Ellis Interest Re-iterated

[wabashcannonball 0]

Will it be invoked, but as no bid has yet been tendered...

 

Introduction

On 25 February, the Code Committee of the Takeover Panel (“the Code

Committee”) published a Public Consultation Paper (“PCP2004/1”) entitled

“‘Put Up or Shut Up’ and No Intention to Bid Statements”.

The purpose of this paper is to provide details of the Code Committee’s

response to the external consultation process on PCP 2004/1.

[Zappa 0]

He has just released a statement saying EXACTLY what I said. some crystal ball right enough.

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NL, I must have misunderstood the use of capitals when you used the word 'exactly'... You went on to stress the word 'exactly' several times in another one of your posts here, so without doing a word for word comparison myself, I assumed that stressing the word 'exactly' so heavily meant that it was indeed exactly the same or word for word. My mistake.

[Guest Northampton_loyalist]

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NL, I must have misunderstood the use of capitals when you used the word 'exactly'... You went on to stress the word 'exactly' several times in another one of your posts here, so without doing a word for word comparison myself, I assumed that stressing the word 'exactly' so heavily meant that it was indeed exactly the same or word for word. My mistake.

 

not even close to a problem and I can see why that would occur. My fault for not explaining properly, I merely meant that the content was identical in every way, not the wording. No harm, no foul.

[Guest Northampton_loyalist]

Just as likely the journalists called him after you posted your info mate and he said basically the same things to them as you...

 

 

possibly, who knows?

[rbr 1,255]

JUST TO MUDDY THE WATERS FURTHER,

 

The grins that came from a season of success against the odds have been replaced by looks of utter perplexion.

 

Rangers fans are easy to spot, they are the ones scurrying to darkened rooms to lie down and somehow try to make sense of it all.

 

They must long, in fact we all do, for a time when it will once more be about football. About players, managers, signings and results – not banks, takeovers, business plans and turnaround specialists.

 

Just what has Rangers 2010 become? Just where will they go from here?

 

Some 18 months has passed since the first seeds of concern were sown, that’s if anyone can remember the script since January 2009 when it was made clear a player would have to be sold to appease someone outwith the football operation.

 

Since then there has been mayhem off the pitch and in the boardroom, but amazingly four trophies delivered on it over the same period.

 

And now the story leads us to the latest crossfire. Who do the rank and file back? Is it the chairman of the club, Alastair Johnston, or the man who still says he is trying to buy it, Andrew Ellis?

 

Clearly, given the verbal jousts over the arranging of meetings to discuss Ellis’s plans for the club, there may well be others at work in all of this apart from these two men.

 

Three weeks ago, as part of an expose into the implications of an ongoing tax investigation into players off-shore trust payments and fears over what would happen to season ticket money and Champions League money, this newspaper reported that senior

 

figures at the club believed Ellis’s move for Rangers, now stretching 72 days since it was confirmed to the Stock Exchange, was a goner.

 

Since then the manager, Walter Smith, and now Johnston, have gone public with the feelings we said were prevalent among members the Ibrox hierarchy.

 

The bank have also yet to confirm the budget for next season, again confirming the fears we said existed of just what funding will be laid out for the 2010/11 campaign, and what will be kept back to address the debts.

 

Indeed, Smith was in front of the bankers again yesterday attempting to find some clarity on what he will have to spend as he tries to reach a decision.

 

Johnston was scathing yesterday, dismissing Ellis and delivering a potentially devastating statement for the Rangers support who believed that this summer would finally bring some sort of conclusion to the ownership issue.

 

He said Rangers were planning for next season ‘without a change of ownership’.

 

So the status quo would remain. An owner who wants out, a bank with one hand around Rangers’ throats.

 

A club pinned firmly against the wall with stage two of downsizing about to begin this summer, just as we said it would back in October, and a myriad of problems intensified by the taxman’s demands that may, or may not, lead to further financial thuds where it hurts.

 

Ellis, though, says he is ploughing on, although he has not put a time frame on this.

 

Today, he also states he has never spoken to Sir David Murray, and it’s now well known that he has had no dialogue with Smith or Johnston.

 

So who is he talking to? All indicators would suggest Donald Muir, the man placed on the board at the Murray Group’s behest in October, without any influence from the bank, as they have continued to say.

 

If Ellis does indeed follow this through, then he deserves massive credit. Rangers are in one hell of a mess, and anyone taking them on should be commended.

 

This newspaper has seen the one and a half page document submitted in mid-February by Marlborough Investments on behalf of Ellis’s Guernsey-based holding company which stated that Ã?£33m would be offered for the club, with a further Ã?£8m invested right away to secure the futures of the management team, out-of-contract players and for squad strengthening.

 

It was light on detail, although the names of David Gilmour and Benjamin Tustin were offered up as contacts for further discussions. But a lack of early detail is no crime if hard cash is there to back up the plan.

 

That remains the litmus test for Ellis, as �£41m is a lot of money and no-one seems to think he has it.

 

The only way Ellis can silence his doubters is to step forward and seal the deal.

 

He says it’s taking time and that’s his perogative, but every day is a lost one in building Rangers for the future.

 

It’s not as if he’s in a bidding war with anyone else, so maybe he feels there is no rush – clearly, in the eyes of Smith, Johnston and the support there is, and it’s easy to see why.

