â?¢t emerge and firm up their interest in the club.

 

The proposal would mean thousands of rank-and-file Rangers fans investing to lend financial muscle to some of the parties interested in taking

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Rangers out of the grip of Lloyds Banking Group, which has stepped in after the club fell into heavy debt under Sir David Murray.

 

In return, the fans could have perhaps 33% or more of the shareholding as well as a couple of representatives on an entirely new board of directors.

 

With money being poured in by thousands of fans, as per the Barcelona model, Rangers could become the first major members-owned club in British football, albeit that a handful of significant investors would have large individual stakes and would occupy some of the office-bearing positions.

 

The extent of Rangers� financial crisis was revealed last weekend when manager Walter Smith claimed the bank was running the club.

 

Lloyds subsequently denied that but the bank�s interests are now represented on the board by new director Donald Muir.

 

Rangers will not sign any new players in the January transfer window and may have to sell a senior one such as Steven Davis if Lloyds is determined to claw back �£3m of the �£30m owed to it.

 

Sir David still owns 92% of the shareholding, but essentially Lloyds is dictating the terms of any eventual takeover.

 

Mr King is uncomfortable about the current asking price and is now involved in a game of poker with the bank, which is believed to have been left reeling by the reaction from the Rangers support at large after our sister paper, The Herald, revealed the extent of their influence, the threat of administration and plans for swingeing cuts.

 

Mr King is worth up to Ã?£300m but he is reluctant to meet the asking price of Ã?£1 for every Ã?£1 of debt ââ?¬â?? Lloyds is holding out for Ã?£30m ââ?¬â?? in the hope that it will eventually drop. Nothing will happen until Lloyds or Mr King change their stance.

 

But if Mr King eventually walks away from a potential deal, others could step in and then ask fans to become fee-paying "members" in order to build a serious reserve of cash.

 

The success of the venture would rely on the businessmen demonstrating that they were answerable to the fans who pay to become members.

 

Fans spokesman David Edgar last night told the Sunday Herald that opening the club to ownership by members was an exciting, innovative idea.

 

He claimed supporters would answer the call. "We have been exploring various avenues towards this with some of the potential investors," said Mr Edgar, of the Rangers Supporters Trust.

 

"I think there is an interest and a desire in a sort of joint initiative, where you would have a major shareholder and also the fans playing a significant role in the club. I know this is something people are investigating.

 

"Any new regime coming in has to understand that the fans do want to work with them.

 

"But I would say that from the people we have been speaking to there are positive noises about that.

 

"They understand that having the fans onside ââ?¬â?? via a membership scheme where people can invest and contribute to the football club, and have a say in the football club ââ?¬â?? works well abroad."

 

Rangers fans could, for example, be asked to pay �£1,000 each to become members, with payments spread over five years. At that level 30,000 fans buying membership would raise �£30m.

 

Sir David tried a share flotation in 2004, when Rangersâ�� debt soared to almost �£74m, but it was snubbed by supporters. Of the �£51m raised at the time, Sir David himself contributed �£50m.

 

"That was effectively a referendum on David Murrayââ?¬â?¢s performance," said Mr Edgar. "That was the fans saying ââ?¬Ë?you got us into this, you have to do something about itââ?¬â?¢.

 

"If there was a new, dynamic, go-ahead regime coming into Rangers the fans would want to get involved and they�d want to back it."

 

Meanwhile, supporters upset by how Lloyds has introduced an unforgiving budgetary plan at Ibrox will protest with banners during today�s SPL match against Dundee United at Tannadice. The banners will refer to new director Donald Muir as "the enemy within".

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/rangers-rescue-plan-b-ask-fans-to-help-buy-the-club-1.929642

[andrew_2010 0]

Meanwhile, supporters upset by how Lloyds has introduced an unforgiving budgetary plan at Ibrox will protest with banners during today�s SPL match against Dundee United at Tannadice. The banners will refer to new director Donald Muir as "the enemy within".

 

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/rangers-rescue-plan-b-ask-fans-to-help-buy-the-club-1.929642

 

Anyone got any info on this? Its not usual for the papers to know about these banners before the games is it?

 

An interesting idea... and one that makes much more sense than hocking the family silver...

[alexscottislegend 2,325]

I don't know how to post links from newspapers so if someone could do that with Tom English's article on Dave King in Scotland on Sunday I'd be grateful.

 

I know English has not been one of our greatest fans, to put it mildly, but what he says about King seems to put to bed any idea that he might be our saviour. Given that, this 'members' idea seems a much better option. If we can must 200,000 fans in Manchester, then we should have no trouble finding 30,000 to save the club.

[ian1964 10,724]

I don't know how to post links from newspapers so if someone could do that with Tom English's article on Dave King in Scotland on Sunday I'd be grateful.

 

Here you go mate:

 

By Tom English

A YEAR ago, almost to the day, Dave King called a press conference at a posh Johannesburg country club and promised to lift the lid on those investigating him for tax avoidance. This session, he said, would be gloves-off and no-holds-barred. He was going to blast his accusers at the South African Revenue Service (SARS) right out of the water with proof of hypocrisy and cataclysmic errors.

He said he was being bullied and likened them to a terrorist organisation. He was a wronged man and he was going to prove it.

 

King delivered on his promise and dynamited SARS. And then the government responded. SARS issued a statement of eye-water

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ing intensity, levelling a bewildering series of counter-allegations. They accused him of fabricating and distorting facts. They said he was desperate because the authorities were closing in on him. They said he was not the victim he portrayed himself to be, rather a man who lied and lied about his tax affairs.

 

And that was just for starters.

 

"He attempts to erode the culture of growing tax compliance in South Africa," said the statement.

