‘It became necessary to destroy the town to save it’ – Craig Mather’s Departure From Rangers

Rangers International Football Club PLC is, as the name tells us, a public limited company. Its shares are traded on the Stock Exchange. There are certain standards of corporate governance which require to be met in the interests of shareholders and potential shareholders. These include having a suitably qualified Board of Directors, comprising executives and non-executives and including a chairman to represent the interests of the investors and to oversee the executives.

RIFC presently has a board which consists of:-

Brian Stockbridge – Finance Director

James Easdale – Non-Executive Director

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“Black Monday” For Rangers’ CEO Craig Mather

Fans of Billy Joel might be familiar with his song “Summer, Highland Falls”. It includes the lines:-

“For we are always what our situations hand us

It’s either sadness or euphoria”.

For some reason those words came to mind last night when I was thinking about Craig Mather, the Rangers International Football Club PLC CEO.

Why Might Mr Mather Have Been Euphoric?

A week ago he was in South Africa along with Brian Stockbridge to see Dave King.

Rangers Forced to Confirm Dave King is NOT Returning Now as PLC Chairman

One of the joys of being a professional adviser, whether in law, PR, Human Resources or the affairs of a publicly quoted company, is finding out what your client has decided to do without first asking for help. A friend of mine who worked for a major company delivering employment law advice to a wide range of employers, ranging from small firms to large PLCs, told me that 90% of her work involved clients phoning and the conversation going as follows:-

Client – Here is a situation we have. We have already done x. What should we do now?

Adviser – You should not have done x. As a result it will be far harder to resolve your problem. You have just made things worse.  For future reference, maybe you should ask your adviser before you decide to do something?

One wonders if a similar discussion has taken place between Rangers and their Nominated Adviser over the weekend?

One Rangers Director Resigns … And Then There Were Four

This morning’s news from Ibrox, announced to the Stock Exchange, is that Ian Hart has resigned as a Director of Rangers International Football Club PLC.

The press release reads:-

The Company today announces that Ian Hart, Non-Executive Director, has resigned from the board in order to pursue the charitable work in which he is involved more actively.

Craig Mather, Chief Executive Officer, commented: “it is with sadness that we see Ian depart from the board and we would like to thank him for his valuable contribution over the past year. Ian remains a huge fan of the Club and we wish him the best of success in future.”

I won’t bother about the semantics of why the announcement refers to “the Company” and not “the Club”. After all this statement is actually legally correct.

It does however leave the Board rather light on personnel.

Rangers Board v Rangers Rebels – No Sign of Peace Yet

Perhaps the Rangers Board thought that a flurry of good news in the form of the accounts together with lots of positive words would distract from detailed analysis of the figures (which I have not done for myself yet and therefore am NOT suggesting that the sums do not add up).

Perhaps they thought that refusing the Rebel demands for consideration of 4 new directors would calm things down.

Perhaps Craig Mather thought that calling the Rebels’ application vexatious and frivolous would see them off.