16 hours ago
Ibrox accounts pledge given as Rangers become private limited company
Cavenagh - who bought a 51 per cent stake in the Glasgow giants along with 49ers Enterprises, the investment arm of NFL franchise San Francisco 49ers, last month – was asked to show minority shareholders 'respect' by former Labour MP Sir Brian Donohoe at an EGM in Glasgow city centre this morning.
The Philadelphia-based healthcare insurance billionaire stressed that George Taylor and John Halsted would represent their best interests on the board going forward and that regular meetings would be held with all shareholders regardless of the size of their stake.
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'Just to clarify, when the company is private it wouldn't have an AGM in the same sense,' he said. 'Our commitment is to meet with shareholders once a year and communicate additionally as necessary.
'The exact form and timing of those meetings are something we'll take feedback from our shareholders on. The commitment is to once again year do that as a minimum. We'll figure out the right medium and the right content to go through.
'I'm not an accountant so I can't tell you the form of the financials. I do know that they will be made public because they have to be. We're required to submit our financials to the regulators every year, but the exact form I can't answer to.'
Meanwhile, Cavenagh stressed that Rangers would sell players going forward in order to try and achieve the new regime's goal of having a self-sustaining business model.
(Image: Ross MacDonald - SNS Group) 'We won't go into individual players, or even this summer's window with any specificity,' he said. 'But the world of football is one where you acquire players and they move on for bigger fees. That is part of the financial model for any club.
'At any club that is not one of the top five in the world, players are not permanent and players will at times move on and clubs will make a fee for them and it is good for the club and good for the players.
'Our ownership group has looked at this on a long term basis. One of the things we hope we bring is the financial power to create stability so we are not living hand to mouth and the club can operate from a platform of stability.
'We think it is achievable or we wouldn't be here. We don't think it will be easy. It is not going to happen instantaneously, but we will strive to improve the on-field performance and we will continue to build the infrastructure of the club. If we didn't think we could win we wouldn't be here. We are here because we think we can.'
Meanwhile, Cavenagh has admitted that increasing the capacity of Ibrox and acquiring more land around the stadium are possibilities in future.
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'The expansion of Ibrox is something of interest to us, but not one of our short term goals,' he said. 'Right now, we're focused on improving on-pitch performance as well as the infrastructure of the club itself.
'Any increase in revenue we can get, we'll put it back on to the pitch. There are lots of different levers to pull on, certainly more than on the commercial side.
'It's not something we've got into at this point. As Paraag [vice-chairman Marathe] said, our focus is first and foremost on how do we move on pitch performance and start to build the infrastructure of the club and the team.
'But at the same time we're beginning to put together a multi-year plan for the physical plant, which would include Ibrox, the land around it and Auchenhowie. But it's early days on that.'
