Charles Bannerman

So what next? Police Scotland reveal that they have impounded a £100,000 campervan parked in Gardiner’s mother’s driveway? On a more serious note, in this morning’s PandJ report, Alan Savage reveals that turnover (which doesn’t have to be disclosed in the accounts of a small company) as being in the region of £2-2.25M. Now I’m not sure if losses have been £1.7M as announced by Savage last week or the £1.5-1.6M he refers to in today’s paper, but either way, these losses are a phenomenal percentage of turnover. The other question is how can a club that has allegedly been under a stringent economy regime for some years whilst playing in the championship managed to spend in a year something in the region of £3.5-4M which isn’t far, even index linked, from what it was spending in the Premiership? And the final question, which is fundamental, familiar and recurring - what level of control has the Board been exercising over the club in general and Scot Gardiner in particular across the years that this financial catastrophe has been visibly been building up?

It was a pure coincidence that this evening’s announcement from the club that a solution had been found happened to drop on social media around five minutes after the BBC report on the crisis announcement went out on Reporting Scotland, and there must just have been time to squeeze a quick line in before the programme went off air at 7pm. Alan Savage’s “six days from administration” statement this morning seems to have had a dramatic effect on those it was targeted at. One other thought … AS hasn’t exactly been backward at coming forward with criticism of Gardiner. I actually wonder how devastated or otherwise AS would be if the allegedly litigious SG felt minded to raise a defamation action…. which of course would mean that five years of goings on at Caley Thistle would emerge in detail in a very public forum indeed.

I am simply highlighting a relatively cost effective manner in which Alan Savage could gain a majority stake, if that is what he is seeking.

This is pure conjecture but… if creditors supporting the £3M “relief” were substantially to opt for shares rather than a complete write off and if Alan Savage were then able to acquire enough of these shares at a reduced price then, since he already has almost half a million shares, he might be in a position to get 50% control maybe for a (big ballpark) £2 million…. while Morrison et al at least get something back.

I’m surprised that The Sun haven’t come up with that headline!

That is the absolutely central question. Totally without any benefit of hindsight, it was clear to a great number of people as early as 2018-19 that there was a severe problem when £1 million of new shares were needed to keep the ship afloat. The best take on it that I can make is that the problem was ignored for far too long and then naive faith was placed on a series of four money making wheezes, all of which collapsed spectacularly. Of these, the Concert Company was also hugely damaging to the club’s reputation and I wonder if there would have been grounds for sacking Gardiner on the strength of that alone? Then there seemed to be this blind faith that nothing could possibly go wrong with the Battery Farm and I wonder how much was spent and committed on the blind assumption that it would produce the goods? And in similar vein, it appears that this naive faith continued to the bitter end, since I believe that new signings were made on the say-so of “new owner” Ketan Makwana. As for the club’s reputation… recent years have seen this utterly trashed due to the manner in which it went about its business. However I think the manner now of its renaissance, especially off the back of Gardiner’s absurdly belated but hugely welcome departure, stands every chance of its steady restoration.

It’s interesting that we are now celebrating something around half a dozen benefactors having dispensed in some way or another with loans of values which are unclear. In other words we just don’t know how much debt the club has been in - and nor obviously did Alan Savage until he kept uncovering more and more liabilities during last week. We also need to remember that, even though the 2022-23 accounts were belatedly published in June, even they only run to 30.5.23. so are almost 15 months behind the curve, so goodness knows how much worse the numbers to May 2024 will be…. albeit now partly resolved. One other revelation was that there are now serious steps being taken to pay creditors - DandE Coches and Red Pepper were among those mentioned - and it was confirmed that the Puma situation has been resolved…. which seems to be an issue on its own!

If that’s the case, then it would totally revamp the shareholding structure. Would RM’s stake come to as much as 2.1M share? I thought he was owed around £1.4M and I don’t think he has a massive current stake. It’s not been made clear who have opted for a write-off and who for a conversion to equity, but I can’t see anyone acquiring a massively influential “Makwanaesque” holding in what is currently a fairly diffuse 4 million total, which might (?) go up to something like 6 million depending on who has opted for what.

There was a press conference at the stadium this afternoon where, among other things, it was revealed that a number of people - including Ross Morrison - to whom money was owed have agreed to convert the debt to equity in the club or to write it off completely. This follows a meeting this morning and is worth millions. I wasn’t there myself, but I’ve heard the press conference audio and this, to me, is pretty major. This is my BBC colleague Iain MacInnes’s online report. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/clyw88kx84xo And it emerges that Alan Savage has also received a goodwill phone call from Sir Alex Ferguson!

Another feature of what’s happened this week is that ICT can return to being a football club as opposed to some kind of vehicle for land speculation.

One nagging concern that I have is that, since this Forensic Audit has been uncovering Black Holes of constantly increasing magnitude, it may ultimately stumble across something so large that it may not be possible to deal with it. We just need to hope not. As for the apparently very large number of strips - might it not be possible to contact the person within Puma through whom the order was made and come to some constructive arrangement?

Published online by the Courier around 6pm.

