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Post by scoob on Jan 9, 2011 1:22:45 GMT
Whilst a little bored over Xmas I decided to look at a few other League Club's financial accounts to see how they compare. Several I looked at do not give much detail because as small companies they only have to submit Balance Sheets to Companies House but Shrewsbury's last accounts (attached) look very rosy. Some higlights with OUFC figures in brackets:- Turnover £4.2M (£1.9M) Loss £351k (£826k) Cash at Bank £1.6M (£5k) Net Current Assets £853k (Liabilities £1.5M) Fixed Assets £14.7M (£62k) Net Assets £13.3M (Liabilities £4.9M) Wages & Salaries £2.9M (Not stated) Players 38 (Not stated) Admin Staff 21 (Not stated) Other Staff 100 (Not stated) Chairman's Report very positive and thanking fans groups for their assistance and giving explanation of some key issues in the accounts. (OUFC = Factual Statement but little else). They own their stadium outright with no debt and a wedge of cash available if needed plus all net income from the stadium available to fund the team. How would we feel if our club was in this position? Would we all be moaning because auto promotion had not been achieved despite all of these resources? Or would we be happy with the club being well run on a prudent basis? I have not had much time to do any background research regarding their financial history but it does seem that they have been/are well managed financially and there is a good relationship between the Chairman (owner?) and supporter groups. So different to our own club (aimed at IL rather than KT)! Any thoughts/info? Attachments:
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Post by Millman on Jan 9, 2011 1:52:12 GMT
The turn over figure is impressive over twice ours, Is this due to owning the stadium do you think?
What would worry me from those figures if it was Oxford was that despite such high turnover the club was operating at a loss. Ok they have assets to cover the losses but still I wouldn't want us to do this (no more promotion gambles). Its a slippery slope as we well know.
Overall though It shows that without a stadium and with our debt how much of a struggle we face. I would kill for our club to have those figures.
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Post by 'Beav' on Jan 9, 2011 2:17:30 GMT
That being the year 2009 and not even 2010 make any difference at all?
I suppose they haven't been promoted but squad size, infrastructure change could have taken place and they may not that 'wedge of cash' they had at the end of that season?
I may have missed something and i'm only using your facts - i.e I know little-to-nothing about Shrewsbury.
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Post by scoob on Jan 9, 2011 5:01:12 GMT
The turn over figure is impressive over twice ours, Is this due to owning the stadium do you think? What would worry me from those figures if it was Oxford was that despite such high turnover the club was operating at a loss. Ok they have assets to cover the losses but still I wouldn't want us to do this (no more promotion gambles). Its a slippery slope as we well know. Overall though It shows that without a stadium and with our debt how much of a struggle we face. I would kill for our club to have those figures. I guess that the turnover figure is partially down to the Stadium which I believe has a good quality restaurant which is open 7 days a week so bringing in constant revenue, the hospitality/conference facilities are also used regularly and there are training pitches operated by another company. I also understand that the concourses are high quality (modelled on Rushden's ground) so probably encourages fans to spend more time/money at the ground on matchdays. Their average gate was 800 more than ours that season (C.£200k), they received League money compared to our Conference money (C.£500k??). They also reached the Play-Off final with 54,000 at Wembley so that must have added significant income. However, I believe that OUFC Turnover was up to almost £3M last season and maybe close to another £500k-£1M this season with League payments plus over 1000 crowd increase and that is without any stadium revenue. The Shrewsbury loss was offset slightly by over £200k of depreciation which does not require cash to pay for it so not as bad for the long term. They could make losses of £150k for ten years (ie losses pre depreciation) before the cash runs out whereas our ran out over a decade ago. I am not entirely sure how the stadium was funded. I believe the old ground was sold to a developer with the cash from that going to the club rather than a greedy bastard owner so I guess that funded most of the cost and there are grants of £2.2M outstanding but it appears that these do not need to be repaid. I guess the difference is that the owner who carried this all through went about it in the right way from the start (employing a property developer rather than selling the club's soul to the devil after he screwed up), did not draw off cash for his own benefit, then he sold it to a fan of another sport and his mate but kept a financial stranglehold on the club by retaining the ground. The current owner seems to have been very hands on but as their club probably made a loss last year their efforts can't be as good as our owner because we made a profit (as spun quoted at our Fans Forum this year). I wonder how happy with all of this the Shrewsbury fans are considering they failed to even make the play-offs last season despite all of that cash sloshing around. Sources: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrewsbury_Town_F.C. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Meadow |
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Post by scoob on Jan 9, 2011 5:10:12 GMT
That being the year 2009 and not even 2010 make any difference at all? I suppose they haven't been promoted but squad size, infrastructure change could have taken place and they may not that 'wedge of cash' they had at the end of that season? I may have missed something and i'm only using your facts - i.e I know little-to-nothing about Shrewsbury. Beav you may be right and maybe they used up more cash last season as they did not make the play-offs but I was just comparing like for like with our club. The fact that we are now only two points behind despite our recent woes, our owner's aparent lack of interest, and our lack of resources shows what a good job KT/CW and their teams (playing/backroom/admin) are doing. |
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Post by Gavin Archery on Jan 9, 2011 8:47:10 GMT
Very interesting figures.....
