King is told to makeRangers share offer

RANGERS chairman Dave King is being forced to make an offer to buy remaining club shares worth £11 million after the Takeover Panel ruled he and others acted together to force their way into the Ibrox boardroom.

A panel appeal has decided that a formal takeover should have been triggered after a group led by Mr King secured more than 30 per cent of the voting rights in Rangers.

That meant under the code of takeovers and mergers, they should make a cash offer to all other shareholders at the highest price paid in the 12 months before the offer was announced.

The group – which includes Park’s Motor Group founder Douglas Park, Rangers Supporters Trust and Rangers First member George Taylor and Rangers fan George Letham – has denied they had acted “in concert” to purchase shares in Rangers on December 31 2014 and January 2 2015, at a time when a board said to be allied to Sports Direct founder Mike Ashley was in place.

The Takeover Appeal Board (TAB) has said “the case for concluding that... Mr Letham and Mr King, at least, were acting in concert in purchasing the relevant shares becomes overwhelming”.

It has now decided that an obligation should be imposed on Mr King to make an offer for all the issued shares in Rangers not owned by him, Mr Letham, Mr Taylor and Mr Park at 20p a share by April 2017.

According to JP Jenkins, which operates the platform on which Rangers equity is traded, the share price is at 27.5p.

Mr King said an original panel committee had “fundamentally misinterpreted” what had occurred at Rangers.

He said his motivation was to “work together with supporters groups to restore proper standards of corporate governance of Rangers”.

But the appeal findings said: “We understand the point made by Mr King about his motivation regarding the supporters of the Rangers football club and the control of Rangers.

“However, personal motives or reasons for gaining control of a company are not relevant when considering whether parties were acting in concert.”