Portsmouth set to go in to administration department as takeover talks strike difficulty

Portsmouth will go into administration on Friday unless a buyer comes forward.

Hong Kong businessman Balram Chainrai is in talks with four different consortia about a takeover but admits it is "unlikely" a deal will be done.

With a winding up order due in the High Court on Monday, the decision has been taken to go into administration instead to save the club.

Feeling blue: Portsmouth players have suffered a torrid season

Portsmouth said in a statement: "Businessman Balram Chainrai, the owner of Portsmouth Football Club, has today served notice that the club will go into administration unless new owners can be found by Friday (February 26).

"Mr Chainrai and fellow investors from his Portpin investment vehicle, are in London to continue talks with representatives of four different groups interested in buying the south coast club, but have had to reluctantly accept that it is now unlikely a deal can be done before a winding up hearing due to be heard in the High Court on Monday."

Chainrai"s spokesman Phil Hall said administration - which carries a nine-point penalty in the Premier League - would keep the club alive as the winding up order would be automatically suspended.

Portsmouth have debts of 70million and the winding up order was over 7.5million owed to HM Revenue and Customs.

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Hall said: "There is now only a short window of opportunity for buyers to come in with a credible offer. We have to be realistic and having the club wound up is not an option as far as we are concerned.

"They are victims of circumstances having injected funds in the form of a short-term loan to the Al Faraj Group, who subsequently invested the money in the club.

"The partners have put 17million of their own money into the club and have a responsibility to ensure Portsmouth survives.

"Administration would mean the club re-emerging as a healthy financial entity and it would then become an attractive proposition for a potential buyer who could invest new funds in rebuilding the club"s future.

Testing time: Manager Avram Grant has little chance of keeping the club up

"We would like to ask the fans, the staff and management of Portsmouth Football Club for their support and patience should this step be taken as they believe it is the only route left open to them.

"The serving of this notice means the winding up order is automatically suspended. It means the club is safe, it can fulfil its fixtures and as far as is possible it is business as usual.

"Mr Chainrai hopes the supporters will get fully behind the team as usual for their Premier League match at Burnley on Saturday and the following weekend"s FA Cup quarter-final at home to Birmingham."

Hall said Chainrai would continue to finance Portsmouth until a buyer is found.

He added: "Mr Chainrai has agreed to continue funding the club going forward until its long-term future is decided and he will also pay for the administration process out of his own pocket."

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Murdered Post Office owners father was confronted by armed raiders

Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent , : {}

An armed raider confronted the husband of a post office owner and told him, Weve got your wife, before demanding cash, police said.

Diana Garbutt, 40, was found dead in the upstairs living quarters of the village store in Melsonby, near Richmond, North Yorkshire, by her husband, Robin.

Detectives said that Mrs Garbutt died from severe head injuries but would not say how she received them. She had not been shot.

Detective Superintendent Lewis Raw, from North Yorkshire Police, said Mr Garbutt had been working downstairs in the shop when he was confronted by the raider just after he opened the post office part of the business at 8.30am on Tuesday. The robber escaped with a substantial amount of money in a holdall.

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He said that Mr Garbutt, 44, had called paramedics after finding his wife upstairs. It is believed that the masked intruder broke into the living quarters of the post office before making his way to the shop.

Mr Raw said: The man threatened Mr Garbutt, saying Weve got your wife. The male then made off with a significant amount of money, which he had placed in a black holdall.

Mr Raw added: This is a shocking crime which has left Mr Garbutt distraught and the residents of Melsonby very shocked and saddened.

Police are determined to bring Mrs Garbutts killer to justice. However, we need the assistance of members of the public who were in the area at the time to come forward.

He added: This would have been a fairly busy time in the village, with people travelling to work or school.

We are appealing for anyone who may have seen a suspicious or unknown vehicle in the village or saw one leave the village at that time, or if you saw a man dressed in dark clothing and wearing a mask, to come forward.

He also asked people to look out for any discarded balaclavas.