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Post by slappy on Jan 9, 2011 11:09:02 GMT
They are in a very fortunate position. A debt free stadium with no rent to pay, using income from that AND their excess cash to 'invest' in the playing budget. 2 play-offs in three years would have been a good money spinner. In a couple of years when the free cash has run out, they will either have to increase their Stadco income or reduce their playing squad and other costs which seems quite bloated.
They really should be doing better, as they are perhaps near to £1M p.a better off than us in terms of rent savings and stadco income, yet they are spending that plus more on players and are still in League 2 only 2 points ahead of us.
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Post by scoob on Jan 9, 2011 13:08:50 GMT
I agree with that Slappy except I think the cash will last a lot longer than you suggest unless their revenue falls significantly so they can afford to take some financial risks whereas KT has little room for manouvre.
On the pitch they have been underperforming as they probably have some of the best resources outside the Championship. I wonder if their fans have a different attitude to us having seen a fairly stable set up for some time.
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Post by Marked Ox on Jan 9, 2011 14:50:51 GMT
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Post by scoob on Jan 9, 2011 17:11:24 GMT
It seems like they generally agree with my view that their club is underperforming on the pitch but they seem a little more relaxed than similar threads that we have. It looks like their accounts have just been published by Companies House. Why do ours take 5 months longer to be published when they end on the same date?
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Post by seekeroftruth on Jan 9, 2011 20:57:55 GMT
It seems like they generally agree with my view that their club is underperforming on the pitch but they seem a little more relaxed than similar threads that we have. It looks like their accounts have just been published by Companies House. Why do ours take 5 months longer to be published when they end on the same date? Well if it takes 4 weeks to agree a set of min's and 5 years for the owner to sit down with the supporters trust, 5 months don seem so bad  |
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Post by brassmonkey on Jan 9, 2011 22:25:52 GMT
Do these figures include the wad of cash they got when Hart played for England? About half a mill if I remember correctly.
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Post by scoob on Jan 10, 2011 8:16:02 GMT
Do these figures include the wad of cash they got when Hart played for England? About half a mill if I remember correctly. If they received, or were owed, that money before 30 June 2009 then yes, if it was after that date then it would be included in the lastest accounts to 30 June 2010 that have just been released. |
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Post by Millman on Jan 10, 2011 9:06:26 GMT
Excellent breakdown and interesting thread scoob. As for how I would feel as I fan if these were our accounts. I would not be baying for blood or demanding promotion, but I would be wanting this overspending to stop. Any surplus that the club has should be used to improve facilities or revenue streams not p'd away on player wages. Maybe this is unusual for a fan (I'm sure some of the younger ones would want promotion at any cost) but growing up with the almost fatal mess of our accounts certainly tempers your priorities and wishes for your club.
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Post by scoob on Jan 11, 2011 0:55:37 GMT
I don't think you will be surprised to know that I agree with you Millman.
