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Lloyds, Murray, Whyte and Ticketus


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We were only performing well because of European income, without that we were pretty much financially fucked

Had whyte not illegally paid off lloyds mccoists team last season would have been destroyed the minute malmo pumped us

We were damned if he did, damned if he didn't

Can only go by the last 3 years accounts at that point. I accept that included CL monies. Doesn't change the fact the debt was reduced from circa £60M to £18M in 3 years with a turnover > £56m a year.

All we would have to have done is sell some of our more valuable players and cut costs elsewhere.

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The bank would have been quite happy, or at least forced to go along with the original £1m a year repayment on the £18m.

However, with HMRC threatening a liquidation event at any moment, obviously they would want their money back ASAP, and who can blame them for that ?

Muir was brought in to get the debt reduced as quick as poss, and when Whyte came along, no doubt LBG saw a way out by forcing Murray to sell to Whyte. Nothing illegal in that, tho there may be in the way they went about it, who knows ?

However you look at it, it is the HMRC claim that drove all of the events that got us here. Without that, there would have been no Craig Whyte, no takeover, no wee tax case, no admin, no liquidation, no punishments and no relegated to the 3rd div.

I seriously hope someone at HMRC is held accountable for the damage they have done.

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The bank would have been quite happy, or at least forced to go along with the original £1m a year repayment on the £18m.

However, with HMRC threatening a liquidation event at any moment, obviously they would want their money back ASAP, and who can blame them for that ?

Muir was brought in to get the debt reduced as quick as poss, and when Whyte came along, no doubt LBG saw a way out by forcing Murray to sell to Whyte. Nothing illegal in that, tho there may be in the way they went about it, who knows ?

However you look at it, it is the HMRC claim that drove all of the events that got us here. Without that, there would have been no Craig Whyte, no takeover, no wee tax case, no admin, no liquidation, no punishments and no relegated to the 3rd div.

I seriously hope someone at HMRC is held accountable for the damage they have done.

Whilst I fully understand your feelings and some of the logic, the small tax case was correct. We owed HMRC approx £4m on that. RFC / MIH agreed to that. As for HMRC and the BTC, we can't actually criticise HMRC for trying to get tax they believe is due. I'm not defending HMRC completely as they have done deals for bigger sums (Vodafone for example) but the EBT scheme was "sailing close to the wind". We also need to remember that it isn't actually finished yet until the appeal is heard. I hold Murray responsible for going along with the EBT scheme in the first place and to the extent that he used it at RFC.

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on a slightly different note if ticketus are chasing shyte for 17million.is there anyway the shares we lost could be won at court or is that never going to happen?As you probable realise,not to good with all this.cheers

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Can only go by the last 3 years accounts at that point. I accept that included CL monies. Doesn't change the fact the debt was reduced from circa £60M to £18M in 3 years with a turnover > £56m a year.

All we would have to have done is sell some of our more valuable players and cut costs elsewhere.

Think of the team that lost to malmo in the cl qualifiers, now sell say 10 million quid of talent, tgats jelavic and davis or naismith, bougherra also

So mccoist might have had a season where we had weir and broadfoot as our centre halves, whittaker at right back and papac at left with no cover whatsoever

Midfield would have been davis, edu and two young boys on either side, with lafferty and healy up front and again no cover

Imagine that lot in the spl, we'd have struggled for top 6 :(

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Jdcbigbear - HMRC didn't go after rangers for 9 years as the EBT scene was LEGAL. Only in 2010 did they decide it wasn't. You say they were "entitled" to go after rangers which is the crux of the issue that ultimately liquidated the holding company and put the club in the 3rd division. They continuely fail in these cases and continually criticised in the commons. Yet they are defended even though they changed the rules in 2010 so they can claw back money for something that was deemed legal for a decade. It is ridiculous not just for rangers but for the other 2500 companies that could follow the same fate as us! Where do we draw the line ffs when we're all on the dole???

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Was Murray blackmailed? Sell Rangers to Whyte or we remove all credit immediately? Did Lloyds agree to give Whyte an overdraft to meet operational costs and then go back on this deal once the sale was forced through? This is a whole lot seedier and murkier that many may imagine! Rangers debt was less than Hearts and Kilmarnock's, who orchestrated all this?

