The man who would be King – South African the favourite to take over Rangers

King, bluntly, is the only man with the accumulated wealth, historical affinity and masochistic tendency to clean-up the debris and debt that has been left since Sir David Murray stood down at the behest of a bank whose patience had been exhausted by the majority shareholder’s inability to secure a buyer or at least a brighter financial landscape.

The 53-year-old is the fifth of seven children reared in Castlemilk, the housing scheme in the south side of Glasgow built in the 1950s to accommodate 34,000 people from inner city slum areas. The son of a policeman, the struggles of early life provided him with the sense of values and sacrifice than enabled him to graduate from Glasgow University to the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

His favourite introductory aside – “I used to be an accountant but I’m all right now” – resonated when he joined the Weir Group, who transferred him to South Africa at the age of 21, whereupon a remarkable personal reinvention occurred. Beginning with an allowance of £32-per-month, he undertook a swashbuckling journey of self-discovery; becoming a financial director of a major company before his 30th birthday, taking on faltering businesses, turning them round, and selling them on at a profit.

He rose to prominence by the mid-1990s, when the new rulers of post-Apartheid South Africa grappled with unfamiliar levers of power and capitalist culture. He became an adviser to the Post Office and the Reserve Bank, then formed the Republic Ratings as an unprecedented standards agency for fledgling companies.

From there, he gravitated to Specialised Outsourcing, a corporate treasury management company. In the same year, the company won the contract to manage the treasury operations of Umgeni Water, which supplies water to the Durban and Maritzburg areas of KwaZulu Natal, and is the biggest catchment-based water supplier in South Africa.

It was at this juncture his earnings became stratospheric, while analysts first sounded alarm bells. King held a 71% stake of the company when it listed but had sold shares into the market and only had about 2% remaining by the time he left the organisation. His estimated profit was £100m before he bought the venture capital company, Legacy Ventures.

It was at this stage his affection for Rangers was consummated with the offering of a wad of cash. The roots of King’s financial commitment to Rangers has become part of Ibrox folklore. Alistair Johnston, the IMG vice-chairman and now Rangers chairman, awoke Murray at his Perthshire pile deep in the night at the turn of the millennium with the news that Gary Player’s caddy had pledged £20m to Dick Advocaat’s war chest. Convinced that a conversation had disintegrated at the 19th hole, Murray duly hung-up and returned to his slumber before dawn broke and the substance of this twilight call was confirmed.

King’s donation unwittingly initiated the height of Rangers’ excess: the fuel for fanciful columns of Rangers’ disappearance over the horizon and a staging post for the financial recklessness than contributed to a near £80m debt.

Cue the building of Murray Park, an opulent white elephant, and the arrival of Fernando Ricksen, Ronald De Boer, Bert Konterman and, fatefully or fatally, Tore Andre Flo. Speaking after Rangers’ pursuit of European empowerment backfired drastically, leaving Murray to patch-up a colossal black hole of debt and Alex McLeish to survive on comparative scraps, King summed up the sense of anti-climax. “Tore Andre Flo,” King mused. “I had a nickname for him – Tore Andre Flood. It’s an example of what not to do again. Even at the time he was purchased, I had some concerns about spending £12m. 
I felt that was really the culmination of the absurdity of the situation that Rangers got into as a club in trying to compete on a European stage.

“Yes, I think there was a level of absurdity which I think has been recognised within the club. I think Flo really was the pinnacle of the point where people thought: ‘This is daft. It’s got to stop’.’’

The maniacal spending policy did stop but, to this day, Rangers and Murray continue to pay a heavy price for pursuing the impossible dream. As Murray effectively underwrote a £50m reinvestment to stem Rangers’ haemorrhaging condition, King would encounter his only financial strait-jacketing by the South African authorities. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) conducted a two-year investigation into King’s interests and discovered, despite having claimed to be earning so little he wasn’t due to pay a cent in tax, he was, according to their arithmetic, the richest man in the country.

SARS’ subsequent demand for £180m in unpaid taxes was followed by 322 criminal charges, an asset freeze and the removal of his passport. King has consistently denied the charges against him, citing the fact that his entire portfolio is owned by an offshore firm, Ben Nevis, registered to the Channel Islands.

King’s other great passion, golf, is what brought him closer to his first love, Rangers, through his relationship with Johnston. He has caddied for Player around the world, a tradition that started with an impromptu invitation to carry the legend’s clubs at the Masters in Augusta. The pair have a shared interest in a stud farm and, by way of reciprocation for the caddying, King presented Player with his own shares in Rangers.

He has long been speculated as the likeliest candidate to end Murray’s two decades at the helm. Now, along with a group of willing and financially able Rangers-minded businessmen, the man who would be king could prove the saviour of a crumbling empire.

Who is Dave King? Popular mythology depicts him as the milk boy who left the Chateau-Lait with a tenner to his name and became – to the belated surprise of the South African government – the richest man in the rainbow nation.

