But a landslide is what Dave King and his colleagues got last Friday. It looks as though the only major shareholder to vote against King was Ashley through his MASH Holdings company.
What is remarkable is the scale of the landslide and the almost complete lack of support for Llambias and his cohorts. Llambias obtained 8,349,915 votes - only 15.36% of the shares voted. Of these I think it is safe to assume that 7,265,000 came from Mike Ashley. Which means he garnered just over a million from the rest of the shareholding base which is just 1.995% of the vote.
It should be noted however that only two thirds of shares were actually cast in the vote.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE EASDALE’S PROXY VOTES
And indeed their own? We awoke last Friday to a Stock Exchange announcement that their proxies had diminished by around a fifth of what they previously had. This could be a combination of their larger supporters pulling out or perhaps just Blue Pitch and a number of smaller ones. Add to that a story in the Daily Record from Keith Jackson claiming the Easdales would abstain and I think we can safely conclude that the Easdale proxy group abstained.
THE “UNPOPULARITY” OF PAUL MURRAY
Those of us who have worked closely with Paul know his faults. However, these are minor compared with the work he has put in over the years. We’ve seen an unpleasant and vicious campaign of vilification against Paul in recent years but when it came to the crunch the “unpopularity" turns out when put to the test to be confined to a handful of loudmouthed internet cranks.
Of the three names put forward by Dave King it was John Gilligan who obtained the most votes for and the fewest votes against. Paul Murray in fact proved marginally more popular than Dave King himself! He obtained roughly 70,000 more votes for himself than King and had around 102,000 more against him than King - in short, he is 0.18% less popular than Dave!
THE MOTIVATIONS?
It’s very difficult to tell. It looks like the Easdale block realised the game was up and accepted that they’ve had a decent run for their money and decided to walk away. James Easdale and David Somers resigned before the EGM and saved themselves a humiliation. Ashley was obviously committed to his men and had no option but to see it through. The balance of the votes for Llambias and Leach were negligible.
The way the City works both the Easdale block and Ashley remain dangerous to the future operation of the club due to the numbers they have - remember only two thirds of shares were actually cast in the votes.
Add in Ashley’s stranglehold on retail contracts and I predict an uncomfortable time for the new directors in dealing with someone who was prepared to back the scorched earth policy engaged in by his underlings in their final weeks at Ibrox.