A Rangers fans shareholder group has claimed they have pierced the so-called Easdale block - a major chip held by Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley in the Ibrox power battle.
The Rangers Supporters Trust (RST) says it has purchased 450,000 shares from Beaufort Nominees who hold the shares for the proxy block represented by bus tycoon Sandy Easdale, a director of club operating company subsidary, The Rangers Football Club Ltd.
Fans have previously raised concerns that Easdale who owns McGill's bus company, has influence over 26 per cent of the shareholding and the voting rights at Ibrox.
That gives him power of veto over crucial decisions facing Rangers, despite not being represented on the board of the controlling holding company Rangers International Football Club plc.
It gives him and ally Mike Ashley far greater control over club's affairs, including decisions over major investments such as a share issue.
RST believe it is a significant gain for those supporting Dave King's move to oust the current directors, who are sympathetic to Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley, at a forthcoming extraordinary general meeting for shareholders due to take place next month in Ibrox.
The move aims to replace them with King, the former Blue Knight Paul Murray and John Gilligan, the one-time managing director of Glasgow brewer Tennent's.
RST says it now with proxies holds 3.8% of the voting power for that EGM.
RST spokesman, Chris Graham, said "We have shifted our focus in recent weeks to gathering proxies but also to targeting shareholders who we believe are aligned with the board but may be willing to sell. Purchasing shares off the market only takes you so far and we wanted to try to make inroads into the opposition's holding as well. This purchase is the culmination of two weeks of hard work on that front."
"We are delighted to have secured what we believe will be over a 1% swing in favour of the nominee directors. None of this would have been possible without the fans who contribute to the RST and Buy Rangers. If they continue to join the RST in numbers and contribute to Buy Rangers then we will continue our efforts to reclaim our club."
"Whilst not being complacent, we believe this is a decisive purchase. We also believe it signals the start of the breakup of the shareholder group that has aligned itself with this board through Sandy Easdale.
"There are clear signs that they know their time is up. We urge fans to continue to proxy shares and, even more importantly, continue to join the RST. With the fans help we can win this EGM and invest significant amounts directly into our club after the EGM."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article