IT felt like a mass of relentless activity around the Rangers takeover yesterday but by the end of it there had been little more than some jockeying for headlines.
Actions speak more loudly than words, and for all the conflicting messages which poured out yesterday, today is the day when the parties have to show the colour of their money. The deadline for bids to own Rangers is 5pm.
This has been a takeover race like no other. Not only is little known about some potential buyers, there is little known about what they intend to do if they get their hands on the club. Club 9 Sports had barely uttered a peep for weeks and suddenly a statement popped up on its website last night which – while welcome – bordered on the impenetrable.
The message said the company was part of a "proposed consortium", but did not say with whom, or if the consortium still held. It talked of an "asset purchase" which would protect all the nice and shiny elements of Rangers and somehow shake off all the nasty and horrible debts. The assets would be put in a "different corporate structure", it said, without explaining what it would be. Whoever bought Rangers would have to "communicate with openness and regularity" said the hitherto silent Club 9 Sports in its unannounced, unattributed, more-questions-than-answers communique.
It would seem that what Club 9 Sports and their unidentified business partners see in Rangers is the prospect of something even experienced football insolvency experts have been struggling to get their heads around. Not taking a club out of administration via a familiar company voluntary arrangement (CVA), or simply liquidating it and starting again. What they envisage is what Duff & Phelps' administrator David Whitehouse yesterday referred to as a "hybrid". Sale Sharks owner and potential bidder Brian Kennedy let it be known yesterday that Club 9 Sports' involvement scared the living hell out of him. Whitehouse offered no opinion.
"You could acquire the assets and lease them back to the company through a CVA," he said. "So you have a clean business unencumbered by [a negative] legacy but you retain an operating vehicle, again ideally exiting through a CVA. Or you can potentially exit through a CVA then hive down to a 'newco' post-CVA and on a solvent basis, which would be a lot easier sell to the SFA and UEFA." It somehow sounded complicated and yet simplistically neat and tidy.
"Certain bidders have expressed concern in relation to 'toxicity' – their words – of the existing company," he added. "They would wish to acquire the business through a new company. That route would effectively involve a 'newco' set-up which could only be done with consultation with the SFA and SPL because you would have to retain membership etc. Other purchasers are saying that the legacy of the club is crucial to its continued success and support with its fanbase etc, so they would only attribute value in respect to a clean exit through a CVA."
No-one has talked about Rangers ceasing to exist, of them not continuing as a major Scottish football club playing in blue and white with home games at Ibrox and training sessions at Murray Park. "Liquidation is an emotive word," said Whitehouse. "What liquidation isn't is the cessation of the club. That is not an option which is going to happen. Another issue of liquidation which you need to be mindful of is that it does provide the broadest powers of investigation in relation to conduct of previous directors."
He did not elaborate on whether he was referring to what happened during Sir David Murray's ownership, Whyte's, or both.
Duff & Phelps believe that four or five bidders are expected to show their hand by 5pm: Paul Murray's Blue Knights, Brian Kennedy, Club 9 Sports' consortium, and presumably the other so-quiet-there's-no-evidence-they-exist consortium supposedly based in Singapore and the UK. "The process at the moment is that we are still in negotiation with five serious parties," said Whitehouse. "We expect to get bids from at least four of those by tomorrow evening."
So how would it work? Duff & Phelps' priorities are to preserve Rangers as a going concern and to maximise the amount of debt being paid back to creditors. Would that mean they would prefer a bid which was, say, £1m higher to liquidate the club over one of lesser value which was determined to save Rangers' unbroken history? "'The bottom line' is a key factor but not necessarily the only factor," said Whitehouse.
The notion that history and emotional factors would not be entirely discounted would be an encouragement to Murray's Blue Knights and to Kennedy, who both want Rangers saved via a CVA, but Whitehouse had more to say: "Our purpose is a CVA but it has to be deliverable. The economics have to stack up. It is all very well the purchasers being very media friendly and saying a CVA is absolutely critical but if it is at a low level then that has to be balanced, and to a large extent the fate is in the hands of the bidders.
"I have to say that over last two weeks Craig Whyte – and we have a difficult relationship with Craig Whyte, because there is a lot of litigation going on – has always maintained that he does not wish to stand in the way of a restructuring of the business. He has not at any point said to us that he is not prepared to stand in the way of a transaction. Where it does get difficult is when certain potential purchasers are openly hostile to him in the media, then want his co-operation to transfer his shares. That makes for a tricky negotiation. As far as I know in relation to the bids expected tomorrow, we are not being told by any of the potential purchasers that he is a barrier to that process. That may change . . ."
Whyte has been called plenty of things but it seems he hasn't been called a barrier. By this evening he'll have his clearest view so far of who wants to take Rangers off his hands and what they are prepared to do to make it happen. And soon everyone else will learn what they intend to do with a club that is on the cliff edge.
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