His personal wealth, sketchy as it is during a seemingly perpetual investigation into 322 charges of fraud, is estimated anywhere between £200m and £300m. Negotiations between one of Scotland’s most successful yet enigmatic venture capitalists and Lloyds Banking Group, who are now, irrefutably, the decision-makers at Rangers, is destined to become one of the most fascinating sub-plots of this unravelling mystery.

King, bluntly, is the only man with the accumulated wealth, historical affinity and masochistic tendency to clean-up the debris and debt that has been left since Sir David Murray stood down at the behest of a bank whose patience had been exhausted by the majority shareholder’s inability to secure a buyer or at least a brighter financial landscape.

The 53-year-old is the fifth of seven children reared in Castlemilk, the housing scheme in the south side of Glasgow built in the 1950s to accommodate 34,000 people from inner city slum areas. The son of a policeman, the struggles of early life provided him with the sense of values and sacrifice than enabled him to graduate from Glasgow University to the Institute of Chartered Accountants.

His favourite introductory aside – “I used to be an accountant but I’m all right now” – resonated when he joined the Weir Group, who transferred him to South Africa at the age of 21, whereupon a remarkable personal reinvention occurred. Beginning with an allowance of £32-per-month, he undertook a swashbuckling journey of self-discovery; becoming a financial director of a major company before his 30th birthday, taking on faltering businesses, turning them round, and selling them on at a profit.

He rose to prominence by the mid-1990s, when the new rulers of post-Apartheid South Africa grappled with unfamiliar levers of power and capitalist culture. He became an adviser to the Post Office and the Reserve Bank, then formed the Republic Ratings as an unprecedented standards agency for fledgling companies.

From there, he gravitated to Specialised Outsourcing, a corporate treasury management company. In the same year, the company won the contract to manage the treasury operations of Umgeni Water, which supplies water to the Durban and Maritzburg areas of KwaZulu Natal, and is the biggest catchment-based water supplier in South Africa.

It was at this juncture his earnings became stratospheric, while analysts first sounded alarm bells. King held a 71% stake of the company when it listed but had sold shares into the market and only had about 2% remaining by the time he left the organisation. His estimated profit was £100m before he bought the venture capital company, Legacy Ventures.

It was at this stage his affection for Rangers was consummated with the offering of a wad of cash. The roots of King’s financial commitment to Rangers has become part of Ibrox folklore. Alistair Johnston, the IMG vice-chairman and now Rangers chairman, awoke Murray at his Perthshire pile deep in the night at the turn of the millennium with the news that Gary Player’s caddy had pledged £20m to Dick Advocaat’s war chest. Convinced that a conversation had disintegrated at the 19th hole, Murray duly hung-up and returned to his slumber before dawn broke and the substance of this twilight call was confirmed.

King’s donation unwittingly initiated the height of Rangers’ excess: the fuel for fanciful columns of Rangers’ disappearance over the horizon and a staging post for the financial recklessness than contributed to a near £80m debt.

Cue the building of Murray Park, an opulent white elephant, and the arrival of Fernando Ricksen, Ronald De Boer, Bert Konterman and, fatefully or fatally, Tore Andre Flo. Speaking after Rangers’ pursuit of European empowerment backfired drastically, leaving Murray to patch-up a colossal black hole of debt and Alex McLeish to survive on comparative scraps, King summed up the sense of anti-climax. “Tore Andre Flo,” King mused. “I had a nickname for him – Tore Andre Flood. It’s an example of what not to do again. Even at the time he was purchased, I had some concerns about spending £12m. I felt that was really the culmination of the absurdity of the situation that Rangers got into as a club in trying to compete on a European stage.

“Yes, I think there was a level of absurdity which I think has been recognised within the club. I think Flo really was the pinnacle of the point where people thought: ‘This is daft. It’s got to stop’.’’

The maniacal spending policy did stop but, to this day, Rangers and Murray continue to pay a heavy price for pursuing the impossible dream. As Murray effectively underwrote a £50m reinvestment to stem Rangers’ haemorrhaging condition, King would encounter his only financial strait-jacketing by the South African authorities. The South African Revenue Service (SARS) conducted a two-year investigation into King’s interests and discovered, despite having claimed to be earning so little he wasn’t due to pay a cent in tax, he was, according to their arithmetic, the richest man in the country.

SARS’ subsequent demand for £180m in unpaid taxes was followed by 322 criminal charges, an asset freeze and the removal of his passport. King has consistently denied the charges against him, citing the fact that his entire portfolio is owned by an offshore firm, Ben Nevis, registered to the Channel Islands.

King’s other great passion, golf, is what brought him closer to his first love, Rangers, through his relationship with Johnston. He has caddied for Player around the world, a tradition that started with an impromptu invitation to carry the legend’s clubs at the Masters in Augusta. The pair have a shared interest in a stud farm and, by way of reciprocation for the caddying, King presented Player with his own shares in Rangers.

He has long been speculated as the likeliest candidate to end Murray’s two decades at the helm. Now, along with a group of willing and financially able Rangers-minded businessmen, the man who would be king could prove the saviour of a crumbling empire.