 

Also: "He has acted fraudulently, evaded tax and lied about his income and profits generated since 1990."

 

Next: "He faces a variety of very serious criminal charges. If convicted he could be sentenced to a term of imprisonment of no less than 15 years."

 

And then: "This is the reason for his constant filibustering. The 322 charges include fraud, money laundering, racketeering and tax evasion for period 1990 to 2001 (and for non-rendition of tax returns for 2002 to 2005]."

 

And if that wasn't enough: "Additional charges of fraud, forgery and/or corruption have been registered and are being investigated against King."

 

He faces a bill of over 900m rand in personal tax and 1.4bn rand in business tax. Lumped together, it equates to more than �£180m. SARS have a dossier on him numbering 200,000 pages and say they have up to100 witnesses for the prosecution. It is a story that has been rumbling for eight years. It has become an epic battle, the most bitter and, financially, the largest tax stand-off in the history of South Africa. It is not just about the money, it's personal. SARS and King have made it so.

 

Last week, a source close to SARS told us that there is an icy determination to see this through. They also described as laughable the notion that King might stump up the millions required to take Rangers off Sir David Murray's hands. They say that it is not true that the government has seized King's passport, but it is true that they have frozen some of his assets. "If Mr King comes out now and suddenly produces tens of millions of pounds to buy a football club then SARS are going to be wondering where that money came from," said a source. "I can't see him doing it. It's just not going to happen."

 

Little of this has been reported in Scotland. Sure, there have been things written about the 322 charges against him but the scale of the case against King has been played down and instead he has been depicted as a potential Rangers Messiah.

 

The boy's own story has been trotted out. He's the son of a policeman who left for South Africa 30 years ago with just a few quid in his pocket. He's the Rangers supporter made good. Made very good, in fact. His business prowess brought him a fortune and a lifestyle that befitted one of South Africa's wealthiest people. He lives in the elite Sandhurst suburb of Johannesburg. He bought three houses there, razed them to the ground and then put a �£7m mansion on the site. Outside the door is his Ferrari and other expensive vehicles. His wealth is estimated at �£300m.

 

A chunk of that wealth can be traced back to a windfall he made on a company called Specialised Outsourcing. In 1997, he sold his shareholding for 1.2bn rand, more than �£110m. In 2000, an elderly SARS investigator called Charles Chipps was reading an article on King when he noticed a picture of the Glaswegian, taken at his plush Sandhurst home. Chipps spotted a painting by Irma Stern, the internationally recognised South African painter. The Stern painting, Chipps discovered, had been bought by King at auction for a record 1.76m rand or about �£130,000. Chipps wondered how King could afford it given that he'd been claiming that his annual income was a fraction of what he'd given for the piece of art. In fact, King had applied to be deregistered for tax, such was the trifling amount he claimed he was earning.

 

King was arrested in 2002 and soon he had 322 charges against his name. The Scot has stated that, yes, he does owe some tax and he's put a figure on it of just over �£3m. He says he has offered to settle but that his approaches have been rebuked. SARS, he has said, are conducting a witch hunt against him.

 

It has to be said that SARS are not exactly water-tight in their prosecution of such cases. There is a list of high fliers in the business world in South Africa who have come in for similar treatment – but arguably not as aggressive – as King has and some of the cases against some of these people just could not be proven. In May last year, SARS took a case to trial and lost it and in the summing-up the judge was heavily critical of their shoddy investigation.

 

King claims that their work in investigating his affairs is every bit as slapdash.

 

The hostility between SARS and King cranked up a level a year ago when the revenue service brought a new charge against him for allegedly attempting to bribe one of its committee members, a man called Leonard Radebe. "Our claim," said SARS spokesman, Adrian Lackay, " is that King submitted a fraudulent document to court, and tried to corrupt one of our general managers."

 

The allegation is that King was willing to pay Radebe more than �£1m to bring an end to the dispute. King's version is altogether different. He claims that Radebe approached him on behalf of SARS and that an offer was made of a full and final settlement in the region of �£25m. If King handed over the money, all charges would be dropped. When Radebe's actions were discovered, he was suspended.

 

King says that he thought Radebe was a credible representative of SARS, that he checked him out and believed him to be in a position of power to offer such a deal. The Scot was convinced that Radebe had a mandate to act. SARS counter that all the documentation was faked and there was corruption afoot. "It defies logic that I'd fight this for eight years and then resort to petty bribery," said King, later.

 

SARS have had to go to the supreme court of appeal seven times since 2002 to fight King. "We have to follow the legal process to the letter," says Lackay. "This is the unique case of a very wealthy taxpayer who is able to frustrate this. But we have to apply the law equally to everyone."

 

Judgment is pending on one of the cases against King, but trying to predict when all of this will finally be settled is an impossible business. King is convinced that he is being picked on and refuses to bow down in front of the authorities. SARS say that he amassed a fortune without adhering to the same tax rules as everybody else in South Africa. Neither of them look like they are going to back down, so a battle that has raged for many years already looks set to continue.

 

And Rangers? Those at Ibrox would be better off looking elsewhere for a great redeemer. It would appear that King has his hands full elsewhere.

 

 

http://www.gersnetonline.co.uk/vb/showthread.php?t=14391

[alexscottislegend 2,325]

Thanks for that, Ian. One of these days when you've a bit of time you can instruct me how to do it myself and save you the trouble!

[ian1964 10,724]

Thanks for that, Ian. One of these days when you've a bit of time you can instruct me how to do it myself and save you the trouble!

 

Just pm'd you check your inbox

[alexscottislegend 2,325]

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/rangersfc/Reports-of-Rangers39-European-demise.5784485.jp

 

Should cheer us up a bit? Or not!!

[Super_Ally 0]