 

The club needs to be in control of it’s own destiny as quickly as possible.

 

Unquestionably, there is another interested camp. Current directors Dave King and Paul Murray formed an alliance some time back and remain in discussions.

 

Businessman Douglas Park has no interest in purchasing Rangers on his own.

 

He remains, as he said three weeks ago, open to helping the club off the deck by investing heavily, but the terms and conditions need to be correct.

 

Clearly, he feels the deal is not right at the moment.

 

King, it would appear, is playing a long game. Whether that is through no choice of his own, due to an on-going tax wrangle in South Africa, or because he wants to pick the club off when the price begins to fall, only he can answer.

 

It must always be remembered that he is starting from a position of minus �£20m after his investment into Rangers over a decade ago that is long gone, something that had led to a major deterioration in his relationship with Murray.

 

The two men had hardly shared a word for some time until they met in Edinburgh for dinner ten days ago.

 

In an ideal world, most Rangers fans would want him as the saviour ahead of Ellis.

 

He is a supporter, a director. He clearly has deep pockets, even if we are to believe he can’t get into them right now.

 

But there is also merit in the argument that surely, given the way Rangers are lurching around, stumbling from one shambles to the next, if he is in a position to step in, then he should do it right away for the sake of the club’s future.

 

Does there have to be a tipping point in his own mind before he moves?

 

And when will that come? Potentially if Smith leaves and the support break, if a threadbare squad gets off to a terrible start to the season and fans – more often than not the people who can actually force changes at any club – start to turn against what they are seeing.

 

Will it really need to come to that point for King to move, or will Ellis have already backed up his words with hard cash anytime soon.

 

Time will tell, but for now those who have paid �£450 for season tickets, and the man who has dragged the club off the floor to consecutive championships, remain in the dark and are left to try and make sense of these shifting winds.

 

Smith is unlikely to carry on if Lloyds don’t change the stance shown at the two meetings he’s now had with them, and may well blow the matter wide open if he decides to go public with exactly what he was being asked to operate with, and what interference he has had to contend with over the past six months.

 

Throughout this entire mess, that would be the biggest shame of all if he is forced to go.

 

Smith and a long-suffering support both deserve much, much better for what they’ve put in.

 

Above all, they deserve the truth.

[maineflyer 0]

I do sometimes wonder what's holding Mr Ellis back..... apart from having neither the funds nor any fundamental interest in Rangers.

 

Sometimes, in the absence of anything tangible to go on, you just have to judge people on what they don't say or don't do - and it would be forgivable at the moment to see Andrew Ellis as a complete decoy and time waster. He can't put up because his pockets ain't deep enough and he can't shut up because Murray hasn't told him to.

 

Since I first posted on Gersnet I've pretty much had a pessimistic outlook on our prospects as a club. Now it's looking as if the problems are far, far deeper than I ever imagined. Having reached what I thought would be the bottom, we now seem determined to see what's underneath. I get a strong sense of acceptance among many of our support that there will be no early relief from these troubled times. An unsellable club, mired in debt and run by people utterly ill-equipped to solve any of it. What we definitely don't need in the middle of all this is an Andrew Ellis.

[ascender 352]

This Ellis as a stooge thing, I'm not exactly sure what SDM would have to gain from it? If it was a ploy to smoke out potential bidders, it clearly hasn't worked and its been public knowledge for how many weeks now? Why would SDM be asking him to keep up the charade after so long?

 

We don't know what prompted Ellis' interest in the club. Probably some sort of property angle? I don't think we should under-estimate the fact that a well-run Rangers could be an interesting prospect as there is a large supporter base and potential both on and off the park to do things with the club.

[maineflyer 0]

This Ellis as a stooge thing, I'm not exactly sure what SDM would have to gain from it? If it was a ploy to smoke out potential bidders, it clearly hasn't worked and its been public knowledge for how many weeks now? Why would SDM be asking him to keep up the charade after so long?

 

We don't know what prompted Ellis' interest in the club. Probably some sort of property angle? I don't think we should under-estimate the fact that a well-run Rangers could be an interesting prospect as there is a large supporter base and potential both on and off the park to do things with the club.

 

Time......? How long is it since the bank pretty much said that the club must be sold?

[ascender 352]

Time......? How long is it since the bank pretty much said that the club must be sold?

 

Have they said that? They just want their money back. We don't know what time-frame they've put on it and I'm guessing, they don't care how that money is raised. They will however realise that the club has made massive inroads in to their business plan and are turning things around, so maybe they're not in any great rush to sell the club on? The problem is though that this new business plan and budget don't do much for the playing side. They're not thick though, even Lloyds will realise that there comes a tipping point where cutting the playing budget will jeopardise income off the pitch. So then it comes back to just how much of a hold they have over the club and exactly what they can demand.

 

We're complaining about a lack of communication which I think is very valid, but I think its somewhat ironic that those who have made official statements and those who continue to make unofficial ones, are actually muddying the waters further for us supporters. Which, like I've said before, is strange when you consider that all those involved supposedly have Rangers best interests at heart.

[wabashcannonball 0]

I took a shorter period than I thought for AJ to become another target. http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=151627