The first cracks in the Ibrox takeover have started to emerge with doubts over the timeline for the latest regime change.
Keith Jackson of the Daily Record came out with all guns blazing at 5.45pm on Wednesday with other media messengers quickly getting on board with wall-to-wall good news.
On the back of Celtic’s matches against Bayern Munich and the Scottish Cup defeat from Queens Park the news was perfectly timed to give grieving bears a boost- and to deflect their thoughts away from the soon to be launched Season Ticket renewal campaign.
While the Record focussed on the San Francisco 49ers in their headlines and graphics the detail all pointed towards Leeds but there was little direct reference to Paraag Marathe, Chairman of Leeds.
Perhaps a representative or acquaintance of Marathe has recently visited South Africa?
So far the Record has led the way with egg-shell coverage of the deal keeping attention on multi-million pound investment and a spending splurge in the summer rather than the essentials.
On the Record Hotline Podcast Jackson has been hinting that the conclusion of the takeover is only weeks away but on Thursday on the BBC Scotland website long term cheerleader Tom English added the first note of caution with:
A takeover of Rangers involving the San Francisco 49ers’ investment wing is expected to be completed between April and June, sources close to negotiations have said.
There is “broad agreement” between all parties, with current shareholders expected to sell all, or part, of their stake in the club in the coming months.
The prospective owners would acquire more than 50% of the Rangers shares while taking on the debt, much of it owed to former chairman John Bennett.
The leading five shareholders would need to be bought out to obtain 50% of the shares, that includes Douglas Park and Dave King who rarely see eye to eye. It covers Park and Bennett who currently have £23m of interest paying loans in the club.
John McGarry of the Daily Mail chose a similar path:
Rangers look set to be under American ownership by the end of this season.
Headed by a representative of the investment arm of NFL giants the San Francisco 49ers, talks with key stakeholders at Ibrox are now at an advanced stage.
Sources close to the negotiations have told Mail Sport there is a broad agreement between the potential investors from the USA and a sufficient number of incumbent directors to constitute a majority stake.
While the Americans’ lawyers will still have to do their due diligence and the deal would also be subject to SFA approval, there is optimism on both sides that it will be concluded some time between April and June.
That report mentioned a price of 20p per share.
According to the club website the top five shareholders have 250,444,950 shares which would price the takeover at £50m, to take on £23m of debt, a crumbling stadium and a squad where Jack Butland, James Tavernier, Cyril Dessers, Danilo, Rabbi Matondo and Ben Davies are all guaranteed at least £30,000 a week until May 2026. Phil Clement is in with the bricks till May 2028.
After that you have Jackson’s spending splurge to factor in, if that is sidelined in favour of a few players arriving on loan from Leeds there might be some angry bears around, especially those that bought Season Tickets.
Undeterred, on Thursday’s Hotline Jackson promised:
I’d be surprised if it took that long. I’ve seen it speculated that it could be finalised sometime between April and June which isn’t very specific. I think it’s way further down the line than that and it will be sooner rather than later.
This is a very complex deal with lots of different layers and lots of different things that would have to be agreed upon. It may be that you can’t agree everything all in a oner, there may be various things that have to be agreed upon.
I don’t know, I’m speculating but I can only come to that conclusion because of the way the Rangers shareholding is configured. There’s lots of different people who have lots of little chunks. That in itself makes it complicated deal to do.
I’m sure there will be parts of it that are far down the line and maybe others that aren’t. But all in all, you have situation here which shouldn’t require too much time to get the whole thing nailed down,
It might be a different story if you felt there was a resistance to it or people around the table weren’t willing or happy to to be around the table. The feeling I get from this is that there aren’t any reluctant parties here. There might be one or two who don’t want to let go entirely and want to be involved and that might raise an issue.
But I get the feeling that all the parties involved are ready and willing. I’m sensing from this far that I don’t really feel any resistance to it. On the contrary.
Amid the fuzzy excitement of mounting a challenge to Celtic there appears to be equal mention of an American consortium and also Marathe, to back up their story the Record has gone to town with a picture of the Leeds Chairman at last month’s Europa League defeat against Manchester United.
So far no-one has sought out the thoughts of Douglas Park, one of the three bears and Chairman until May 2023.
The Lanarkshire businessman is known for his straight talking.
Not many people can see eye to eye with Dave King
Brilliant
Marty Feldman could?
I met him on the Squinty Bridge once.
I have read Jackson’s article AGAIN…and if that’s forensic journalism…then its no wonder the Daily Rectum is disappearing down the drain…There is not one credible fact in his ramblings…Instead its filled with guesswork and total speculation…and should be treated with the contempt it deserves…You would have thought that his ” Wealth off the radar ” article would have taught him something…but obviously not…What a muppet this guy is.
