SAINTS are ultra-keen to relieve former chairman Rupert Lowe and his former boardroom allies of their shares.

The controversial former chairman made a surprisingly quiet return to St Mary's yesterday for the Michael Wilde regime's first annual shareholders meeting.

Lowe arrived along with his former directors Andrew Cowen, Mike Richards and David Windsor-Clive.

But while those three all posed financially-related questions, Lowe - still the club's third largest individual shareholder behind Wilde and Leon Crouch - remained quiet.

The Lowe camp - which also containes another ex-chairman in Guy Askham and Michael Withers - still possess around a quarter of the total 28m Southampton Leisure Holdings shares.

And it is believed that fact is potentially holding up Wilde's plans to attract new investment into the football club.

PLC board chairman Ken Dulieu told shareholders: "We are not for looking back, we are only for looking forward.

"It's no good for any business to have hostile shareholders and we will be doing our best to resolve that issue."

Chief executive Jim Hone also hit back at Richards' question asking if the board were concerned that cash might run out by the end of this season if no new investment is forthcoming and no players are sold in January.

Asked if he board were comfortable with the current financial position, Hone replied: "The simple answer is yes', we are comfortable."

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