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Rubbish. I repeat, we can't hold Lloyds responsible unless they were aware of wrongdoing. They pushed Murray into lowering debt throughout his businesses. If you saw a potential increase of debt of £75m against your company wouldn't you want out and pronto? Lloyds inherited the problem from HBOS and wanted to reduce the overall MIH debt. If you are certain of Lloyds culpability then let's see the proof.

If you are going to place blame at least ensure you have proper evidence and the correct culprit.

No offence but you really are niave. Lloyds "insentivised" Murray to dump Rangers according to our chairman at the time. The board warned anyone who would listen Whyte was not the man, Lloyds had their own man on the board yet Murray still gave him the club for nothing. Hands up anyone who thinks Lloyds and Murray did'nt know about Ticketus? What no hands?

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To look after Lloyds' interests!!! MIH owed Lloyds approx £0.75 billion.

So Rangers' £18 million was going to make a big difference in that huge amount of money? Or were we just expandable?

Maybe if the banks took more care of how they loaned money out in the first place, they wouldn't have to screw companies that they have no interest in in the first place.

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The bank would have been quite happy, or at least forced to go along with the original £1m a year repayment on the £18m.

However, with HMRC threatening a liquidation event at any moment, obviously they would want their money back ASAP, and who can blame them for that ?

Muir was brought in to get the debt reduced as quick as poss, and when Whyte came along, no doubt LBG saw a way out by forcing Murray to sell to Whyte. Nothing illegal in that, tho there may be in the way they went about it, who knows ?

However you look at it, it is the HMRC claim that drove all of the events that got us here. Without that, there would have been no Craig Whyte, no takeover, no wee tax case, no admin, no liquidation, no punishments and no relegated to the 3rd div.

I seriously hope someone at HMRC is held accountable for the damage they have done.

http://www.hmrc.gov....paye-basics.htm

http://www.rangerstv...ve&r=1316750502

http://www.rangerstv...ive&r=877339499

I have just watched two interviews given by Craig Whyte to Rangers TV.tv. The first on 13 Sept. 2011 and the second on 13 Feb. 2012. In the first interview he talks about a bright future for Rangers and touches on the wee tax case. He says that he is in discussions with HMRC about added penalties to the amount owed with which he disagrees, but that these discussions will resolve the case. We now know that between these interviews he was not paying the PAYE and NI contributions. The interview on 13 Feb. was to tell us that he had issued a ' Notice of intent ' to appoint administrators to enable Rangers to enter administration. He says this will allow Rangers to create a CVA which will allow Rangers to divest the debt accumulated including both the wee tax case and the big tax case and emerge ' fitter and stronger ', but that this action should afford the club a further 14 days to attempt to come to terms with all concerned. On Feb. 14 HMRC launched an unsuccesful legal attempt in the Court of Session in Edinburgh to have their own administrators appointed. Whyte pre-empted them by appointing Duff & Phelps at 14:50 that day. Okay, lets stop here and take stock for a moment. Can we agree that the motivation of HMRC in pursuing Rangers in the big tax case was to set a precedent in law for the EBT vehicle. They did not expect to recover any great deal of money. Also, when Whyte bought Rangers they would expect a bit of a delay in paying the wee tax case because of the new guy wanting to have discussions. Whyte bought Rangers in May 2011. At this point, September, he has owned the club for 4 months. He has not paid anything to HMRC and if you look at the link above their site says that the PAYE and NIC payments must be paid on a monthly or quarterly basis. Why did they not force Rangers into

administration at this point? A CVA at this point may have given them 30p or 20p on the pound. A CVA requires 75% of the

creditors'vote to pass. Did they feel that at that point they did not have a 75% vote and so allowed Rangers to run up a further debt until February? Had they already made up their minds at this point that Whyte was not going to pay them anything and would use the aministration route to divest himself of the debt? Did they deduce that this had been Whyte's strategy all along? They knew that as major creditor they would have the power to refuse the CVA and force Rangers into liquidation. They also knew that the legal power of administrators do not come close to the legal powers of liquidators where criminal charges are concerned. HMRC did not get to choose the administrators but they did get to choose the liquidators - BDO. Now that Ticketus have won their civil case in the High Court in London against Whyte, a person could wonder how much of that evidence could be directed at Whyte in any possible criminal proceedings against him. A person could also wonder just how badly Whyte's devious actions preyed on the decision that civil action against Whyte would not produce the justice that a possible criminal action would. After all, just after HMRC forced Rangers into liquidation they themselves said that this was the best course of action for Rangers in that they would emerge completely debt free. They knew that by forcing liquidation they would never receive any money, so what then were they after? After Whyte arrived on the scene maybe priorities changed ...

