There is a suggestion that Dave King has split from the so-called ‘Three Bears’ and not converted his soft loan to the club from Ibrox into new shares.
Before taking control of the club in March 2015 King worked alongside Douglas Park, George Letham and George Taylor with all four men providing the club with loans in the two years that followed their takeover.
Despite promotion to the top flight the losses have continued with Close Brothers stepping in to cover the shortfall last February even though the club enjoyed the windfall of reaching the group phase of the Europa League which provided seven additional home matches before Christmas.
Interesting that only 2 of 5 recipients of Loan Conversion Notes – Park & Letham – converted their notes prior to the Balance Sheet date of 30 June. This leaves £8.6m of pre-September 2018 loans on the AR Balance Sheet.
Per the AR, outstanding loans are repayable in July 2019 pic.twitter.com/SJrOz18YUp
— John Bradshaw (@JBLuvsCeltic) August 2, 2019
If King has retained his loan rather than convert it into shares he will be entitled to a payout like other creditors in the event of the club going into administration which would leave shares worthless.
With a further loan taken out from Close Brothers earlier this year and damages possibly running to £10m from the dispute with Sports Direct finances at Ibrox look precarious.
Bringing in £20m from selling players would provide a short term solution but so far there has been no interest in any of Steven Gerrard’s stars with £4m committed so far in transfer fees this summer adding eight new players to the pay roll.
On August 16 the club must make an interim payment to Sports Direct for costs of £444,846.60 with the full costs to be published on September 23.
