ANXIETY over the financial future of Rangers has resurfaced as £2.4 million was wiped off its operating company's stock market value yesterday.

The share price slumped to an all-time low just days after fans and investors had bought into an open share offer. It meant people who had paid 20p a share last week saw them fall to 18p.

Rangers International Football Club's (RIFC) share price, which started yesterday on 22p, dropped to a low of 18p then reached 19p at the close of trading.

It means the share price has slumped by more than half since July last year, when then chief executive Craig Mather said the club was "living within [its] means".

Yesterday's share price drop brings the market value of RIFC down from £17.93m to £15.48m in one day.

The crash has wiped 73 per cent off the holdings of fans and investors who bought into the share offer of December 2012, when they were on offer for 70p. The Initial Public Offering championed by former chief executive Charles Green raised about £22m.

Chris Graham of the Union of Fans, the Rangers supporters coalition group, said: "The business is ailing. It is ­obviously a concern that the share price is constantly going south."

On Saturday it emerged Newcastle owner Mike Ashley was waiting in the wings with a cash rescue package as the new share issue failed to raise the £3.6m that the Rangers board were seeking.

The UoF said the £2.7m the club did manage to raise would barely get it through to Christmas.

RIFC confirmed it had managed to sell 15,667,860 shares to help fund the club, but that was just 667,860 above the minimum threshold that would have seen the offer collapse and the prospect of a second administration beckoning. It was also nearly £1m short of the net amount the board had hoped to raise.

Rangers said the completion of the share offer "strengthens our financial position and provides funds which allow the company to start implementing the strategy to rebuild and re-establish Rangers as a stable, sustainable and successful business to deliver both shareholder value and footballing success".

The club at the same time agreed a substantial settlement with former commercial director Imran Ahmad over his £620,000 bonus dispute. Before the settlement and the share offer, the club was left with £1.2m in working capital. Before the open offer, it emerged that chief executive Graham Wallace would not be buying any shares, because he has never taken a stake in the club since his appointment in November last year.

Part-time financial director Philip Nash, who was only elevated onto the board at the end of July, took 179,000 ordinary shares and took more than 54,000 from the new offer. Chairman David Somers took 14,000 more shares to take his holding up to 61,186, while director James Easdale boosted his Ibrox portfolio to 464,946.