TheMotor

AJ: So Mr Whyte, now you've bought the club, and paid off Lloyds, and deposited some money in our pretty shaky Basic Account (no credit or debit cards for Rangers) please publish your bank account details for all to see. AJ: And your other businesses, please. And your backers, please. AJ: And we would like this 5 million a year investment in players down in writing too, please. We don't care if that pushes up the price of every player we're in for, you see, cos we'll be offski long before then, eh? CW: Eh, Naw, I don't think so. Away and shite. AJ writes another childish statement from the other side of the world..........

Couple of interesting points there: They won't be on serious wages, so would be reasonable squad players if picked up on frees. I don't really see the point in signing filler midfielders though, as we have so many promising youngsters coming through in the middle of the park. The competition for the signings certainly won't outbid us on wages or offering European football/trophies, but Eredivisie teams have a great record of picking up players from the Scandinavian leagues, developing them, and selling them on to bigger leagues, so Herenveen may interest them.

I did it for you. Had a spare lying around.......

Announcement of any offer has to go to the stock market, at least 2 national newspapers and at least 2 news wire services at the same time, so take your pick. AP are usually quickest at getting this stuff out, so will probably be everywhere at once, unless leaked.

I think we need someone to do an edit with just the skip. Maybe give him some wee pigtails to go with it.

I think a lot of the confusion in this thread about whether the takeover is viewed as hostile, and what that means in terms of time, arise from confusion over which "Board" people are talking about. There is the takeover supervisory committee (or board) not all of whom are on the Board of Directors, and none of whom are substantial shareholders in Rangers. They cannot stop the deal, nor hold it up, but their recommendation should be what the other shareholders, and Board of Directors, use as the basis of how they vote with their shares. Obviously, SDM is already sounding like he wants to sell to Whyte, so the deal can be forced through anyway. The problem is the members of the actual Board of Directors who are also either major shareholders themselves (D King) or appear to be acting on their behalf (P Murray). If they are hostile to the takeover, they can cause delay due to the Takeover Panel rules stating that the Board and shareholders of the company to be taken over have to have "sufficient" time to appraise the submitted offer. There is no definition of "sufficient" but 28 days would be common and the offer hasn't been made yet. You can then have two delays: one to assess the deal, and one for the notice period to call an EGM and replace the reluctant Board members. Could end up being 6 - 8 weeks of sod all that Whyte can effectively do with his new plaything, which could be why he won't offer until he knows it will be accepted by the Board of Directors as well as SDM. Of course, if he had just made the bloody offer over the supervisory committee's dead bodies 3 weeks ago, we'd be nearly there......

You are quite right Mr Bacon, you have not insulted people on here who take the opposite view; apologies for the generalisation . Others have not been so considerate. There are questions to be asked whatever side you are on.

So, in summary (admittedly a long-winded one) we appear to have three different camps in this thread: Camp 1: Pro-Whyte Key arguments in favour: 1 - Get Lloyds largely out of Ranger's decision making process by clearing all but 4 million of the debt owed. 2 - Get rid of SDM and current board who have overseen slide to current position. Almost any change must be good. 3 - New manager can start planning for season ahead with, alledgedly, increased budget for playing staff and potential for investment in new players of 5 - 10 million, plus any income from sales. 4 - New ownership and new board = new thinking and new growth opportunities. Evidence to support Whyte bid being the right one: 1 - Media reports that Whyte is worth Billions/hundreds of millions/tens of millions/well, he owns a castle........... Actually, there is almost nothing in the public domain to support any of this. Nobody outside of the deal has a clue what his true resources are. 2 - From what little is leaking out about the deal, it appears that SDM/Lloyds/AJ and the supervisory committee believe that Whyte has adequately proved that he has the funds to purchase the shareholding of SDM and clear the majority of the debt. The closest we have to any sort of confirmation, though, is AJ's statement to the Plus Exchange in which his main gripe is over the lack of a binding commitment in the paperwork at that time in regards to the ongoing funding of the playing squad; he acknowledges that the proposed deal pays off SDM and Lloyds. So Whyte appears to have at least 25 million plus, that some people have seen evidence of. 3 - Media reports that Whyte will invest up to 25 million over 5 years, including 10 million in the first year, in refurbishing the squad. Again there is only circumstantial evidence of this. Both sides seem to be leaking that this is in the deal but not locked down yet, which appears to be a key sticking point and one that the anti-Whyte camp are jumping on (possibly quite rightly). Main concerns: Why do we know so little about him? What are his real resources? Why does he want to own Rangers and what are his long-term plans? Camp 2 - Not Sure Quite possibly a very large part of the fanbase. Fed up with all the negativity around the club and an owner who has long ago lost all interest. Hate to see players being lost due to budgetary reasons (rather than because they are just pish) and disappointed with the lack of quality we are able to bring into the team. Would love to see new owners and new investment but just not sure about Whyte. The lack of detail about who are new owner is, and what his motives are, is a concern however. Are we getting Murray years 1 - 10, or Murray since? Even worse, are we going to do a Portsmouth? But who else is out there? P Murray and King? Hmmmmmmm........... Camp 3 - Anti-Whyte Key arguments against: 1 - Whyte hasn't got any money. He doesn't even really have the 25 million odd that SDM/Lloyds/AJ appear to think he has. Pre-plumbing toilet apparatus humour used for illustration purposes. 2 - Whyte has previously been declared bankrupt. 3 - Whyte is a conman and thief. Veiled allusions to stealing diggers and a castle roof. 4 - Whyte is an asset-stripper and there is no evidence of any business successes. 5 - Ellis is involved. Ellis is a property developer and therefore evil. Ellis tried buying a club before Rangers and was chased out of town. Eliis also lacks the relevant toilet equipment. Evidence to support Whyte bid being the wrong one: 1 - Links to other forums where someone has copied tabloid articles showing that Whyte has had court action initiated against him by HMRC and other creditors in the 1990s. Nowhere in these articles, however, to those tabloids state the outcome of those actions. You would expect that if the judgments had gone against Whyte, that would be the headline news, not the initiation of the actions. Especially since the news articles were written years after the disputes. 2 - In one of the same tabloid articles, the issue of Whyte's insolvency is raised in connection to (again) the commencement, not the outcome, of proceedings against him by creditors. The only direct quote is from Whyte himself, saying he has never been declared bankrupt, which is not contradicted. 3 - Of Whyte's "Grand Theft Digger" operations, we have only ever so witty veiled references from forum posters but no evidence. No details of prosecutions, no court reports, no media reports even. 4 - Of Whyte's previous business successes, there truly is very little evidence, if any. This is, to my mind, the strongest argument in the anti-Whyte camp's armoury. Due to the lack of information about his business dealings in the public domain, the only thing we have to go on is the fact that the players on the other side of the deal all seem to be taking him seriously. But this issue should concern all Bears. However, the term "asset-stripper" seems to get used by people who have little understanding of what it means: Rangers really do not have a great many assets worth stripping that could not be much more easily obtained elsewhere for much less work. 5 - Ellis is a strange one and another strong point for the anti-Whyte camp, but possibly not for the reasons they think. I would just question what expertise he brings to the deal for his 25% cut of SDM's shares? He has no great property development track record. Lots of small deals, apparently, but nothing outstanding. He also has a poor record in his attempts to run Northampton Town and QPR, being run out of town pretty quickly in each case. However, it is useful to remember that SDM was also chased by the mighty Ayr United and proved a diabolical failure in his attempts to build a sporting empire out of his MIM franchise teams in basketball and ice-hockey. Also, when it comes to property development, we could not possibly get worse that SDM, unless Whyte plans to sell Ibrox: SDM couldn't develop a roll of film. I could be way off but I reckon many Bears will have at least one foot in the "Not Sure" camp and are probably moving the other foot towards the "Pro-Whyte" camp as things advance (albeit bloody slowly). The "Anti-Whyte" camp certainly raise some questions that should be asked but, on this board at least, failing to produce anything solid at all to back their position, and attacking posters with other viewpoints as stupid, just makes them appear petulant and childish, rather than genuinely concerned for Rangers or for debate

