£11m bid for Rangers is withdrawn

Senior News Reporter

Friday 22 June 2012

TWO property developers have withdrawn an £11 million bid for Rangers, just 24 hours after outlining details of their proposal.

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MARTIN WILLIAMS

Allan Stewart, 55, and Stephen McKenna, 45, planned to offer chief executive Charles Green double the £5.5m his consortium paid for the Ibrox club. However, last night the Glasgow-based businessmen admitted defeat after they realised it would cost them three times as much as they had previously believed.

Mr Green, whose Sevco consortium took control last week, strenuously denied any suggestion his group could not afford to continue running the club and wished to leave.Sevco's £5.5m deal is believed to be in the form of a loan that the club must repay, after Mr Green paid £2 for previous owner Craig Whyte's shares. Mr McKenna told The Herald: "The money is there. We have proof of funds. But there is a bigger hole in the ground than we expected."I don't see the point if we really only have one-third of the money that we need."Mr Stewart and Mr McKenna, who claimed to have made £134m after their firm sold off 14,000 flats all over the world, said their company Aleftav was to be the vehicle for a buyout.They had outlined plans to run Rangers for three or four years before floating the company on the Stock Exchange and eventually handing it over to the fans. However, Mr Stewart said yesterday: "Looking at all the facts, even with the money we were going to offer, it wasn't going to scratch the surface with what was needed to fix the club. "We've maybe been a bit naive in thinking that we had enough."We have been speaking to our legal people and they're talking about millions and millions more. It would be too stressful to try and turn it around. We had great intentions, but we wish the club the very best."Mr Stewart admitted they had been too enthusiastic with their bid, but had meant well. He added: "Maybe we were just enthusiastic, thinking we could do something good here. It needs a lot better than us to do it."Mr Stewart, who was banned from acting as a company director for seven years in the 1990s and twice declared bankrupt, denied the withdrawal was linked to a photograph in a tabloid newspaper yesterday of him wearing a Celtic strip during a charity match.Mr McKenna pulled on the jersey after paying £15,000 to play for 15 minutes at Parkhead for a fundraising match in honour of the late Celtic player Phil O'Donnell.Mr McKenna said he wasn't a fan and said he had been to five Celtic games in five years, compared with 12 Rangers matches, including their Uefa Cup final in 2008.Rangers chairman Malcolm Murray insisted Sevco was in it for the "long term", adding: "I wouldn't have got involved if they weren't".Meanwhile, Hearts will vote against Rangers' SPL share being transferred to Charles Green's newco.Owner Vladimir Romanov declared yesterday: "[The Ibrox side has] lived beyond law and all morals, and should now be declared beyond the pale".

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£11m bid for Rangers is withdrawn

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