RANGERS chairman Dave King stands to get an initial £1.4 million next month as a creditor of the club's liquidated operating company, it has emerged.
The South African businessman's payout comes as he is registered as an unsecured creditor saying he is owed £20 million for his investment in the club 14 years ago.
Liquidators BDO have confirmed they are now set to provide an interim £10 m pound payout to Rangers creditors by the end of next month providing around six to seven pence in every pound owed.
It has further emerged that the payout pot to the creditors in the liquidation of The Rangers Football Club plc has been reduced by a third because of liquidator, legal and other administrative fees.
Nearly £11m has been paid out to accountants, lawyers and other administrative staff since BDO carried out the liquidation in October, 2012, leaving £18m for creditors.
BDO papers show that £5.4m of the £6.2m costs of the liquidation incurred over the six months to the end of April were legal fees incurred over the settlement of a claim against London-based Collyer Bristow the solicitors involved in the controversial takeover of the club by Craig Whyte. The liquidators banked £24m for Rangers creditors.
BDO said the fees went to London-based legal firm Stephenson Harwood as "it had been necessary to instruct" the company on a 'no win, no charge' conditional fee arrangement basis.
The arrangement meant that Stephenson Harwood were entitled to their costs plus an extra 75 to 100 per cent to "compensate them for the risk that they would not get paid if the litigation failed".
According to details revealed in an updated set of BDO accounts over the liquidation, the £10m payout, will leave nearly £9m remaining in the creditors pot to pay off the taxman if they win an appeal over the so-called big tax case.
The Rangers chairman and other creditors could end up having an even greater slice of the creditors' cake if the taxman fails to convince courts that the oldco was liable for £46.2m plus charges over the use of Employment Benefit Trust (EBT) loans to pay players and managers.
It was confirmed that £72m of the £94.4m owed to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) relies on the outcome of that appeal that is due to start on July 7.
Its failure to win that would cut the debts owed from around £160m to £96.8m.
When Mr King ploughed money into the club, a new share issue had been made to improve the playing squad and develop a strong youth policy through a new academy.
Of that, £20m was described as new money from Mr King, invested through his Ben Nevis Holdings firm. As part of the changes Mr King became a non-executive director at Ibrox. Some of the new cash 14 years ago went towards lowering the club's then £40m debt.
His claim places him third on the list of the biggest unsecured creditors of the liquidated Rangers firm, which was renamed RFC 2012 plc.
Mr King's claim comes amid allegations he has made on the basis of non-disclosure by former Rangers owner Sir David Murray over the club's true financial position in 2000 when he made the investment.
Sir David has previously insisted to the Herald that no financial information was withheld from Mr King and that during his time as chairman he had not made any complaints.
The 14-year-old rights issue involved Murray Sports, which was controlled by Mr Murray, taking up rights through its RFC Investment Holdings subsidiary to the tune of £32.3m.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article