GirondistNYC

Or, to take a more modern saga: A Game of RM Moans A Clash With Dave King A Storm of Preferred Bidders A Feast for Duff & Phelps A Dance With Liquidators

But guilt rarely eats the internal organs and feeds the scraps to its kittens

"heads buttoning at the back" ?

Where's the fraudulent source here, though? Whyte paid Lloyd's with Ticketus funds. It may be fraud on Ticketus because they thought the transaction was a valid transfer and the structure didn't accomplish that - but there seems to have been more unforgivable legal stupidity on Ticketus' part regarding Scots versus English trust law than fraud by Whyte. Hard to see any regulatory body policing the asset backed finance structure used by the source of funds. It may be fraud on poor David Murray because he wanted the best for 'Gers and honest Injun would have never old if he knew the funds came fom Ticketus. There was a great deal of talk in March of the purchase contract being violated and TBK or someone else using this in some manner to get Whyte away. Then fact this never happened leads me to suspect perhaps the source of funds reps and warranties were less ironclad then they might have been. Again hard to imagine a regulator policing contractual sale requirements like that. Presumably the AML protections check to verify the individuals in question are who they say they are and where they get their funds. It's pretty binary with Whyte - either his director bar put him on the heightened scrutiny list even after it expired or it didn't. I can see Lloyd's getting in trouble if his name was on a list and they hadnt follow up, but I rather think that would have come up by now (if for no other reason than SDM associates wold love a scapegoat now). if the problem was merely Whyte's involvement than its a bit harsh to Rap Lloyd's as the FSA and other regulators might have been thought to be put on constructive notice of his involvement by weeks of front page stories about Whyte throughout Scotland.. If Lloyd's Weren't allowed to rely on solicitors assurances regarding the Ticeketus funds and didn't check then conceivably they could get in trouble, but surely for our purposes the point is had Lloyd's checked they would have found Ticketus, a legitimate known entity that was in the business of funding ticket purchases and would have had no grounds to block the sale. Thanks for the response. My exposure to this stuff was largely as a formality that cropped up occasionally.

Fair point, although deposits and transfers rather than paying off existing loans to the institution offer more scope for abuse. However, here Lloyd's knew the money was coming from the escrow account of a reputable solicitor and was identified as retiring the debt in connection with a facially vlalid acquisition by Whyte. The level of due diligence required to find out Whyte was a bad 'un, while in retrospect not high, seems well above what would be required for Lloyd's. Whyte wasn't on an OFAC red list or equivalent. I'm also hesitant o take Leggos account of the GM at face value so I think it's entirely possible hat someone at Lloyd's did discover the money came from Ticketus -which wouldn't be an issue from an Laundering perpspective since they are an identifiable and legitimate investment vehicle. The goal of laundering laws is to prevent criminal and terrorist finances fom entering the banking system, not to prevent naughty people from buying companies. Would be genuinely interested if you think to the contrary with more exposure to this.

Oh Christ: "It is curious Lloyds have never made this claim before, as they have long been aware of Manus Joseph Fullerton being mentioned in LeggoLand. " Because in the middle of a global financial crisis and stuck integrating the wreckage of HBOS the top priority of an institution such as Lloyd's should have been to IMMEDiATELY turn to the DERANGED RANTING of LEGGOLAND even before checking the FT or Bloomberg. As for the accusations of money laundering, I COULDN'T POSSIBLY COMMENT, except to point out that anti-money laundering know your customer rules generally focus on customers of the banks - ie depositors or borrowers, not people paying off the debts of third parties as part of a takeover.

Probably true. All due to our obsession with our betters. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that KDS is not currently hosting the largest and longest running collective nervous breakdown on the Internet since the America right realized that Sarah Palin was not, in fact, going to save the Republic from Barack Hussein Obama.

While ome of the point and laugh topics might be from trollers, you're right that unless it's beyond insanity stupid people don't seem to call it out much. And Most of the accusations of being a Brendan or Devlin and invitations to do horrible things with a priest are aimed at people who argue Rangers may have perhaps done something a wee bit wrong, might perhaps deserve ome punishment and are in fact in big trouble, not people doing reductio ad absurdium trolling tactics. I also find it hard to believe that any Timposter or Diddy Infiltrator would be able to stay in character and participate in the really vile threads about leaving Scottish Football as scorched earth or something like yesterday's "Republicans have taken over Scotland, we must fight back against the t**gs" thread. "do ya think Sir Alex Ferguson will manage us after the CVA" may be an infiltrator. I doubt "let's crush Dundee United, tarrier scum" comes from a Diddy or "don't give your custom to ****** owned businesses, the fight back begins now" comes from Celtic.