Early yesterday long traffic queues formed on the roads in and out of the village as police stopped drivers to ask if they had seen anything. Anyone walking past the post office was also stopped and spoken to.

About 30 bouquets had been laid at the scene by yesterday morning and, as parents taking their children to school walked past, more tributes were handed to officers.

The suspect was described as 5ft 11in to 6ft tall, wearing a black, tight-fitting mask, a dark blue, long-sleeved T-shirt and dark blue-black jeans.

People living and working near the post office said that they did not notice anything unusual until an ambulance and armed police arrived.

Mrs Garbutts business The Village Shop and Post Office is at the heart of the village, a few miles north of Richmond.

The murder comes almost exactly a year since armed robbers targeted the post office. On that occasion police said that two men, one armed with what appeared to be a handgun, threatened staff and made off with stamps and a large amount of cash.

Villagers said that Mrs Garbutt and her husband, who ran the store with her, had put the business up for sale but, it appears, they had recently decided to stay.

Linda Sharp, who works part-time in the shop and lives in a nearby cottage, said of them: A lovely couple, just very devoted. I feel very sorry for Robin, I dont know how hell go on without her.

Ms Sharp said she thought Mr and Mrs Garbutt had been married for about five or six years.

She added. I never heard a thing. I opened my curtains around 8.15am and saw the kids waiting for the bus, went to make my bed and then saw the ambulance.

Fortress Murrayfield gets ready for England in quarrel for Calcutta Cup

Melanie Reid & , : {}

Ask a Scotsman to list his countrys biggest victories over the English and he will be succinct. Bannockburn 1314; Wembley 1967; Murrayfield 1990. When it comes to that absurdly abdominal happiness of seasoned mixture the auld enemy, it seems, any eminence in between fight and competition is insignificant.

This afternoon, twenty years on from that last epic, rugby players again turn warriors; and inhabitant emotions are once again hopelessly firm up with the opening of fifteen men in blue as the Calcutta Cup is motionless at Murrayfield Stadium.

It should not be this way, a couple of hundred thousand differently receptive Scots are revelation themselves, but it is. We simply cannot assistance it.

What raises the stakes of march are the parallels with events of 1990. Then, as now, the Scotland rugby group was at the bottom of the table. And the English, who in 1990 thought they had the Grand Slam in the bag, are still in row for this years championship.

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Back afterwards in a inapplicable designation they are doubtful to repeat the English committed the sin of coming Fortress Murrayfield with audacity in their hearts. They had their cinema taken with their wives and girlfriends on the representation prior to the game, as if in arrogance of something to celebrate.

For a Murrayfield kick-off in the days prior to such things were garlanded with squibs, bangs and bagpipes, the Scots constructed shining drama. Led by captain David Sole they walked rather than ran on to the representation a hair-raising impulse that still leads those who witnessed it to contend I was there.

Like the time that Jim Baxter played keepie uppie around the English football group at Wembley, this was one of those epiphanies that passes down from Scottish father to son. As Robert Louis Stevenson put it: For that is the pitch of the Scots of all classes: that he . . . remembers and cherishes the memories of his forbears, great or bad; and there browns alive in him a clarity of temperament with the passed even to the twentieth generation.

But was the 1990 Calcutta Cup only a box of an desirous Scots rugby group violation out the age-old adversary or a pitch of something deeper?

Brian Moore, the England player, pronounced that the feat was down to domestic forces loathing of Margaret Thatcher and the check taxation examination in Scotland, and xenophobia.

And in The Grudge, a book about the 1990 game, publisher Tom English additionally interprets the compare as the essence of the Scottish republic in criticism at a supervision with no assign north of the Border. He reports how, at a press conference, Will Carling, Englands captain, was asked about years of English hardship over Scotland. Carling replied, in a criticism unreported until now: Well, I have not been oppressing you, have I? Im English but, surprisingly, I was not around in 17-f******-whatever. I wasnt only heading the assign at Culloden, was I?

Carling to illustrate pinned down the stupidity of the feelings around any Scotland-England tie but which, in this case, might only have helped shape metal the approach for a Scottish parliament.

