Dave King has made a significant concession about shares

Following today’s AGM, a lot of the usual subplots developed intriguingly, but it was chairman Dave King’s assertion about shares which we here at Ibrox Noise found the most telling and the most useful.

As we know, Rangers shares are hardly valuable – prices range around the £0.20 mark for them which, when it comes to corporate levels, is less than peanuts.

And it was the curious and refreshingly honest comment King made in his speech today we recognised the most:

“Our shareholder base includes many passive investors who are not supporters of the Club and who invested purely on the investment case that was made to them at the time of their investment. That is the complete opposite to the many thousands of supporter investors who are not even remotely driven by a desire to see dividends and a growth in the share price.”

What is King saying here? Generally when it comes to finding investment, the company seeking the funds has to sell the shares and profit prospects – that the investors (be they individuals or hedge funds) must buy into the idea they will get a return on their outlay.

However, King makes strong reference here to the thousands of investors who have barely any interest in getting profit, and are only investing because they want to have shares in the club they support – the fans.

The point? That Rangers are a loss-making company right now – it may be some time before that changes, and as long as we aspire to getting back to where we belong, we will remain in the red.

But that the vast majority of investors know this and continue to fund and support.

Yes, the actual shares are dominated by the major shareholders, such as King himself, but we cannot forget the thousands or millions of shares that us supporters own, without any delusions of profit, and King’s absolute honesty that if you invest as a fan you’re ‘losing’ your money is fairly straightforward.

He is being clear that if, as a fan, you put your cash in this loss-making company, you’re doing it with your heart and not your bank balance.

And that’s fair.