No. There was some talk of Ratko Mladic coming to Rangers as a PR frontman focusing on relations with the SPL/SFA and other clubs, but it was quickly decided that he didn't bring anything to the table that Sandy Jardine didn't already provide and lacked the required degree of aggressiveness.

From the legal stuff I read early in the process Ticketus was trying to do a future flow securitization, where instead of lending money to the company you buy current and future assets that produce somewhat predictable revenue streams. This is legal, normal and provides cheaper costs of funds to Rangers since if done right the purchaser is partially or entirely insulated from insolvency of the company. The trouble for Ticketus is they seem to have bollixed up the legal form of the sale. Lord Hodge indicated in an early decision that Scots law governed the creation of the asset trust and unlike under English law it would not create a valid sale of the tickets. This wasn't a binding decision on the point but strongly indicates Ticketus is screwed. It would be rare, but not unheard of, for something like this to happen. If Ticketus is screwed its treated as a loan instead of a sale and they join the queue in CVA or liquidation. Ticketus also appears to have guarantees from Craig Whyte that would apply to this loan. Ticketus will have the option to try and litigate that Hodges was wrong and the sale is valid, and D&P appears to be seeking to close off that avenue now. If Ticketus doesn't come out and fight like mad it probably means they really did muck it up and I would hate to be the law firm that signed off on the documents. Ticketus may in the alternative argue that Craig Whyte's floating charge is valid at least up to the £18 million of Lloyd's debt they provided and they can thus step into a secured creditor position once Whyte fails to pay the guaranty as expected. It's perfectly valid for Ticketus to argue they own the tickets, they are creditors of Rangers and/or they are creditors of Whyte and Whyte is a creditor of Rangers, but ultimately only one of those arguments can apply to the money they advanced. There will be a shitstorm of lawsuits regardless, the only question is how deep Rangers get dragged in. Hope that helps. (edited for IPad muppetry)

My understanding is that the losses Rangers racked up were very useful for tax purposes as thy could be offset against profits in MIH group (which would be absolutely normal practice and unobjectionable), but he did put some cash ino the club over his tenure. The "Republicans have taken over Scotland" thread on RM has kinda killed my enjoyment of this saga today. I realize these idiots aren't representative of RM as a whole, let alone Rangers supporters, but the calls to openly discriminate in employment and expel people o a passenger liner with a hole in it are well the f**k over the line. The lunatic fringe of Celtic supporters always claimed there were vast numbers of bears who thought this way but I generally disregarded them. I still think its a minority, but that they vocally exist in even these numbers is frankly disturbing, this isn't 90 minute bigot stuff or Neds on a windup, these are semi-coherent posters with a semblance of an education who actually seem to believe this crap. Time to take a shower and watch something laugh out funny.

And Readings' improbable run to the top of the Championship meant #RFC tags led to half screaming Orks and half happy Majedski Stadium folks on the feed. And the Texas Rangers are jut settling into the baseball season. They really have to come up with a distinctive search and social media optimized name for the newco. The NHL side, by the way, is a horrifically financially bloated monster with the second most unpleasant fans in the league. And they play n blue.

We concedely would be unpleasant, but I honestly think we would be very different in Rangers shoes. Remember Celtic paranoia? Remember all of you laughing at us for thinking we're the oppressed underdogs when we are doing quite well actually? Remember disliking us intensely for that? I'm objective enough to know why you might dislike us for that mindset (and being on this board has certainly reinforced the point), concede it can be true, but it does render us rather less prone to a sense of arrogant absolute entitlement that is the core of the bears reaction throughout We would not be surprised by something like this. We would not wait for someone in authority to save us. We would boycott, if at all, out of a sense of wounded pointless rebel gesture rather than in the expectation that the diddy teams will fall down and die without our glorious presence. We would not march on Hampden with Sandy Jardine lacking only a leather trench coat to complete the picture and expect it to work. We would whinge. We would be defensive. We would never shut up about Lisbon. We might not be pleasant under Captain Sensible levels of goading. But we would sort stuff out on our end (or car park). I do think that no supporter is going to handle a roller coaster horror movie like the bears have endured with their best face forward on the Internet. Had a few crucial technological breakthroughs been made, our grandparents might still be talking about what asses people made of themselves on the Third Lanark Forever forum. [terribly sorry for the rant, apologies, no thread derailment intended]

http://forum.rangersmedia.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=220500 Yet more talk of how the Orcs, and Rangers players, should pull out of the national team, this time with a majority in favor. How brilliant wold it be if McGregor and Naismith played the patriotic card to gracefully exit Rangers? "a minority, but a dangerous minority, of Rangers supporters have forced us to choose between club and country, and we must choose Scotland. The significant boost to our wages down South did not play a role, and if only we could have played for both in good conscience we would have stayed...."