You’d never guess season ticket renewal was just around the corner.
Meanwhile Patrick Stewart is busy in the basement with his root and branch audit/review, looking for the deeds and any coins that may have fallen through the floorboards.
I would love to be in the room when RoughShod FC are being told they will need to comply with SOX. Controls over Financial Reporting has been something of a weakness I imagine. If talks are at an advanced stage I would imagine that the confetti issues of 24 Q4 and 25 Q1 will have been picked up in the due diligence. As for making big splashes in the transfer market in the summer, I would have thought that sports journalists would have been aware of FSR, what you can spend and the implications. Now is it the club they are buying or the company?
100 million call it fir a root brach take over. Included with that would be a new manager and team then you have to add on a stadium upgrade all the while keeping ur outgoings @ 70% of your income!! All this for a wee west of scotland glasgow based club.
No gonnae happen
“…People might ask why an NFL club would be considering getting involved in Scottish football. But I’d take a different view.
I’d ask this question, ‘Why wouldn’t they?’. I’ve been waiting for someone to make a move like this for a long time now because it seems obvious to me that Rangers are actually a great investment opportunity…”
The DR has really surpassed itself,
when a previously bankrupted, dodgy EBT recipient – the Bold Bazza –
is now dishing out ‘investment advice’ within that comic of a paper!
Absolutely bonkers. 🙂
Per Jackson:
“…There is “broad agreement” between all parties, with current shareholders expected to sell all, or part, of their stake in the club in the coming months…”
That is a total fabrication.
‘All parties’ have already come to an agreement in absolutely secrecy,
and before anything could be leaked to the media?!
That is just total bollox
– with Jackson just reaffirming that he hasn’t got a Scooby about what he’s scribbling down…
I hope the” investors” do their due diligence properly as the crumbling Ibroxland red brick facade is a listed building …so can’t be demolished for a shopping mall or houses , eventually.
Ach the financial penalty would be doable if they knocked it down. Alternatively they could retain it and have the poshest Lidl frontage in Scotland.
Sorry, but if they haven’t even started due diligence yet, this deal is not even close to being “at an advanced stage”. Nor will there be “broad agreement” on anything. Other than one party saying “we have a club to sell” and the other saying “we might be interested, but only if it stacks up”.
Also these are not moderately wealthy, elderly, misty-eyed, local lodge members that are misguidedly prepared to throw good money after bad at a financial basket case, just because they remember going to Ibrox as wee boys with their dads to watch Jim Baxter and John Greig. These are hard nosed businessmen with absolutely no emotional attachment to either Rangers RIP Ltd or Sevco. If this does go through somehow, it will cost them a packet, for little to no guarantee that they will make the return on their investment that they will demand. And that is their sole interest here – not restoring Rangers 2.0 to some mythical glory days.
At the end of the day, you’d be paying eye watering amounts for a club playing in what is, financially, a football backwater and operating under financial sustainability rules (in Europe at least). That will limit your ability to improve the squad, which is your only chance of eventually making a return and even that’s not guaranteed, even if UEFA let you do it. Your only other option is the Mike Ashley route of downsizing and austerity to turn a profit and build from there. I doubt the new owners, or the Orc Klanbase, will have the patience for that though
I saw some idiot saying that the deal “values the club at £150m”. WRONG!!!! If that is the working estimate, that will be a deal valuation, not a club valuation i.e. the cost to buy the club and pay off/take on outstanding debts and so on. So right from the start, you’re paying out way more than the club’s actually worth to buy it, in the hope that it’s value rises, or that you can cream off enough dough to make it worthwhile.
It’s also not clear if this will be a leveraged buyout – where any loans/debt taken on to buy the club is effectively then put on the club’s balance sheet (see Glazers and Man Utd), where it then acts as an albatross around its neck, while the new investors help themselves to dividends, etc. to recoup their “investment”.
Quite honestly, they’d be better waiting for it to die again and picking up the carcass for peanuts. Worked for Big Yorkshire ‘Ands Charlie.
It’s funny how they’re all talking about the “club” being bought over now too. Not the “holding company”, or the “engine room subsidiary”. I thought clubs had now been elevated to the status of ethereal deities, sitting on a cloud somewhere beyond the reach of human hand. Or any face painters or other creditors that they owed money to. Or was that just a 2012 thing?
Terrific post BriBhoy…well done.
Cheers Mr Nova!
Looking forward to instead of playing the New Rangers we’ll be playing the Glasgow thirteeners as per their age