That quote in there is bewildering: Really? The proposed sale of a business is good for the seller, the buyer and the major creditor? Well, fuck me gently. Imagine that, eh? Are we meant to read a negative into that? This reads to me like a hissy fit over the "forcing mechanism" the chairman was insisting on with regards to the future investment, which even he conceded would be incredibly awkward as it is utterly bizarre. Surely the sale of a business removes the right to dictate how it is run in the future?

Other than our full year results, nearly all of our statements on the Plus Market over the last year have come late in the afternoon or first thing in the morning, so there appears to be something in what RFC52 is saying.

I don't think talk of a rival bidder is referring to King.

Answer number 2.

Not sure there are any current directors I would trust with ownership considering the way the club has been run for the last 10 years.

Not a huge AJ fan but don't believe in all this "On his Watch" stuff that people use these days. Something like this should only come to the attention of a chairman through the CFO or CEO; mainly the former. I would be blaming McIntyre or Bain for this one.

Doubt he'll be back but I'm watching it. Nothing yet.

Chick's on suicide watch. Also getting his ears repaired after Traynor phoned him up to laugh as loud as he could.

Remember they won't all be animals. Probably a few Gers who aren't signed in or signed up for whatever reason......But fuck anyone else.

Suicidal, I hope.

They'll all be out the woodwork soon telling us why this is a terrible deal for us......

Sky Sports report Sky Sports News understands that Rangers owner Sir David Murray has agreed a deal to sell the club to Craig Whyte. Scottish tycoon Whyte has been locked in talks for some time over Murray's 75 per cent stake with partner Andrew Ellis due to become a 25 per cent partner. Whyte has brokered a deal that will see him buy their stadium Ibrox and the surrounding land along with the club's Murray Park training ground, if approved by the club's Board. The deal is expected to cost Whyte around £28million but the overall cost of the club for the new owner is expected to be twice as much having given assurances he will invest £5million in the squad in each of the next five seasons. Whyte's investment will clear their Term loan believed to be in the £18million region, their main debt immediately with Lloyds Banking Group and the other smaller loans will be cleared over time. Whyte's offer will now be presented to Rangers' Board for approval and it is expected they will ratify it due to any long-term complications that could arise due to lack of investment. Should the club's Board give the green light to accept Whyte's deal then the SPL champions could be taken over officially this week, ending a long and uncertain period for the Light Blues.

The funny thing about this is, that I believe they were all on peanuts compared to the players we have now. I can't remember where I saw the figures, but I am sure I read that Gascoigne and Laudrup were on similar wages to the "new kids" who go in to the first team squad today. I think it was just after they all left that wages started going bananas throughout Europe and Rangers joined in.

I see Darrell King is still so desperately up himself that he fails to acknowledge that most fans weren't taking issue with what he said but WHEN he said it. What a cock.

I'd like to see the Old Firm coming up with a list of Police songs to ban. Start with fucking "Roxanne", turgid, steaming heap of doggy doings.

But, even if things keep going badly at Ibrox, Rangers will still be worth tens of millions of pounds in 10 years time, whereas Carroll will be just about ready to be put down and sold as dog food.