For centuries those people who have made cheddar cheese and pineapple on a stick references have enjoyed greenies, so one shall be delivered as soon as it is available.

Just got back from post-work drinks to find this Could have had champagne if I knew at the time Net result: And an absinthe cocktail

I like the Struthian punishment angle, so I'll add a requirement that the supporters will not be allowed into the Rangers allocation home or away without a coat and tie with ox blood brogues. Reduces their income from tops and trakkies while providing a much needed boost to Scottish haberdashers.

Nope, just checked as I wasn't sure myself. According to Ruth Dudley Edwards "The Faithful Tribe" The Togo and Ghana lodges were still sending delegations to Belfast in 1997. Probably shouldn't have brought it up, no doubt the RM folk will now be lobbying for Asamoah Gyan as the second big post-no-penalties signing. Gattuso comes first, of course.

Could work - I remember reading that rather surprisingly there are still functioning Orange Lodges in Ghana...

He was relegated to the Third Division of celebrity, though, and eventually relegated to the West Coast Where Are They Now Conference

I'm trusting your math, but this demonstrates exactly why the Sky situation shouldn't be critical for Celtics decision making and why Celtic should be falling over themselves to make it clear that be way or another they favor a more equitable split. £750K is by no means trivial (particularly applied to wages rather than misleading headline transfer fees) but its not catastrophic given Celtics turn over - things like the currently ongoing clearout of squad players would make a sizeable dent in a figure like this, for example. The justification for the skew of the split was always European competitiveness. With the almost geometric rapid decline of SPL TV money relative to other European leagues its hard to maintain tht justification. £750K would neither purchase nor sweeten the wages enough to put a player on the pitch who would get us past the Sions (let alone the Udineses) of the world. As Rangers situation demonstrates, having no one like you and not caring is not a good position to be in. Putting aside the morals, endorsing a fairer system openly in exchange for some goodwill and removing a perpetual irritant makes some business sense. This is, however, one of the situations where being a PLC is a hindrance.

But the guy in your link above was engaged in a pissing match with the guy on the original link who made the original connection to Rangers. The first guy is pushing the stock down and the latter is talking it up. This type of thing happens all the frakkin time when penny stocks are involved and it's inherently suspect on both sides. Most importantly for our situation, a perfectly honest (albiet failed or failing) business will attract these people once it's a penny stock with a variable like a big VAT case, and the people doing the ramp up can be, indeed generally are, completely unrelated to the people running the actual company. People short selling on these boards make allegations the principals are ramping up as a matter of course. Its generally noise, particularly when the stock oesnt actually move that much. Here, the company is focused on Cambodia based on my mercifully brief skim of the AR. Could be deeply dodgy, could be a legitimate business expansion into Cambodia by successful business people in Singapore/India Thailand, etc. can't tell. After reading all the threats of retaliation and dreams of an unchanged or improved squad coming from the Bears nobody will be happier than me if Greens bid collapses in a morass of links to dodgy Cambodian ventures, but a tenuous link from, and allegations made on, penny stock boards looks like a blind alley to me. At most, it shows that Green associates more with the gritty end of East Asian business rather than the Sultan of Brunei like some Rangers folks are praying. Which in itself is mildly pleasing but unproven without more.

Directorships arent generally a full time job so you can, and many do, have multiple positions if not actively in an executive position. Some of his look like ports agency ventures and those can be wound up quick if partners / players move on. Early stage companies can get bought for a profit or wound down with minimal losss when their initial justification falls away. Lots of reasons and can't infer he's a spiv just from that. More interesting to me is Green's much more concrete relationship with Wayne Rooneys agent, since a) agents running football clubs doesn't have a very good track record and raises major conflicts issues, b) he invented, or claims to have invented, the "image rights" approach that HMRC balked at and settled with several EPL clubs. I'm thinking that association is suboptimal for Rangers right now.

I believe the idea is there is an overlap of officers and Directors between one of Greens companies and a tiny company which is entangled in a VAT dispute also involving PNC (VAT naughtiness almost always involves two companies). I am almost positive, though, that the whole thing has no relevance to Rangers. Serial director shares board with somebody involved with penny stock isn't dispositive, and link to Rangers is from obvious boiler room guy trying to talk up price.