At the time SISU were the only show in town. They insisted on having 90% of the shares handed over to them. Craigavon (Geoffrey Robinson 31,871)and Sir Derek Higgs 8,021) only held 71% of the complete share holdings (55,788) and to that end Joe Elliott was tasked with rounding up all of the shares that were not in the hands of the large shareholders. SISU valued each share at £0.0001 and hence were going to pay a maximum of £5.57 for the club. At the time, the club had debts in excess of £38 million pounds. Sir Derek and Geoffrey Robinson agreed to write off any monies that the club owed them. SISU were stating they would invest 22 Million pounds in the club. The offer to take over the club was originally made on 13th December 2007. Joe Elliot wrote three letters to the shareholders asking that they hand in their shares by 7th January 2008. The last letter from Joe Elliott was dated 27th December 2007. In the letter he made it clear that the only alternative to SISU obtaining the minimum of 90% was administration. On the 3rd January an AGM was called and Mike Mcginity and I think Ray Ranson addressed all those who attended. Some time later the original demand to have the shares handed over was then extended to April 11th 2008 as 3,744 shares or (6.7%) was still outstanding. I believe the time line is correct but the letter from Ransom asking for the remaining shares to be handed over is not dated.
For info, Mike Mcginity only ever owned 100 shares, Mr Elliott is shown as having 10.
For what it’s worth, I firmly believe that if Sir Derek had not died in April 2008 non of the crap with CC or the Charity would have kicked off. Sir Derek was instrumental in the Charity purchasing the clubs 50% share in the arena (when the club did not have the cash to continue with the project) and for the club having the first option buy back clause inserted in the agreement which lasted for five years from the date of purchase by the charity. The hope was, within the five years the club would be in a position to purchase the 50% back from the charity albeit at an increased cost. When SISU had the opportunity they choose not to action the clause. Ransom said to me they did not feel at that time it was necessary. The council and the charity both had options in the agreement that they could veto the sale of the charities 50% if they did not approve of the proposed purchaser. By the time SISU woke up, the relationship with both the charity and the council had turned toxic and the rest is history
