You may have spotted stories in the media today which reported the trust has made an offer for shares held in St Mirren. With this in mind, we wanted to bring members up to date on progress with our bid.
As you know, we have been working with former St Mirren director Gordon Scott with the aim of buying into the club. The basic structure of the proposed deal would see Gordon put up a substantial sum and SMiSA fundraising the rest from the supporters, with Gordon becoming chairman and main shareholder, and SMiSA getting a place on the board.
However there would be a legal agreement allowing us to buy Gordon out over the long term and thus achieve majority fan ownership of the club at some point in the future.
We have submitted a conditional proposal to the consortium, and would stress that one of the conditions is that nothing will be formalised without the approval of SMiSA members.
So if a deal was to be agreed in principle with the consortium, we would put the terms of that before our members and ask them to vote on whether we proceed. If the membership agreed, we would start fundraising, and the wider support would then have it in their power to make it happen.
As things stand, no agreement has been made with the consortium. However we remain in contact with them and look forward to maintaining a positive dialogue. We have been working on this process behind the scenes now for months and while it has gone on longer than we would have liked, that is because we are determined to do it right.
We believe that nobody will take better care of our club than you, the supporters, and that working with Gordon offers a sustainable route through which the fans can safeguard St Mirren’s future.
Ultimately we are negotiating on behalf of you, the supporters, and we take that responsibility seriously. We are only going to put a deal in front of the fans if we are confident it is robust and viable – at which point it would be your call what happens next.
We hope you appreciate that due to the sensitive nature of the discussions, we are unable to say any more than we have at present, however we will keep members updated where it is appropriate to do so.
The SMiSA committee