American tow-truck businessman submits £11.2m bid for troubled Rangers

American tow-truck business owner Bill Miller has put forward an £11.2m bid for Rangers.

His plans to create an "incubator" company for Rangers were unveiled on Friday as the Singapore consortium behind a rival bid pulled out of the process.

The businessman believes he can save the crisis-hit club through a combination of administration and liquidation, where he sells the club's assets to a newco before merging it again with Rangers FC plc, should it be able to agree a company voluntary agreement (CVA).

His £11.2m offer covers the £500,000 exclusivity fee Duff and Phelps require for preferred bidder status.

This would mean there would be £10.7m left to offer payment for Duff and Phelps' administration fees, the club's secured creditors, Craig Whyte and Close Leasing, whose debts have not yet been quantified, and unsecured creditors' claims worth as much as £134m.

Under Mr Miller's proposals, the Ticketus agreement owner Mr Whyte reached for the sale of 100,000 season tickets until 2015 would be torn up, leaving the London firm an unsecured creditor with a claim of around £27m.

This, he admits, would leave Ticketus able to block any CVA of Rangers FC plc. If a CVA is not agreed, the original Rangers would go down a similar newco model to Leeds United by being placed into company voluntary liquidation, following the asset sale.

He said on Friday he would formally submit his bid for the club on Monday, giving rival bidders the Blue Knights and Brian Kennedy the weekend to "put up or shut up". In his statement, Mr Miller said: "I am making my proposal to takeover Rangers Football Club open, transparent and available to all those interested in Rangers future.

"Given all of the noise in the media from various sides of the transaction and given the numerous inaccuracies in much of what has been reported or intimated by others, I have decided the time has come to set the record straight and to issue a challenge to any would-be suitors of the club.

"Most importantly, I am doing this now so that Rangers fans and supporters can judge my bid and plans for the club on their actual merits - rather than rumours and innuendo. There is no time left for empty promises and grand-standing."

Mr Miller said he is the only bidder who has refused to "entertain offers from Ticketus or engage in discussions with Craig Whyte."

The Tenesse-based businessman also said in his statement that he expects any CVA to be a "prolonged process" because of the "several lawsuits" he anticipates will emerge out of it, with his understanding being that Ticketus will not accept less than the £27m owed to them.

Mr Miller added: "There is no way that Ticketus would agree to accept a 'pence on the pound' settlement as has been suggested by others. Obviously, the longer the process dragged on without a resolution, the less viable the club would become. If this process continued on for a long period without resolution, the inevitable result would be real liquidation."

He said his £11.2m offer for the club’s assets includes a £500,000 exclusivity fee for preferred bidder status. Mr Miller continued: "In order to preserve the club's history, records, championships and assets, I will put the ‘heart’ of the club into an ‘incubator’ company while Duff & Phelps works to make the ‘sick patient’ healthy through a CVA process that effectively works to ‘radiate’ the toxicity of past administrations' sins out of the patient while the ‘healthy heart’ is preserved and moves forward.

"Once the CVA process has been completed and the patient is on the mend, the administrators will return Rangers Football Club plc to me for a nominal sum. The healthy heart and the healthy patient (The Rangers Football Club plc) will then be reunited through merger."

Mr Miller was previously part of a consortium that included Club 9 Sports, which had previously been involved in failed takeover bids of Tranmere Rovers and Sheffield Wednesday.

The businessman, who owns tow-truck firm Miller Industries, was part of a failed project to create a motor racing league Team Racing Auto Circuit.

Mr Miller said his bid would be “contingent upon” both the Scottish Premier League and the Scottish Football Association ensuring Rangers would not face further penalties and points deductions next season.

The SPL is due to consider proposals that would cut a clear path for a newco to buy a club’s share in the league, as would need to happen in Rangers’ case. Previously, the punishment for doing so was at the discretion of the SPL board and could include everything up to and including expulsion from the league.

At the end of this month, the board will vote of plans to set statutory punishments for newco switches, which it terms "insolvency transfer events", including a ten point deduction for two years following it, as well as a 75% reduction in annual earnings from the league.

If Rangers FC plc is in administration at the start of next season, and it still owns the club’s share in the SPL and registration with the SFA, then it would automatically be deducted ten points and as much as 15, depending upon the vote by the board later this month.

In his statement Mr Miller said: "The time for talk is over. The club is in serious jeopardy of dying. 'Real' liquidation is looming."

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