Murray makes clearest hint yet that club is for sale...

[Frankie 8,562]

In today's Finanical Times...

 

Makes my article of late last month all the more valid.

 

http://www.gersnet.info/fmrangers/newmain/280606.html

 

A work ethic from an early age

By Andrew Bolger

 

Published: July 13 2006 03:00 | Last updated: July 13 2006 03:00

 

David Murray still recalls why he wanted to swap shifts during his school holiday job as a Butlins porter in a holiday camp in Ayr.

 

"You relied on tips," explains the Scottish metals, property and football entrepreneur. "If you worked in the mornings, you'd go to the chalets and people would say: 'Sorry, son - we've nae money left.' But if you worked in the afternoons, they would all be arriving off the trains and the odd 10 shilling note didn't go amiss."

 

Now 54, the founder-owner of Murray International Holdings and chairman of Rangers Football Club, says: "The great thing my father did was always give me a holiday job. When I came back from school I would work as a barrow boy at Butlins and a drover's mate in Ayr cattle market, so I had a work ethic from a very early age."

 

Mr Murray's nose for such financial opportunities was already developing while he was a pupil at Fettes College in Edinburgh, the exclusive, fee-paying school where he was a contemporary of Tony Blair and Sir Bill Gammell, founder and chief executive of Cairn Energy, the FTSE 100-listed oil exploration group. He did not know the future prime minister, who was in the year below, but Mr Murray was in the same athletics team as Sir Bill, the former Scotland rugby international, recently knighted.

 

This privileged upbringing was interrupted after the bankruptcy of Mr Murray's father, whom he describes as "a vet who got the gambling bug". He had to switch from Fettes to Broughton High, a state school in Edinburgh.

 

"As a very young man leaving Fettes, having had everything done for me, and then having to do everything, with my mother doing the best she could for us - it was a pretty big wake-up call," says Mr Murray, speaking at his desk in one of the company's townhouses in Edinburgh's Charlotte Square, a few doors along from the official residence of Scotland's first minister.

 

Mr Murray left Broughton aged 17 with five O-grades, the Scottish equivalent ofÃ?Æ?ââ?¬Å¡Ã?â??*O-levels. "My uncle was in the metals business, and was quite affluent, so I went for a job as a trainee with a company called Scotmet Alloys at Ã?£7 a week. I worked there until it was bought by a plc in London."

 

Coming from a family of coal merchants, Mr Murray had always wanted his own business. "If you look back, you can see there was entrepreneurial flair there. I think it is hereditary."

 

He set up Murray International Metals and in its first year, when he was 23, it turned over �£2.1m and made �£100,000. "That was the start of the offshore oil and gas business, when we were taking positions, buying steel, supplying all the fabricators starting to crop up as back-up to the offshore industry. It was good timing."

 

However, the following year Mr Murray faced the biggest challenge of his life. Returning from a rugby match, he lost both legs after his Lotus sports car had a blow-out and hit a tree. Although he spent three months off work, Mr Murray never doubted he would resume his business career. "I think it gave me a great determination to succeed. I didn't ever have any time to feel sorry for myself. I just did it, because I had a wife and two young kids - one aged two, the other six months. So there was only one way to go. "The things that have helped make me are leaving Fettes, and having my accident - these things make or break you."

 

This urge to succeed has seen Mr Murray build a private company that is about to report sales of �£550m in the year to January, and pre-tax profits of �£50m. "We want by 2010 to be a �£1bn company, with pre-tax profits of �£100m, and I see no reason why we shouldn't do it," he says.

 

As well as a stable of seven metals businesses within the Murray Metals Group, he has built Premier Property Group, a commercial property and development company with offices in Edinburgh, Leeds and London. He also set up Charlotte Capital, a venture capital business (see below).

 

Mr Murray is obviously proud of creating what he describes as a rare commodity in Scottish business - a privately-owned, multi-faceted group. "I have no ambitions to be public - I think I'm unemployable. The restrictions of managing the rollercoaster of the stock market are not conducive to our type of business because we are investing all the time in the future.

 

"We are not a plc, we can't do a rights issue - we have to borrow �£100m, pay interest and then make a profit. I'd far prefer that than to be in a situation where you have a fortnight's holiday and find that, through no fault of your own, the value of your business has dropped by 20 per cent because of the stock market." Mr Murray clearly relishes the control he has over his empire. "For one person to own 82 per cent of a business this size - the other shareholders being the directors, Bank of Scotland and Noble Grossart [the Edinburgh-based merchant bank] - I like that size of shareholder structure, it suits me."

 

With Rangers, Mr Murray believes his 20-year involvement could be coming to a close. "I'm coming up for 20 years, and I think that will be enough for anybody. We've had a couple of people speak to us tentatively, but I would only sell the club if it was somebody who could take it to a higher level. There's no point in selling Rangers to people who then can't invest more money."

 

There are also signs of winding down in Mr Murray'spurchase last year of Ch�¢teau Routas, a 650-acre wine estate in Provence, followed by another vineyard in Burgundy in September. Mr Murray's younger son, Keith, 30, who has various catering interests, is helping to develop the wine business.

 

Does this mean Mr Murray intends to spend more time watching his grapes grow? "Well, I'm going to do that," he says. "But I'll be working. I won't be sitting there, sleeping. I've still got as much hunger and desire as I've always had, but I'd like to do it in a different way. I don't need to be driving from the front - if I can't delegate to good people around me, I have done something wrong."

[pete 2,499]

It certainly looks that way Frankie. I hope when he does sell he keeps his word and only sells for the betterment of the club. Unfortunatly his word is not always binding .

[Laudbertz 0]

It certainly looks that way Frankie. I hope when he does sell he keeps his word and only sells for the betterment of the club. Unfortunatly his word is not always binding .

 

This is what im worried about too Pete. We've heard his promises many a times and he more often than not disappoints with the end product.

[Gribz 850]

Certainly a big hint.

 

Me thinks Frankie boy knew something about this

[theboyharley 5]

Is Frankie David Murray? Who Knows?

[CammyF 8,089]

Is Frankie David Murray? Who Knows?

 

Nah, been to Frankie's vineyard and it's no a patch on The Mints

 

Cammy F

[Beattie 0]

Rangers owner David Murray may sell the club within the next three years and has already been approached by potential buyers.

 

The 54-year-old entrepreneur bought Rangers for £6m in 1989.

 

And he told the Financial Times: "I'm coming up for 20 years, and I think that will be enough for anybody.

 

"We've had a couple of people speak to us tentatively, but I would only sell the club if it was somebody who could take it to a higher level."

 

Murray's portfolio of metals, mining, property and venture capital businesses have made him Scotland's fifth richest man, worth £650m.

 

His investment at Rangers helped secure a famous nine-in-a-row championship wins between 1989-1997.

 

And the club's £12m training facility, Murray Park, is named after him.

 

Murray stepped down as chairman at Ibrox in July 2002 but returned to the post in the summer of 2004.

 

BBC Sport covering this now aswell.

[Guest pitchin]

Radio Clyde mention Tom Hunter might be interested

[Frankie 8,562]

As I said in my article, although Hunter does have an emotional attachment to the club, at the minute his investment company are aggressively increasing their portfolio in other business environments.

 

In my opinion that would rule out a Hunter move for Rangers. But if a consortium were to make a bid, I'd imagine he'd be part of it.

 

He tried to invest before but because certain guarantees weren't made he pulled out. David Murray not being at the club might attract him (and others) back into the frame.

[CammyF 8,089]

Yeah, I believe that a 'consortium' is most likely and wouldn't rule out the RST being part of any consortium....

 

Cammy F