About Time Too



The BBC reports that four men have been arrested over alleged fraud in connection with the sale of Rangers Football Club back in 2011 and that a warrant has also been issued for Craig Whyte who bought the Ibrox club from its previous owner Sir David Murray. 

But my only thought at this stage is 'about time too' because this whole business looked like a dodgy asset stripping exercise from day one and if you ask me, the Rangers fans have been taken for a complete ride.

Four men in court over alleged fraud after Rangers sale in 2011

(Clockwise from top left) Gary Withey, David Grier, Paul Clark and David Whitehouse

Four men have appeared in court charged with fraudulent activity following a probe into the sale of Rangers in 2011.

David Grier, 53, Paul Clark, 50, and David Whitehouse, 49, worked for Duff and Phelps - Rangers' administrators.

Gary Withey, 50, worked for law firm Collyer Bristow, which represented Craig Whyte before he bought Rangers from Sir David Murray for £1 in 2011.

All four made no plea or declaration at Glasgow Sheriff Court and were granted bail ahead of a future hearing.

Mr Grier, Mr Clark and Mr Whitehouse were also charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Dawn raids

All four men were detained during dawn raids on Friday in England and later arrested.

They were all charged with a fraudulent scheme.

Mr Withey, from Woking, also faces a charge under the Companies Act 2003.

Mr Whitehouse, from Wilmslow, and Mr Clark, from Esher, each face two charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

Mr Grier, from Wokingham, is also alleged to have attempted to pervert the course of justice.

Rangers post

Mr Whitehouse, Mr Clark and Mr Grier were employees of MCR Partners, prior to its acquisition by Duff and Phelps, in October 2011.

Duff and Phelps acted as Rangers administrators from 14 February 2012.

Mr Withey worked for Mr Whyte's London law firm Collyer Bristow before he took on a post with Rangers.

The four men are expected to appear at court at a later date.

On Friday, a warrant was issued for former Rangers owner Craig Whyte following an investigation into the clubs sale to him from Sir David Murray in 2011.

In the Money (9 January 2013)


The latest edition of Private Eye has a very interesting article about the complex financial affairs of Rangers Football Club - here's what the Eye had to say.

PLANET FOOTBALL

Rangers

"The Glasgow club is due to return to the stock market this week. Shares in a brand-new parent company, Rangers International FC, have been sold to fans and institutional investors at 70p and will be listed in the AIM market.

Football clubs are rarely stellar investments, whatever their success on the pitch. But some lucky Rangers shareholders are guaranteed to make money. These are the present investors in the new Rangers FC that acquired the old bankrupt club earlier this year from its administrators. Between May and August, some paid just 1p a share for shares in Rangers FC, which were swapped for shares in the listed company ahead of the flotation. Just over 19m shares were issued at 1p and another 2m at 50p (including 1m issued in October), compared with around 12m shares issued at a riskier 99p or 100p.

So who were the lucky investors? They seem to include mainly the inside group around Charles Green, who led the takeover, and his backers, including three mysterious offshore backers who held more than 23 per cent of the club immediately before the flotation: Blue Pitch Holding Trust (4m shares), Margarita Funds Holding Trust (2.6m) and Norne Anstalt (1.2m). Only with the last of these is it known where the entity is registered (Vadux, Liechtenstein). But the prospectus is completely silent on the beneficial owners.

There is a lock-in of at least six months for some investors and 12 months for Green and other directors. But the shares would have to perform very, very badly for those who paid 1p not to have a big result."

Now I'm no expect on share prices, but am I correct in thinking that some investors  have paid up to 100 times more than others - for the price of acquiring just one, single share?

If so, does this mean that the people paying through the nose are the ordinary Rangers fans - while those who have scooped up a real bargain are these mysterious  offshire backers - and certain 'big cheeses' on the inside track?

Whatever the truth of the matter I think that ordinary Rangers fans deserve to know what's going on - after all they are the real backbone of the club. 

Planet Football (15 May 2013)


The latest edition of Private Eye has a very well written explanation of the ongoing financial saga surrounding Rangers Football Club - which is long and detailed but  well worth the effort in the end.

I find it quite staggering that a public company can operate in this way - seemingly without repercussions - and that Rangers fans don't find a way to come together to run these people out of town. 

Typical, just when you need an angry mob - they're all too busy doing something else. 

Planet Football 

Rangers

It is ever harder to believe that the recent events off the pitch at the Glasgow club can be happening at a public company - even one that owns a footbal club.

