RANGERS Football Club aims to raise up to £27 million when it floats on the stock exchange.
The club gave details of its share offering to the London Stock Exchange yesterday announcing it already has secured pledges from investors totalling £17m.
A list of current major shareholders, including Mike Ashley, the owner of Newcastle United and the retail firm Sports Direct, was submitted as well as the institutional investors who have pledged to subscribe.
If the subscription – which would see the holding company, Rangers International Football Club plc, launched on the Alternative Investment Market – goes well the club's value is expected to be in the region of £50m.
The presence of leading investment funds – such as Hargreave Hale, Artemis Investment Management, Cazenove Capital Management and Legal and General Investment Management – among the shareholders after listing on AIM, is an endorsement of the business plan drawn up for the club.
It was put together by chief executive Charles Green, finance director Brian Stockbridge and commercial director Imran Ahmad.
A further £10m worth of shares will be made available to supporters.
They can buy in at the minimum price of £500 or through the BuyRangers scheme run by the Rangers Supporters Trust, which will collect money at a minimum buy-in of £125 and then purchase a block of shares with the capital raised.
A prospectus is expected to be released today and fans will have until December 17 to buy shares.
According to the statement made on the Stock Exchange yesterday, if there was no public take-up of shares the largest single shareholder would be Mr Green with an 8.67% stake.
Hargreave Hale with 8.58%, and Artemis with 7.43% would have the next biggest shareholdings.
Mr Ashley, whose Sports Direct recently signed a retail agreement with the Ibrox club, currently owns 8.98% of Rangers Football Club Ltd, and his shareholding would be diluted to 5.2% after listing.
The listed company, Rangers International Football Club plc, will own and operate The Rangers Football Club.
Investors have bought into the status of Rangers as a club that will increas in value as it begins to realise the potential of its football and commercial operations.
The team, currently on top of the Scottish Third Division, cannot play in Europe for at least three seasons and is the subject of a transfer registration embargo until September 1 next year.
The belief is that investors will realise a profit when the share value increases and the shares are traded.
As part of the business plan, Rangers will seek to maintain a prudent 33% wages to turnover ratio, and the money raised by the share issue will be used to invest in the first-team, the youth set-up, scouting, and to maximise the value of the club's property assets.
The statement to the Stock Exchange also revealed that two new non-executive directors have been appointed to join Walter Smith, the club's former manager, and Ian Hart, a shareholder, on the board.
Philip Cartnell is executive chairman of Corac, a research and development company, and has been appointed to several non-executive positions in the past. Frederick Bryan Smart is a non-executive director at Greka Drilling Limited who has held senior positions at Daimler-Chrysler(UK) Ltd.
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