Rangers administrators have admitted that they cannot give a "100% guarantee" that the club will not be liquidated.
Duff and Phelps named American tow-truck businessman Bill Miller as preferred bidder for the club on Thursday.
This announcement came 78 days after they were appointed by Rangers owner Craig Whyte, owing HM Revenue and Customs £9m in PAYE and Vat dating back to his May 2011 takeover.
Joint administrator Paul Clark said that Mr Miller’s "newco" plan for the club was the best deal and claimed they planned to have the switch completed by the end of the season on Sunday, May 13.
He told STV News after the announcement on Thursday: "The strategy we’ve put in place today by appointing Bill Miller as preferred bidder is to achieve exactly that as there would be no liquidation. Whilst you can never give a 100% guarantee we’re confident that we will be able to conclude the deal that we’ve announced today.
"The simplistic way that it works is that Mr Miller will take all of the assets of the football club and place it into a new company – the ground, the training ground and the players – and the football club share will move to that new company. It will be the club that continues to play football in the SPL.
"On an ongoing basis the [old] company that continues to be in administration will be cleansed of all its former problems and will at a later date be reunited, after a CVA, with the new club Mr Miller is going to create.
"I’m not going to talk about the financial aspects of the deal, but the actual monies from the sale we will conclude with him will be distributed to the creditors at a later date."
According to the administrators' report released on April 5, the club had amassed debts of between £55m and £134m, depending on the outcome of the appeal against tax avoidance through the use of an Employee Benefit Trust (EBT) to pay players and staff between 2001 and 2010.
The administrators also revealed they had not quantified how much Mr Whyte will seek for any sale of Rangers FC plc, which he has a floating charge over.
Mr Clark claimed that Mr Miller’s newco switch would not result in the death of the club and the dissolution of its history.
He said: "We don’t need a CVA for the club to continue. The mere sale of the assets, so long as the football club share is granted and all of the assets put into the newco are sufficient for the club to continue, the CVA at some later date – some months, not days or weeks – that’s something will then enable distribution of the funds to creditors. The football club will be moved into the newco and the football club will be safeguarded.
"The history of the club remains because the club is the players, the grounds and it’s that club that will be kept intact in a new corporate vehicle with a more recent registration number. There’s no reason why the club itself and its history should go with it. The club itself is what matters, it isn’t actually the corporate vehicle.
"We won’t need the approval of any creditor in relation to the structure we’re putting in place. The big tax case will just affect the amount paid to any creditors including HMRC. For this purpose it will not prevent us from moving forward with the sale of the club to Mr Miller, subject to contract and legal documentation later today."
Whyte's shareholding
The administrators also said on Thursday that Mr Whyte’s 85% shareholding in the club and his floating charge over its assets would not impact on the newco switch proposed by Mr Miller.
Should a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) be agreed among creditors of Rangers FC plc after the asset sale to the newco, Mr Whyte’s position as majority shareholder and floating charge holder of it will become particularly important if the American prospective owner tries to merge the two entities.
Mr Clark added: "It is us that will transact the sale to Mr Miller so Mr Whyte has no blocking position to that transaction. Just to be clear, Mr Miller’s offer was the most financially beneficial deal for the creditors.
"We’ve seen various plans Mr Miller has put to us. It’s not for me to explain them it’s for Mr Miller to explain those in the coming days and weeks. It’s up to him to explain the future pf the club. We’ve already conducted a reasonable amount of due diligence on Mr Miller and his wealth. We’re just delighted the uncertainty for the fans has come to an end, we’re very pleased with this today.
"I don’t think it would be right to say this is the end, we can see the end in sight. There’s a lot of legal documentation to put together with Mr Miller’s advisers and we have a stated aim to have this whole process completed by the end of the season, so that’s in just over a week."
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