Bill Colvin says his first priority as Dundee chairman will be to discuss signing targets with manager John Brown.
The millionaire businessman is set to be installed as Dens supremo after it was agreed at last night’s meeting of Dundee share-holders at the Gardyne Theatre to allow new shares to be created and sold to Football Partners Scotland, thereby granting them a controlling interest in the club.
The gathering was all but a formality after a meeting at the same venue on Monday evening when majority shareholder, Dundee FC Supporters’ Society and their members voted to accept the offer of investment from the FPS consortium, which consists of Colvin, former director Steve Martin and Texan backers Tim Keyes and John Nelms.
COLVIN ADDED: “Becoming chairman was not the plan when I first became involved with the club but I will be honoured to accept the post and hopefully I can give Dundee the benefit of my experience in business.
“The No 1 priority will be to sit down with the manager and talk about players he might want to bring in. There will not be a lot of money in the pot but we need to move quickly before the transfer window closes.”
The lengthy and, at times, acrimonious process leading to the takeover by FPS was something that Colvin admitted had caused him a great deal of frustration.
However, he insists it is time that everyone, including the consortium, the DFCSS as well as others such as the Dark Blue Business Trust, work together for the good of the club.
And he hopes now that the off-field developments have finally been concluded, the Dundee squad can fully concentrate on playing winning, attractive football.
Colvin admitted: “Yes, it had been frustrating. The reason we wanted to get things done quickly was so we could source the best players. The longer we waited, players signed for other clubs.
“The whole process really shouldn’t have gone on so long. If the club had been the subject of a complete takeover by a third party, I could understand why the society wanted to go through such a lengthy process.
“However, they will continue to be the largest individual shareholder and they will still have two people on the club board.
“It is important now though that everyone, the fans, FPS and the business trust, all work together for the good of the club.
“I am planning to come up and have regular meetings with the fans, who are the lifeblood of the club after all. Hopefully, we can get the new shares issued and the money in as quickly as possible.
“It would be good if the players had no off-field stuff to worry about. All we want is three points every Saturday. We also want to be entertained, with the lads playing decent football.
“I missed last Saturday’s defeat at Queen of the South but hopefully the result was just a blip.”
Despite the injection of cash into Dundee, Colvin insists that the club will continue to be financially prudent.
He said: “We will be having a review of all operating costs at the club. We need to work out a budget with everything, including the cost of the John Nelms and Tim Keyes youth academy being put into the mix. The club is now in the Championship and we have to adjust accordingly.
“We will certainly not be profligate with our money.”
* Dundee director Fraser MacDonald, a long-time opponent to the FPS bid, has resigned from the club board and the DFCSS.
He’s been replaced on the Dens board by fellow fan Colin Reid.