Post-devolution, one can disagree that cross-Border tussles are no longer relevant. Besides, how can todays diversion have anything to do with governing body when the infancy of todays genteel, secretly prepared Murrayfield throng are some-more expected to be Unionists than supporters of the Nationalist government?

Some would contend that all that stays is lost romance: middle-class Scotland removing as close as it ever does to revelation someone they love them in public. More pragmatically, the enthusiasm could merely be an countenance of that old Scots view that decrees that as prolonged as we kick the English the OK.

Todays veteran players will not be any less beautiful in their enterprise to kick the English. This is a diversion that arouses blue jerseys to heights of perfomance; they will fool around their hearts out.

And if they win there will be jagged joy. As Andy Murray once said: We Scots have a extreme honour in the things we do that others can never appreciate. Just as well, perhaps.

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Prudential creates 15bn grab for AIGs Asian arm

Iain Dey & , : {}

PRUDENTIAL, Britains greatest insurer, is plotting a fifteen billion takeover bid for the Asian resources of the uneasy American opposition AIG.

Tidjane Thiam, the Prus arch executive, is in New York this week end putting a offer to the AIG board.

The Pru would issue new shares to account the understanding in what would be one of the largest ever such fundraisings by a British company.

If he can sign the deal, Thiam will concrete the Prus on all sides as a widespread force in Asia. It already ranks as the largest or second-largest insurer in scarcely each Asian nation open to unfamiliar investors.

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Thiam has only weeks to bind a deal. AIGs Asian commercial operation is due to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange subsequent month, with a organisation of eight investment banks lined up to hoop the listing. Derailing the boyant would need capitulation from the American government, that owns 80% of AIG after a array of bailouts.

American taxpayers have pumped about 120 billion in to the word firm, creation it the greatest target of state assist anywhere in the world.

AIG lost billions by investments in formidable derivative contracts. Most of the poisonous trade was finished in London by a auxiliary called AIG Financial Products.

The rescue was one of the majority argumentative bailouts of the promissory note crisis, and stays a concentration of open inquiries in America.

AIGs underlying word businesses, that sell car and home word as well as hold up and grant products, sojourn rarely cherished assets.

The Prus move might set off a behest fight with opposition general word groups, that courted AIG over the Asian commercial operation prior to the association motionless to ensue with the boyant plans.

Prudential, that will shortly inform the full-year results, declined to comment.

The Asian understanding comes among stability conjecture about the destiny of the groups British businesses. Resolution, the bid car set up by the businessman Clive Cowdery, is penetrating to take Prus UK operations.

Thiam has regularly pronounced that he needs the cashflow from the British commercial operation to await expansion elsewhere in the universe and to say the groups clever credit rating.

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Portsmouth owners pledges 15m to keep bar alive until May Portsmouth

Nick Szczepanik & , : {}

Balram Chainrai, the Portsmouth owner, has affianced �15 million to keep the bar alive until the finish of the deteriorate in the goal that administrators will find a customer in the meantime.

A matter of affairs rebuilt by Vantis constructed at the High Court on Tuesday, showed that the clubs liabilities surpass their resources by �65 million and that they need an submit of �7 million to reach the finish of this month and the same volume again to last until the finish of May.

But a minute was review out in that Chainrai betrothed that the income would be available, whilst Andrew Andronikou, the administrator, believes that he can keep the bar afloat with almost less than �15 million. As youve seen by the sum demonstrated in the Vantis report, there is a cashflow that has been formulated that shows theres a [shortfall] of �12-14 million, he said. I think thats approach far-reaching of the mark.

Portsmouth were in justice for the second time in 3 weeks since Revenue Customs disputes the basement on that Chainrai put them in to intentional administration department department department department last Friday. They will be behind again in the week commencement Mar fifteen after being systematic to exhibit full sum of a series of exchange involving Chainrai, his association Portpin Ltd and Falcondrome, the association belonging to Ali al-Faraj that owned the bar and that Portpin took over when it longed for seductiveness payments on loans from him.