That’s one of the core issues about Makwana - he always seemed to “give the impression” that he was doing things whereas in effect he was doing nothing. He gave the impression that he was constructing a deal to become the majority shareholders and that he was facilitating new signings and that he was some big shot businessman opening a branch of his company in the UAE…. and then that he was in the process of repelling the return of Alan Savage. Meanwhile, the reality was that he did absolutely nothing and was simply indulging in various fantasies - which he very probably also believed himself. In the case of the board membership question, it’s clear he saw the Companies House entries - where there was always very likely to be some innocuous explanation - and converted this into a scenario where he thought that Providence had intervened on his behalf. I remain utterly astonished that the Board - albeit possibly led into the scenario by Scot Gardiner - could have unanimously have swallowed a heap of obvious that pretty well everybody else instantly saw through the moment the story broke last month.

Not being an expert on the running of companies, I can only really ask questions here, but these Companies House entries both refer to events that happened on Monday, and as recently as today (Wed) Alan Savage has been discussing his role with the media. Is it therefore possible that he doesn’t seek to be a Director in his current role but, for some procedural reason unknown, required that status temporarily in order to fulfil a particular function? For instance it was on Monday that Scot Gardiner was told to leave the building and it may well also have been on Monday that Ketan Makwana was told that his services were no longer required. I just don’t follow what KM’s social media are on about, but as far as I can see, he is not a Director of ITandC and has not even got as far as acquiring any shares in the company, either by purchase of new equity or by acquisition of existing shares. The only area I might therefore foresee as problematic is the potential for some breach of agreement, but equally I can’t see Alan Savage having failed to take any such possible issue into account. In any case, if the existing shareholders didn’t want to sell to him, there’s not a thing he could do about it - unless he wanted to come up with £5.1M to acquire a majority share outright - and even then, I think it would require a general meeting to release enough shares for him to do that.

A very appropriate metaphor because there’s still a long way to go despite ringing the church bells at yesterday’s news. Tell you what. Let’s make a movie of this…. starring Scot Gardiner as Rommel and Ketan Makwana as the Italian Army. EDIT - come to think of it, Rommel was actually respected by his opponents.

“Seventy7 Ventures who HAD been seeking….” Note there one of the key words from yesterday’s club statement - HAD… hallmark of a completed action in the past as opposed to “has” which would have implied that Makwana’s efforts were ongoing. Enter Monty Python’s Parrot, and thank goodness for that. The potential consequences of Makwana running the show were just too horrible to contemplate, and how on earth the Board managed unanimously to be taken in by a guy who inspired spontaneous scepticism and ridicule in everybody else from the moment the club announced his involvement remains a mystery. But now, this fantasist can return to his “phygital” world of blockchain and cryptocurrency, the launch of the UAE branch of Seventy7 from the QE2 in Dubai and what will presumably become his seventh attempt to control a football club. Just not ours. Good riddance to Ketan Makwana… and to Scot Gardiner - now another mercifully completed action in ICT’s past - who was in office across the most poisonous period in the 30 year history of this club. And yes, I could make a case for that including the dark days of the merger because even at that point, I never observed anyone within Inverness Caledonian Thistle who was as universally disliked…. despised even….as our recently departed CEO. So now that Makwana and Gardiner are history…. let’s look to building the future.

The BBC locally are following this on a minute by minute basis and are currently awaiting a statement from the club which it was understood would arrive around 2pm. The output you’ve seen above is from BBC Sport Scotland, originating from Glasgow and, as one Inverness local newspaper reporter recently observed, it perhaps has to be recognised that Caley Thistle have now fallen so low on the national pecking order that not much coverage in the national media can be expected.

Fully understood!

To be fair, the media have had virtually no opportunities to ask questions about this since the manager has been the only person the club has put up to speak and this is very much not within his remit. However very many questions have been submitted in writing by several journalists but no reply has ever been received. My own reporting of this has very much reflected the same scepticism as the supporters and has been articulated by highlighting Mr Makwana’s business record and the magnitude of his task if he were ever to achieve his 50.48%. As a matter of policy, I have never referred to Mr Makwana as the “owner” or “majority shareholder” or to a “take over” since there has never been any evidence that he owns a single share.

Projectile defecation, more like.

I remain very uncomfortable about what happened two years ago when the Concert Company went bust and a number of local traders lost money as a result… while the club appeared to take some credit and satisfaction from the fact that, before the Concert Company went belly-up, the club took a stadium rental and other income from its assets. That, to me, is morally indefensible and now there’s more.

Without prejudice to the soundness or otherwise of Mr Makwana’s proposals regarding the club, the grandiose manner in which he expresses himself doesn’t tend to do a great deal for his credibility.

Has anyone heard anything about a meeting between the Board and the bigger shareholders, but not involving Scot Gardiner? What I heard was that the shareholders are keen to help the club if they possibly can. If this is the case, then I would look on this as a welcome development.

There has never been a “majority shareholder”.

They do apparently need AGMs. There has to be one within each calendar year and no more than 15 months between meetings according to the Articles.