Check the date when this was written. Rangers strike it lucky with their new owner. By: Phil Mac Giolla Bhain (published June 7th, 2011 at 5:04 pm) Rangersâ fans should be thanking their pantheon of heroes from the past that Craig Whyte is the owner of their club.As a âkeen Rangers fanâ Whyte will, no doubt, act with a mixture of emotion and the business acumen that has seen him amass such a fortune for a man just turned forty. Celtic fans had better get used to the sounds of celebration coming from Ibrox. Mr.Whyte means business. It could, of course, have been easily so different for the Ibrox club. Had Rangers been taken over by someone who just saw the financial opportunities of a distressed company, rich with under-productive assets and a loyal customer base, the club would have been vulnerable. The following scenario COULD have happened had someone else, an asset stripper, taken over Rangers. Buying the company for one pound he could have also purchased Rangersâ debt from the bank. Once in charge, an asset stripper intent on squeezing the most profit from his investment could then try to âsecuritiseâ revenue streams. He might try to borrow money against future season ticket sales, say, for the next four years. Securitising £40 million of future season book income would allow the club to receive about £30 million in cash now. An owner like Mr. Whyte, who has Rangersâ best interests at heart, would use that money to either invest in players or to pay any tax bills that crystallise in the future. Had someone else bought Rangers and securitised future season ticket money, he might feel tempted to just pocket that cash for himself. That sounds like a scam to most, but it is usually perfectly legal. This hypothetical other owner could have forced Rangers to lend that £30 million in cash to its new parent company. The parent company would be then free to use that borrowed money as they saw fit, such as paying all of it as a dividend to its own shareholder(s). If the club was then to become insolvent, an administrator would try to pursue the parent company for the repayment of the loan. However the parent company would have no cash to repay the loan after paying the dividend. It would then have to file for bankruptcy too. The loan from Rangers to its parent company simply could not be repaid. In this entirely hypothetical and fictional scenario, the Rangers season ticket money would be in an off shore account supporting a billionaire lifestyle. Fortunately for Rangers this could not happen with Craig Whyte and the clubâs own new parent company. Mr.Whyteâs circular yesterday included a pledge that Rangersâ parent company would only borrow from the club if it was âprincipally for the Clubâs benefitâ. The penalty for breaking this pledge is that Rangersâ £18m debt to its parent company would be cleared. A different owner might have seen an opportunity to pocket £30m cash in return for giving up his right to get £18m repaid. A different owner, if he was exceptionally greedy, might pocket the £30m cash and then try to argue that the loan to the parent company was âprincipally for the Clubâs benefitâ or might have had his legal team insert a loophole in the documents that rendered âthe pledgeâ null and void. He would then also be able to demand the first £18m from the sale of the clubâs assets in administration. Rangers FC and its many supporters can consider themselves very lucky. In their vulnerable state, they were delivered to an owner who is both a shrewd businessman and a âkeen Rangers supporterâ, Craig Whyte. It would be churlish to not acknowledge the good fortune of the blue half of Glasgow. There is now truly light at the end of their dark financial tunnel.
Aye, but it was aw pyoor lies to discredit the Whyte Knight and tarnish the good name of Rangers football club.
In months / years to come , do you think we will look back at Leggats articles and say the man /lunatic was right ???
Nope. He already goes on sporadic deleting sprees - try and find some of his articles from last year when the bombs and bullets were being sent, for example.
Trevor , I am always right and your always wrong , given up counting how many times i've had to correct you ,yet you want to call me a lunatic !! Noticed you disappeared on the thread relating to crowds after your last comment was laughed off the board .
where's the link? I tend to get lost on here harry. I think we should have an old firm board. Post the link and I'll retort
It is now quite possible that Rangers won't need a law firm based in Switzerland as they will not have any on field issues with Uefa. Really a year is a long time in football. This time last season a wink or a nod from Murray or Walter towards a referee was all that was needed for a penalty or a red card. Mr Regan asked us to give him time, it would be all different season 2011/12 and how right he was. The once darling of the establishment had only to speak to Peat or Bain or Dallas and all was made right. We just cannot credit Mr. Regan with all the change, no man has ever done more it seems to me to create a clubs downfall as that exMotherwell man Mr Whyte, he seems to have brought as much in ten months than Murray did in his whole term. So eager was Craig Whyte to match David Murray that he brought the wrong attention to Rangers from nearly every directions. Celtic fans will truly worship Craig Whyte.
http://www.philmacgiollabhain.ie/rangers-strike-it-lucky-with-their-new-owner/ Excellent OP Dev......must admit, I thought you had done a little 'editing' - until I checked it out!
I read that back when it was first published online Back when everyone knew who he was and knew about some wee guy he "let die" Funny how some people forget
To be fair, I've got Phil on my fudbook list and, as soon as the Ticketus story broke, he re-posted this blowing his own trumpet. He's re-posted a few old blogs recently and they were probably more on the mark than even Phil could've guessed. It's still funny to see this guy the Huns rubbished being on the money
I challenged someone (either here or on another forum) to produce some evidence of this "common knowledge" thing about an elderly guy dying in his care. Apart from Huns telling this story to each other, there was nothing - you would think that someone would be able to produce at least a paper cutting or something. Phil once stated that he had comments removed from his website but the contributers details kept as "the accusations were libellous".