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Jdcbigbear - HMRC didn't go after rangers for 9 years as the EBT scene was LEGAL. Only in 2010 did they decide it wasn't. You say they were "entitled" to go after rangers which is the crux of the issue that ultimately liquidated the holding company and put the club in the 3rd division. They continuely fail in these cases and continually criticised in the commons. Yet they are defended even though they changed the rules in 2010 so they can claw back money for something that was deemed legal for a decade. It is ridiculous not just for rangers but for the other 2500 companies that could follow the same fate as us! Where do we draw the line ffs when we're all on the dole???

RFC used the EBT scheme for 10 years and it was as I said "sailing close to the wind". Nobody said EBTs were illegal but how you operate them was important. The small tax case was an EBT of sorts and we were given a £4m bill which we agreed with HMRC. That was due to errors in its administration. The EBT case has still not been finalised due to the HMRC appeal.

I would like to know what advice Murray received at the time and what the board and financial director thought of the idea.

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No offence but you really are niave. Lloyds "insentivised" Murray to dump Rangers according to our chairman at the time. The board warned anyone who would listen Whyte was not the man, Lloyds had their own man on the board yet Murray still gave him the club for nothing. Hands up anyone who thinks Lloyds and Murray did'nt know about Ticketus? What no hands?

I'm not naive, I'm a realist. You have failed to take cognisance of what I posted. Lloyds wanted Murray to reduce the MIH debt and that looked like it could possibly increase via RFC. Donald Muir was on a number of MIH company boards at the behest of Lloyds. He saw that the £18m may become £90m+ and that there could be the possibility of administration or liquidation. I have no proof that Lloyds or Murray knew of the Ticketus involvement and neither do you. Alastair Johnston and the rest of the board members didn't shout particularly loudly at the time. If they knew more about Whyte they should have put it into the public domain. They may have had some reservations but there was no major outcry from the other directors.

The police investigation into the Whyte takeover of RFC should uncover who knew what. Until that is made public, can you stick to facts instead of using speculation as an argument.

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So Rangers' £18 million was going to make a big difference in that huge amount of money? Or were we just expandable?

Maybe if the banks took more care of how they loaned money out in the first place, they wouldn't have to screw companies that they have no interest in in the first place.

It wasn't the £18m debt that forced the issue for Lloyds, it was the prospect of the £18m increasing to £90m+ and that could have led to administration or liquidation. Lloyds made a business decision and as it turned out, it was the correct decision for the bank.

I would remind you that Lloyds inherited the debt from HBOS. As for Lloyds thinking RFC was expendable or not, it wasn't Lloyds who "pulled the plug", it was HMRC who forced the issue due to Whyte failing to pay what was due.

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I'm not naive, I'm a realist. You have failed to take cognisance of what I posted. Lloyds wanted Murray to reduce the MIH debt and that looked like it could possibly increase via RFC. Donald Muir was on a number of MIH company boards at the behest of Lloyds. He saw that the £18m may become £90m+ and that there could be the possibility of administration or liquidation. I have no proof that Lloyds or Murray knew of the Ticketus involvement and neither do you. Alastair Johnston and the rest of the board members didn't shout particularly loudly at the time. If they knew more about Whyte they should have put it into the public domain. They may have had some reservations but there was no major outcry from the other directors.

The police investigation into the Whyte takeover of RFC should uncover who knew what. Until that is made public, can you stick to facts instead of using speculation as an argument.

I agree in principle, but it might be a bit naive to suggest that the police will uncover everything. If certain parties have been clever enough, there wont be a paper trail to follow, even if certain threats were made.

At the end of the day though, its all about what can be proven though.

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I agree in principle, but it might be a bit naive to suggest that the police will uncover everything. If certain parties have been clever enough, there wont be a paper trail to follow, even if certain threats were made.

