Club 1872 has hit back at Ibrox vice-chairman John Bennett over his claim that they refused to take part in the latest dilution of shares.
The fans group have jumped on-board with Dave King in a bid to give the former club Chairman a £13m departing gift while the current board agree to their loans being converted into virtually worthless shares.
Since buying up shares from MASH (Mike Ashley) in 2017 Club 1872 have watched from the sidelines as their stake it the club has been diluted from over 10% down to less than 5%.
Handing over fresh funds to see your stake reduced and value crash seems to be the economics of madness but not quite as off the radar as recruiting 20,000 fans to pay King off while the club requires £23m to see it through the next 18 months.
Bennett and the current board would love to get access to the funds held by Club 1872 but after the AGM the fans group made it clear that they require reassurances before joining Bennett and Douglas Park in acts of charity:
We are compelled to correct some of the reporting of today’s AGM. The suggestion that Club 1872 has ever “refused” or “declined” to participate in any share issue of RIFC is inaccurate. Dialogue regarding our participation in the latest share issue continued with the Rangers Board as recently as this past week.
During the tenure of Dave King’s chairmanship we were fully informed of the investment merits of investing in each share issue in which we participated. Club 1872 applies the same due diligence that any investor would. Unfortunately, we were unable to complete this due diligence in time for the most recent issue but that has no significance overall as the funds remain available for future share purchases from Dave King and the Club.
As we have said since the start of our legacy campaign, we have an agreement with Dave King which will allow us to divert any funds from the purchase of his shareholding towards the Club if it has a share issue that we are able to support.
It is now even more important that fans get behind Club 1872 as we seek to purchase Dave King’s shareholding and also participate in any future share issue of RIFC. Our ability to meet these goals will purely be down to how many Rangers supporters join us.
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CLICK HERE for latest shareholding levels