Parks May Offer Rangers Lifeline

It looks like bus group tycoon Donald Parks is fronting a new £6.5million rescue plan for Rangers.

The crisis hit Ibrox outfit needs to find £8.3million before April 1 or face another financial meltdown.

Now according to reports in several newspapers on Saturday morning, Parks has joined forces with wealthy Gers supporters George Letham and George Taylor to offer to underwrite a new shares issue.

The move could prove to be a lifeline for the club after the Scottish Football Association announced on Christmas Eve that it had rejected Newcastle owner Mike Ashley's attempts to increase his involvement with the League One champions.

Hampden chiefs have been informed of the offer, which would see Park's consortium buy all 40,739,000 shares set to be issued after the board won a vote at last week's AGM giving it the right to raise new equity.

Parks, founder of the successful Park's Motor Group, is reported to have a personal fortune of around £78 million.

He was part of the Blue Knights consortium which tried to save the club from liquidation almost three years ago.

Letham, meanwhile, loaned the club £1million earlier this year to stave off another disaster, while Hong Kong-based Taylor bought a 3.2 per cent stake just last month.

The offer - which also includes a demand for two board seats - was lodged with chairman David Somers immediately after he presided over the stormy shareholder meeting last Monday.

With Ashley's attempts to boost his stake in Rangers from 8.92 per cent to 29.9 per cent set to be blocked by the SFA, the club now face three choices.

They could accept the Park consortium's offer, or instead turn to the rejected £16million investment plan lodged by former oldco director Dave King in October, which remains on the table.

Alternatively, they could challenge the SFA''s stance on Ashley through the courts and risk further punishment from the governing body in the meantime.

But the Parks group have already gone on the attack, criticising the decision by Ashley and Sandy Easdale - the football board chairman who controls around 26 per cent of the club through shares and proxies - to reject resolution nine at the AGM.

The motion would have given the club the right to have issued shares without first offering them to existing shareholders but the vote went 55-45 against it.

Observers viewed that as an attempt by the board to keep any fresh investment in-house and a spokesman for the Parks group said: We find it disturbing that Resolution nine, which would have made it possible to issue shares for cash to new shareholders, failed to gain approval.

Everyone knows the company is in dire need of fresh and significant investment and yet shareholders represented on the board decided to vote against investment from new shareholders.

Presumably, they believed the SFA would clear the way for Mike Ashley to increase his holding but we now know that this was not approved. The SFA would have been aware there is a credible alternative and we would like to make sure the fans are aware of that, too.

Our offer was based on Resolution nine being passed, but this was blocked.

However, as existing shareholders we still believe it should be possible for us to gain a significant holding and are ready to invest in a new share issue.

Our money is in place, proof of funding has been shown to the chairman and the company's nomad. We are trying our best to do what is right for Rangers and the supporters.

Why on earth would anyone not want a hugely successful businessman like Douglas Park involved?''