I am not sure of the source of Shrewsbury's cash. If it came from previous player sales (eg Hart mentioned above) then it seems fair enough to use it to boost the squad but if it was from surpluses generated by the ground move then that would be less acceptable to me if I were a Shrewsbury fan as the cash came from Capital which was gained over many years so could just be blown on wages/transfer fees pretty quick. If it was from a cash gift from the owners then its their choice what they do with it. At least the fact that they have cash gives choices and they have time to change their strategy before it becomes a problem. OUFC have few choices available at the moment.
What this does clearly illustrate though is being in a strong financial position does not always guarantee instant success. Maybe Graham Turner will be more astute than predecessors whilst building his own squad.
The whole point of looking at other club's was to try and get some idea of how competitive we are on a financial level. Some fans seem to think that Lenagan throwing cash ("investment") at Wilder is the only way forward so I was trying to get an idea of what money other club's have available. It is hard to do this when a number of club's only submit Abbreviated Accounts to Companies House but, of the few club's I have looked at so far show the following in their latest published accounts:
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Post by scoob on Jan 11, 2011 0:58:08 GMT
Cheltenham - Although their outside debt was stable the owners put in cash to cover most of their losses in 2008-2009 via a share issue & loans. The deficit on their P&L account increased by £875K for that year!
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Post by scoob on Jan 11, 2011 1:10:19 GMT
Gillingham - Turnover for 2008 & 2009 was stable at just below £5M but losses were 1.7M & £256k for those two years but over £1.2M of the big defecit was relating to sale of property and restructuring. I am sure other people know more about this than I do but this is a small quote on the stadium's Wikipedia page: "In December 2007, Gillingham shareholders passed a resolution to sell the ground to Priestfield Developments Ltd, a company wholly owned by Paul Scally, for £9.8m as part of a restructuring of the club's debts. The deal was to allow three years use of the stadium at £1 p.a., with the club meeting running costs, with tenure secured for a further seven years at a rent as yet unspecified." The smaller loss was made despite winning the L2 Playoffs and I wonder how they fared last season with back to back promotion/relegation.
Their 2009 Accounts showed net debt of £3.8M including bank overdraft of over £3M!
They give a detailed breakdown of expenditure and other items. In 2008-2009 (League 2) they had 41 players on their books and 41 other staff excluding matchday staff (Almost double OUFC current players and staff??). Player and management salaries were £1.8M other team related salaries were £458k plus Office Salaries of £175,000. Matchday costs of £300K (police, stewards etc). Interest on debt £300K.
I suggest that they are not in a very strong financial position.
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Post by scoob on Jan 11, 2011 1:19:02 GMT
Stevenage - May 2009 Creditors £611K, Net Current Liabilities £188k, P&L Account Defecit Increase by £110k. They seem to be in resonable health but I wonder what auto promotion cost them last season.
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Post by scoob on Jan 11, 2011 1:36:45 GMT
As I was not getting very far with looking at other club's accounts I thought about other ways of assessing where we are income wise:
My main reason for looking at other clubs was to get an idea of how competitive we can be despite not owning the stadium, paying rent and balancing the books. This may not be 100% accurate (75% maybe) but it is a start:
I believe that we should still be financially competitive because our crowds are still much larger than most League Two clubs.
If you take off a chunk to take account of the rent. The rent of £350k is the equivalent of no more than the revenue from 1400 (ie 1400 x 23 x £11) fans per game so that brings our average crowd down to 5800 which is still the fifth highest average gate in this league.
The main uncertainty is what additional revenue the other club's stadia generate in addition to the gate. For most clubs I do not believe that will be massive. The average crowd in this league is 4250 so if we take that from the 5800 above we have 1550 over the average. That equates to something over £400k higher than average gate income. However, if we take Bradford and the OUFC crowds off then the average for the league drops by 473 which is another £120k.
If Shrewsbury’s ground generates £1M more than ours (which I doubt) then most of the others will be much lower than that. Cheltenham, who are competing well at the moment have said that match day catering has been suffering badly this season and they have crowds over 4,000 below us.
On this basis I reckon that our spendable revenue must be in the top ten if not higher.
I shall have a look at the play off position teams when I get chance.
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Post by slappy on Jan 15, 2011 9:29:45 GMT
Scoob - here is the completely unbiased bulls banter take on the Shrewsbury finances. There's 50 pages to go through - I got as far as page 1. |
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