Gilmour and a number of other directors put their 52 per cent stake in the club up for sale in September 2009. Richard Atkinson and Chris Stewart joined the board the following summer as part of the 10000Hours CIC plans and have been given until next Friday to finalise their offer and make a bid.
However, according to Gilmour the club will finally be sold by the start of next season as there are other interested parties. Confidentiality has been used as an excuse for not revealing details of the bidders but the current chairman did say in The Herald: "A deal will definitely be done this summer, no doubt about that. The guys here are tired, some of them are struggling health-wise with it too. It's been going on for too long and it's time for a fresh start with new owners and a new board to take the club forward.
"I know we said to the St Mirren support that we would do everything we could to get a good group in to take over from us but I think we've exhausted that. There aren't local guys coming to us and offering the money required to take the club off our hands. And if they aren't making us an offer after three years, then they probably never will. So we have to look at other options."
Once again I find the timing of these bidders rather convenient. Going by Twitter, 10000Hours seemed to spend a great deal of last night's meeting trying to frighten folk into joining up or watch the club go into potentially nasty hands. This seems to be an extension of that.
If these bidders exist it is surely time for them to come forward or for someone to find out who they are. I appreciate there are confidentiality issues (although I have my doubts about those at well) but considering what gets leaked these days it's rather surprising nothing has yet surfaced about any of the other interested parties.
Story source: The Herald
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