£14m Ibrox sale offer could’ve prevented Rangers administration

Almost ten years on from Rangers going into administration and we are still no closer to the truth about how such an asset rich organisation was allowed to enter liquidation and be sold for £5.5million

The battle between BDO – the liquidators – and Duff and Phelps – the administrators – rumbles on and the latest revelation does little to help the latter’s claims that they were acting in the best interests of the club when they sold the assets to Charles Green for such a derisory figure.

The Herald has reported that Manchester-based Seaford Finance, who were representatitives of Canadian clients, had made an offer of over £14m for Ibrox Stadium, Murray Park as it was called at the time and the Albion car park.

Moishe Rothbart of Seaford Finance claimed that they were in “pole position” on the deal with The Herald revealing the details of the offer:

“The idea to pursue a Rangers deal came as he had previous experience of buy-and-leaseback having been involved in the sale and leaseback of Elland Road stadium, the home of Leeds United FC in 2004.

“The indicative £14.185m offer came on May 10, over a month before Sevco’s asset purchase, and involved leasing back the stadium and the car park to the club for a period of 20 years at an annual rent of around £1.8m a year.

“The club would be entitled to a buy back option on the stadium and car park within the first ten years based on a purchase formula starting at £10m and increasing annually by 12%.”

When you consider that when Craig Whyte assumed control from David Murray the bank debt was “just” £18m, Seaford’s offer plus the sale of one player could have been enough to clear this, that these options were never considered at the time still baffles me, yes, the HMRC tax case was hanging over us but they have yet to be settled by BDO and, with every court verdict, the figure drops.

The current disputed figure stands at around £51m from the “big tax case” surrounding the use of Employee Benefit Trusts, the additional £10.3m from the “small tax case” was accrued after Whyte took over – this is from the initial potential figure of  £94.4m that HMRC was claiming which, unsurprisingly, put off every buyer.

It all still leaves a sour taste in the mouth, with the right people on board we could have cleared the debt owed to the bank and serviced any liabilities to HMRC, there was always an alternative solution to administration and liquidation but many, it would seem, had already made their minds up.