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In elementary terms, they questioned either Portpin had essentially modernized any income to the company, that is strange, since in Nov Portpin paid about �5 million of PAYE and VAT for them, Andronikou said. Unfortunately, you cant mount up in justice and state the obvious.

The Revenue are not happy, and probably utterly rightly, that there is an towering standing in football for the football creditors, and thats the underlying reason they are upset. This was a blood-letting routine that had to be left through, but Im blissful weve finished it, since it will strictly transparent up, as the decider [Mr Justice Norris] said, a shade over the effect of this administration.

Assuming that Andronikou is fit in his idea that he will be means to go on his work after Mar fifteen if not, Revenue could replenish the winding-up apply to he has eight weeks in that to delineate proposals to compensate off debts and a serve dual weeks to put them prior to a creditors meeting.

However, he contingency aim to compensate behind twenty-five per cent of the value of debts or Revenue could opinion down the plans. And if he fails to grasp a Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) with creditors, Portsmouth mount to have some-more points deducted subsequent deteriorate than the 9 for entering administration department department department department this season.

The great headlines on Tuesday was that Revenue concluded in element that administration department department department department stays preferable to liquidation. Were the bar to go out of commercial operation completely, the clubs personification resources would have no value, with their registrations delinquent to the FA.

As it is, they can be sold, with the Vantis inform calculating approximately their sum value as �21 million, that would realize some-more than the twenty-five per cent target. It was claimed in justice that Peter Storrie, the arch executive, had claimed that he could get �38 million for them, but that is doubtful.

Andronikou intends to aspire to the probability of offered players outward the send window when he meets the Premier League on Thursday, even though he has the suggest of supports from Chainrai. Before we took the pursuit on, we asked for on trial monetary await if we indispensable it, and he regularly pronounced he would put the income in, and I never doubted it since theyve got a vested interest, he said.

I need to settle just on what basement it is being modernized to me but effectively it is there to guarantee the evident destiny of the football club. I am in discussions with the Premier League on Thursday. They are hopefully going to support me in bridging that gap.

"Free iPad" fraud swelling on Facebook and Twitter, warns Sophos Technology

The Apple iPad: not accessible by Facebook or Twitter - nor even Apple, yet. Photograph: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP

It"s a day for scams. Think you"ve been since the possibility to pointer up as an iPad tester around Facebook? No you haven"t - it"s a fraud that essentially signs you up to a reward rate mobile service, warns the security association Sophos.

"Facebook pages with names such as "iPad Researchers Wanted - Get An iPad Early And Keep It!" and "The Mega iPad Giveaway!" chase on the public"s enterprise to own a free iPad," records Sophos.

Graham Cluley, comparison record expert at Sophos, has explained the fraud on his blog.

Here"s how it works. The fraud pages typically take their dictated victims by a 3 step process:1) "Become a Fan" of the page; Two) "Invite your friends" to additionally turn fans of the page, and take piece in the "special promotion" [they competence not stay your friends for that prolonged thereafter - CA]; Three) "Claim" or "Apply" for your prize. Some of the pages feign to have thousands of certain comments from alternative Facebook users claiming that the suggest is genuine, Sophos notes. And it"s additionally using on Twitter - so beware there of people or accounts charity "Free Apple iPad!" or similar. (The key, between alternative points, is that Apple hasn"t essentially started offered the iPad yet: it won"t do that until April.) When the plant relates for the esteem they are typically taken to an online quiz, and their mobile phone series is requested so they can be sent the results. "As if mouth-watering all of your friends to experience in a intrigue that you haven"t scrupulously investigated wasn"t bad enough, the greatest inapplicable designation of all is to palm over your mobile phone number," pronounced Graham Cluley, comparison record expert at Sophos. "You will be sealed up for a reward rate service, costing you in the segment of $10 each week, until you unsubscribe. The scammers who combined the feign iPad Facebook pages are positively skimming off a little of this income by bringing new oblivious subscribers to the cellphone service."