Wihin days of the police arriving at doors connected to old Rangers saviour Craig Whyte, new saviour Charels Green and his adviser Imran Ahmad are out the rangers door and Green is looking to sell his shares to the brother of a man convicted of VAT fraud.

Meanwhile wyte, once disqualified from being a director, claims that he and Green were secret partners all along, together with Whyte's twice bankrupted business partner Aidan Earley.Whyte now threatens a legal claim on the 'oldco' Rangers assets acquired by the 'newco' Rangers floated last year.

Amid all this, a perhaos more important question concerns the potential pillaging of a pension fund controlled by Worthington Group, another listed company linked to Whyte and Earley. That is the same Worthington Group that is now backing threatened litigation by Whyte over the Rangers assets.

Worthington is a textile-turned-property business which was run until 2010 by Joe Dwek, well known in Manchester business circles since the 1970s. Back in the day, Worthington acquired another former listed textile business, Jerome Group, which had a large pension fund; in 2010 this had assets of just over £8 million. But again, like many similar old companies, that pension fund had a deficit of liabilities to pensioners over those assets of almost £3 million.

In 2010 both Whyte and Earley's older brother Wulstan moved on Worthington. Whyte and Aidan Earley had form for targeting struggling companies with pension fund cash. In 2002 they made moves on FII, the former Lotus shoe group. The pension trustees were so alarmed that they alerted the Companies Investigation Branch, which began making inquiries. The threat went away. FII collapsed in 2004, largely due to the pension deficit.

Regenesis Holdings (owned by Wulstan Earley) and then Whyte's company Libert Capital each built up big stakes in Worthington. Regenisis began buying in February 2010 and has 23 per cent by that August, when Liberty Capital revealed it owned 7.5 per cent. Dwek resigned from the board , which was joined by a nominee from Regenisis, Peter Townsend. 

Soon Whyte was looking to buy Rangers from Sir David Murray.That deal was completed in June 2011 with the involvement of Aidan Earley and the use of rangers' own funds, via an advanced ticket-sales deal of almost £18 million. Whyte has been ordered to repay that money to the ticket agency, Ticketus.

New Worthington chairman Anthony Cooke informed shareholders in July 2011 that the investment managers of the Jerome fund had been changed, that its low-risk bond holdings had been sold for £ million and that a 'significant portion' of the fund's £3.3 million cash was 'earmarked' for a specific investment.    

That was revealed in March 2012 to have been a far from low-risk loan to a near-bust Rangers. Somehow the pension fund trustees had agreed to effectively lend £2.95 million to Worthington shareholder Whyte. Even if this loan was to have been fully secured, it is hard to see how that was a prudent investment - especially for a pension fund that by March 2012 had a £3.9 million deficit and assets of only just under £8 million.

But at that time Whyte was desperate for funds to save Rangers, under siege from the taxman, from administration.

The £2.95 million, instead of being held to the order of the trustees, pending completion of the loan documentation, had been paid over by Rangers/Whyte's solicitors Collyer Bristow to the club before it collapsed into administration in February 2012. The money is now frozen and and the subject of litigation with the old club's liquidators and could go to pay creditors rather than pensions.

The pension fund trustees claim they acted on legal and independent advice that the proposed loan was appropriate. But who gave that advice, who the new investment managers were and who are the trustees all remain unclear.

In June 2012 Cooke, Townsend and a third director resigned, to be replaced by a photographer-turned-property man Douglas Ware and barrister David Simpson. Ware declared that he believed the Rangers loan had represented 'an attractive opportunity' for the pension fund and was in the 'best interests' of both the fund and Worthington., and that he was confident the claim to recover the money would succeed.

Such confidence is perhaps not surprising - Ware and Adian Earley go way back. They were both directors of Anglo European Holdings in 1993 and Ware was a director of FII, in which Earley and Whyte held shares, for three years before it collapsed in 2004.

Whyte and Liberty Capital sold down, if not out, of Worthington last year, but Ware and Worthington are still there to help. Worthington invested £250,000 in a brand-new Whyte venture, Law Financial, which is funding (with the help of a conditional fee agreement) the threatened legal action against Green and Ahmad.     

Law Financial was formed only on 12 March. Whyte is its only director. Meanwhile, barrister Simpson resigned this year, to be replaced by Richard Spurway, another former FII director.

Events at Rangers are serious. But the fate of almost half the Jerome pension fund should perhaps trigger their own investigation by City regulators into what has happened at Worthington, whose shares are, at just under 5p, a third of what they were last year."

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