The remaining directors of Sevco have refused to walkaway and are preparing the distressed company to take advantage of the second part of Mike Ashley’s £10m loan facility.
Despite Dave King, who was once described as a glib and shameless liar by a South African judge, declaring a landslide victory yesterday afternoon Deek Llambias and Barry Leach will remain in office until Friday’s powederkeg EGM.
After propping the club up with preferential loans over the winter the Sports Direct duo intend seeing things through in their bid to keep the lights on for the company that runs the football club.
In their first statement to the Alternative Investment Market yesterday the current board declared: “Proxy voting closes tomorrow morning at 10am, and at the current time a significant number of shares have not yet voted; the outcome cannot therefore be determined with certainty. The position of the proxy voting will not be announced ahead of the meeting for regulatory reasons, and in any event shareholders have the right to revoke their proxy vote by attendance in person at the general meeting.
“The Directors believe that they have at all times sought to act in the best interests of Rangers for the benefit of its shareholders as a whole and refute in the strongest possible terms any suggestion that this is not the case and in particular any suggestion that they have given their personal interests priority over those of the Company.
“By remaining in post the directors wish to give the Company and possible incoming directors (should the Board change) the best possible chance of complying with the AIM rules and of avoiding the risk highlighted in the circular of 06 February 2015 of the Company’s shares being suspended. There can be no guarantee of avoiding suspension.
Ominously a later statement added: “The Board of Rangers announces that the Company has commenced the process of satisfying the conditions for drawdown of the second tranche of the facility announced on 27 January 2015 with Sports Direct and associated companies (“SD”) (the “Facility”) in order to meet its cash requirements for the third week of March.
“Drawdown of the second tranche of the Facility is subject to due diligence by SD. Shareholders should be aware that there are other conditions of drawdown which include a material and adverse change and/or significant, adverse event condition which could impact upon the willingness of SD to release the funds. If the funds are not able to be drawn down from the Facility, alternative sources of external funding will be required.”
Should Mr King come to power on Friday his first task will be to find a £10m unsecured loan to repay Mr Ashley and meet the March payroll. Mr Ashley’s retail and advertising rights are unaffected by any boardroom changes.