Cluley notes: "The great headlines is that after I alerted Facebook"s security group about this page they infirm it really promptly. However, the bad headlines is that there are majority alternative identical Facebook pages being combined on the amicable network written to fraud gullible users.

"Not all of them feign to suggest an iPad, so be on your ensure for alternative scams too. The majority critical thing to recollect is to not entice your friends to any Facebook page or focus until you have entirely researched what it"s about. Furthermore, you should never be tempted to palm over your mobile phone series to a little dumb internet quiz." There"s additionally a video display how the fraud works. The lesson: be wary. And stop wanting free stuff. There"s regularly a cost to pay.

Pressure grows on appetite suppliers to pass on cost cuts

Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor & , : {}

Five of Britains greatest appetite companies were confronting ascent vigour to cut prices last night after total from Ofgem, the industry regulator, showed the normal enlarge they warranted per domicile leapt 40 per cent this winter to the top turn in five years.

Ofgem pronounced that net distinction margins warranted by the supposed Big Six companies British Gas, ScottishPower, EDF Energy, N-Power, Scottish Southern Energy (SSE) and E.ON widened from �75 per normal twin fuel patron last Nov to �105 at the begin of this month.

The figure represents the top normal domain enjoyed by the industry given 2004, nonetheless Ofgem pronounced that the enlarge was approaching to be ephemeral after the preference by British Gas to trim the gas prices by 7 per cent. Its move is approaching to open the floodgates to offer cuts from rivals.

Nevertheless, the inform triggered uninformed critique of the industry for unwell to pass on indiscriminate cost cuts earlier as Centrica, the owners of British Gas, prepares to inform an estimated 50 per cent enlarge in 2009 enlarge to �550 million on Thursday.

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Mike OConnor, arch comparison manager of Consumer Focus, the industry watchdog said: Householders will no disbelief consternation given margins have increasing for the fifth entertain in a row, whilst indiscriminate costs go on to fall.

Ed Miliband, Energy and Climate Change Secretary, additionally called for the superfluous companies to revoke prices. Householders confronting high winter fuel bills merit to see the benefits as shortly as possible, he said. British Gass cut was a acquire initial move, but we need to see all suppliers flitting on the benefits of revoke indiscriminate prices.

Between 2007 and 2010, the normal UK appetite check for a twin fuel patron soared from �912 to �1,223, according to MoneySupermarket.com.

Andrew Wright, Ofgems comparison partner for markets, concurred that the companies need to be essential to means outrageous infrastructure investments estimated at �200 billion by 2020 to secure reserve and revoke CO emissions. But he combined that Ofgem would additionally design new falls in indiscriminate appetite costs to be upheld on to consumers.

Britains appetite companies reaped outrageous enlarge this winter given they left the prices they assign consumers mostly unvaried from last year whilst indiscriminate prices they paid for gas and appetite plummeted in the recession. By the finish of 2009, the indiscriminate cost of gas had depressed to next 40p per therm, down from some-more than 100p per therm during mid-2008.

Demand for gas and physical phenomenon was additionally high given of scarcely cold weather.

Christine McGourty, executive of Energy UK, that represents the heading gas and physical phenomenon companies, pronounced the Ofgem total wanting most of the simple costs faced by appetite companies.

MPs call for remodel of "flawed" physical phenomenon market

Britains physical phenomenon markets are innately injured and anti-competitive practices might be forcing up the costs paid by consumers, MPs have said.

The investigate from the Energy and Climate Change Committee on the destiny of Britains physical phenomenon networks additionally called for the key of a some-more fit intelligent grid able of cleverly handling direct and supply.

Paddy Tipping MP, a cabinet part of said: Our existent regulatory and process frameworks, along with the grid infrastructure we rely on, were grown to offer the hoary fuel economy of the 20th century. The destiny looks really different.

Mr Tipping called for a examination of the British Electricity Trading and Transmission Arrangements, that have shaped the substructure for UK appetite wake up given 2005. He additionally pronounced that by 2020 the UK network would need to house a some-more different appetite mix.