Hearts warn Lithuanian creditors: Who will buy Tynecastle if you decide to sell?

Scott McDermott

31 Jul 2013 09:54

THE capital club's administrators have told Ukio Bankas to back off after their Monday warning and said that the site of their stadium could prove to be a hard sell.

BRYAN JACKSON has hit back at Ukio Bankas – and warned the Lithuanians that if they pull the plug on Hearts they’ll be left with land they can’t sell.

The bank, formerly owned by ex-Tynecastle chief Vladimir Romanov, is the club’s main creditor and is owed around £15million.

Ukio also has security over the stadium and has told BDO chief Jackson that the buy-out offers assembled by the administrator aren’t acceptable.

But while Jackson understands the bank’s position he has made it clear Hearts are more valuable to them as a going concern as opposed to being left with an empty stadium on a piece of land that will be plagued with planning problems.

He said: “There has been a slight over-reaction to them getting the big stick out from overseas and saying ‘You need to do better’.

“We already knew that. We warned bidders the major obstacle was to reach the aspirations of the Lithuanian bank.

“The bank has now had their discussions and just decided ‘These offers are in, you’ve tried to improve them but they’re not good enough. You need to do something about it and if you don’t this is what’s going to happen’.

“That was actually the case on day one. It’s just they weren’t quite so vociferous on day one about it.

“It was understandable. Perhaps it read a bit more brutally than I would have liked and that is what has caused the reaction.

“But I still believe that if we can get the offer up that they will be open to doing the deal.

“They will get a quicker sale as a football club as it will be cleaner.

“If you don’t sell it as a football club, you have all the problems of mothballing the stadium, the hostility that would go with that, the loss of a community club and the loss to the city of Edinburgh.

“From the point of view of the creditor that may not be important. However, they have to realise it will have a knock-on effect.

“They have to ask themselves: ‘Who is going to buy this property? Who is going to buy this land?’

“And that’s something we’ve conveyed overseas – that it’s not as simple as they may think.

“You could be left with a property that might take years to sell. And that’s what I meant by saying that if we could get over the line as a going concern, it would be quicker and cleaner for all concerned.”

Taken from the Daily Record