DAVE King’s predecessors as Rangers chairman had a tendency to produce a bombshell revelation or punchy soundbite at the Ibrox club’s general meetings in an attempt to quell any potential unrest.

There was little chance of the South Africa-based businessman or any of his associates being subjected to the sort of vitriol which previous boards – in the last couple of years especially – have suffered yesterday.

The goodwill among the 1,000 or so supporters who turned up at the Clyde Auditorium towards King, who took control at an EGM back in March, and the current directors was apparent throughout proceedings.

Nevertheless, he still had one piece of news to hearten shareholders – that the board had decided the £5 million loan which Rangers received from Sports Direct back in January would be repaid in full immediately.

Not surprisingly, the return of the Albion Car Park, Edmiston House, Murray Park and the registered trademarks along with 26 per cent of Rangers Retail Ltd was warmly welcomed by all of those in attendance.

It remains to be seen what affect, if any, the surprise move has on the frosty relationship between Rangers and their business partners and whether a contract which has previously been described as “onerous” can be renegotiated.

Ashley is a notoriously mercurial operator and has instigated legal proceedings against King as well as launched two separate actions against the SFA – including one for passing the club chairman as a “fit and proper” person.

However, the meeting was decidedly upbeat. King and others, while being careful not to break the terms of the injunctions preventing them from divulging specific details of the retail agreement, predicted there was the prospect of Rangers changing arrangements they inherited and insisted they would be in a far stronger financial position next year.

“Once the Sports Direct loan is paid off, Rangers has, other than shareholder loans which you treat as equity, no debt,” said King.

“You will go far to find a single football club in the world that has a balance sheet as strong as Rangers. We have a strong supporter base and own all of our assets. I actually think we are one of the strongest clubs financially in the world."

King added: “We can’t talk on the Sports Direct contract. But what I can say we believe there are opportunities for us to significantly improve on the current position in a number of areas going forward. It is something we are giving a lot of attention to."

King, along with wealthy supporters George Letham, Douglas Park and George Taylor, will loan the Championship leaders £2.5 million to keep it afloat until the end of this season over and above the £5 million to pay off the outstanding Sports Direct loan. He is hopeful that will be converted to shares in the future.

The club’s major shareholder admitted Rangers would be unable to function on that basis in the long-term. But he is optimistic the Ibrox club will interest institutional investors when it has stabilised in the future.

“I do believe there is an attraction for investors other than the current let’s say narrow-based investors who are really doing it more as supporters,” he said.

“I think there is a market out there. But until we get some of the issues that are obvious to us all sorted out commercially, the libel litigation, I don’t think the time is right to go and approach these."

King, who was seated next to manager Mark Warburton throughout, stressed that winning the Championship or securing a place in the top flight via the end-of-season play-offs was vital to Rangers this term.

“Promotion to the Premiership is critical to cash flow going forward because if we don’t get promotion then it means there will be a deficit cash flow that investors will have to provide for the club,” he said.

Rangers have put their attempts to get the club listed on the ISDX Stock Exchange on hold while criminal proceedings against Charles Green, Craig Whyte and others are ongoing. King reiterated his belief that now was not a good time to pursue this matter.

"Even though the financial position and equity position would be strong, I think we have to make a bit more progress on calming things down on the commercial side before we could realistically go to investors on a listing basis," he said.

King has previously stated it would take £30 million to get Rangers into a position where they can challenge Celtic for the Premiership title and compete in Europe. When asked by a shareholder whether that level of investment was still required he agreed that it was – although he stopped short of saying he would supply it personally.

“I wouldn’t move away from that figure ,” he said. “But a lot of it depends on the success of Mark quite frankly. As we advance towards competing in the Premiership and more importantly into Europe, we are going to have to look at different qualities of players.”

There were other questions from the floor about the price of the pies, why there was no Rangers team in FIFA ’15, the prospect of titles being stripped, why the wi-fi was no longer available and the cost of match day tickets during a meeting that lasted just under an hour and a half.

But the acrimonious scenes witnessed at Ibrox 11 months ago, when you genuinely feared the directors would escape unscathed, were a distant memory.