At the end of the day though, its all about what can be proven though.

I said that the police investigation SHOULD uncover the facts, I didn't say it would.

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It is common knowledge that Whyte produced a letter from his lawyers stating the money was lodged in an account to conclude the purchase. As a seller of a business, this letter of comfort would have been sufficient given that it was from licensed and qualified lawyers.

Lloyds would have played no part in that. Only Murray would need to see the letter. It really was none of Lloyds business.

As for Lloyds part in all of this,the "Rangers Lloyds" only ever demanded the overdraft to be cleared quickly. That was all they could do given the £18m was a long term loan that was written under an agreement that could not mean any demands for an early redemption.

The "Murray Group Lloyds" knew if the Big Tax Case was lost, and i suspect that they thought it would, then they would wave bye bye to their £18m.

If people stood back and thought about it, why would a business take that risk, if there was an alternative option to get all their money back. This is why they put the squeeze on Murray to sell.

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This guy is spot on, I went to my mp per admin and kicked up about Whyte and Lioyds and the tax man. Hmrc coming at us one direction and a 46% owned by tax payers bank coming at us another direction putting jobs at risk. Now the big issue to me and have argued this point with the sfa on several occasions was that the fact the sfa signed Whyte off to be our chairman, once this happened he could basically control the books and conceal what he was doing from the world, but wait did the sfa not get a call from the sfa in September, yes nearly a full 5 months before admin took place. Stewart Regan must go and we must refuse any tv deal and also refuse the cameras into Ibrox. We warned them they did not listen so now let's do to them what they tried to do to us.

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It is common knowledge that Whyte produced a letter from his lawyers stating the money was lodged in an account to conclude the purchase. As a seller of a business, this letter of comfort would have been sufficient given that it was from licensed and qualified lawyers.

Lloyds would have played no part in that. Only Murray would need to see the letter. It really was none of Lloyds business.

As for Lloyds part in all of this,the "Rangers Lloyds" only ever demanded the overdraft to be cleared quickly. That was all they could do given the £18m was a long term loan that was written under an agreement that could not mean any demands for an early redemption.

The "Murray Group Lloyds" knew if the Big Tax Case was lost, and i suspect that they thought it would, then they would wave bye bye to their £18m.

If people stood back and thought about it, why would a business take that risk, if there was an alternative option to get all their money back. This is why they put the squeeze on Murray to sell.

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Lioyds new all about Whyte, and they had a duty to the tax payer also. So putting people's jobs at risk is in the tax payers best interest? Putting people's livlihoods at risk around the stadium, Is that in the tax payers interest? Lioyds got bailed out big time by the likes of you and me so please I tell people like me to take a step back people like you should take a step forward and demand Donald Muir and Lloyds explain themselves, again argued with guys from Lloyds away back on a few occasions over this. Because as tax payers money bailed them out to the sums of tens of millions makes their action even worse. I for one won't rest until Craig Whyte purchase of my club is null and void because of the illegal business with ticket us. I have said this from day one. Then we will be proven to be a victim of a crime. Once this is happens we can then go and sue spl,sfa regarding loss of prize money etc, loss of transfers for players, loss of season ticket monies,etc etc. if we want to win the war this is what has to happen.

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It is common knowledge that Whyte produced a letter from his lawyers stating the money was lodged in an account to conclude the purchase. As a seller of a business, this letter of comfort would have been sufficient given that it was from licensed and qualified lawyers.

Was this not the letter from Collyer Bristow which is alleged to have been forged by one of the law firms former partners?? Think it was a guy called Whitney. Obviously this has nothing to do with the seller but again puts the buyer in a bad light --- again.

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Can I remind everyone that Lloyds were basically forced to buy HBOS. If they didn't HBOS would have went under, recession or not (see this weeks news). If they had happened rangers debt would have been called in as would every other loan owed to HBOS. The country, especially Scotland, would have went into meltdown and rangers would have been unable to pay the debt at the time. Unfortunately for Lloyds the HBOS toxic debt was massive and hence the taxpayers bailout. So, once again, and it has been said already, Lloyds took a business decision to take the money rather than lose it. I'll say it again, down to SDM selling to the wrong man and subsequently the HMRC for liquidation for a fantasy debt.

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