Latest set of company accounts

[Ian Royal]

Some snippets:

Media and Broadcasting: 14.1 mill
Matchday Income: 5.2 mill
Commercial Income 5.6 mill
Rugby Income: 0.5 mill
Other Income 0.2 mill

Total Income - 25.7 mill

Wages - 30.7 million

Big fat I told y'all so right here (not really aimed at those on this thread who can find their arse without needing the use of both hands and a map).

Every fricking year people drastically overestimate how much we've cut our wage bill and can't do simple subtraction to see we're losing money hand over fist.


Just as a comparison from our thread last year, not 100% on how accurate these are:

(latest) 2015/16 In: £25.7m, Wages: £30.7m
2014/15 In: £35m, Wages: £33.3m
2013/14 In: £38.1m, Wages: £34.5m

There's no way we've cut our wage bill by more between this season and last season, than we did across the previous two seasons. So we're going to be losing big this year too without some fairly hefty bonus revenue.

[muirinho]

Some snippets:

Media and Broadcasting: 14.1 mill
Matchday Income: 5.2 mill
Commercial Income 5.6 mill
Rugby Income: 0.5 mill
Other Income 0.2 mill

Total Income - 25.7 mill

Wages - 30.7 million

Big fat I told y'all so right here (not really aimed at those on this thread who can find their arse without needing the use of both hands and a map).

Every fricking year people drastically overestimate how much we've cut our wage bill and can't do simple subtraction to see we're losing money hand over fist.


Just as a comparison from our thread last year, not 100% on how accurate these are:

(latest) 2015/16 In: £25.7m, Wages: £30.7m
2014/15 In: £35m, Wages: £33.3m
2013/14 In: £38.1m, Wages: £34.5m

There's no way we've cut our wage bill by more between this season and last season, than we did across the previous two seasons. So we're going to be losing big this year too without some fairly hefty bonus revenue.

Really pisses me off as well that people go on and on about transfer fees, like a free transfer costs nothing, and therefore the owners aren't putting any money in. It's wages that are killing us, not transfer fees

[CountryRoyal]

Anyone know how our wage bill compares with some of the others in the division? In the last 10-15 years we have been up there with the highest in the championship but would be interesting to see where we are at now, relatively.

[muirinho]

Anyone know how our wage bill compares with some of the others in the division? In the last 10-15 years we have been up there with the highest in the championship but would be interesting to see where we are at now, relatively.

Not sure all accounts are in yet, March is the deadline (as far as FFP is concerned anyway).

As Brighton have submitted their accounts I can tell you their wage bill was 27.4 million for 2015/2016. Don't ask me anything else about them though, I couldn't make head nor tail of their accounts, so I can't tell you what their overall debt is. But interesting that even though they don't have anybody on "premier league wages", on account of not having been there since forever (:D) , their total isn't too far off ours.

There is no breakdown of the wages in the accounts, so I don't know how much of our bill, was compensation due to both Steve Clarke and Brian McDermott. Sacking managers is an expensive business.

Note because of new rules, for FFP, in March clubs have to submit not just the results for the two previous seasons, but projections for the following season. I don't know if they will be public or not - if they are it would be interesting to see if we have managed to do anything to curtail the figures this year.

Even if there has been remarkable slashing of figures, I strongly suspect Stam's claim of being one of the lower payers is very very wrong.

[Ian Royal]

It's blatant bullshit.

As a very generous estimate, lets say we've cut our wage bill by twice the amount we managed for the previous season. That'd put us on about £25m

In 2012-13, Championship wage budgets ranged from £37.4m to £6.2m. £25m would have been the 7th highest. There is simply no way on Earth that the likes of Burton, Rotherham, Barnsley or Preston are on anything even close to £20m. We *might* no longer be in the top 10, but we're certainly not lower than about 14th / 15th.

Personally I doubt we've cut our bill that much and I'd say 6th to 10th is about right for where we sit.

[PieEater]

not current but you can see where were where.

[Nameless]

Only £518k from London Irish and £584k from their last season in the premiership...... Hardly seems worth it considering we paid £750k to lay the pitch!

Although Irish make (I believe) a 50% contribution to the pitch costs and amazingly we would need a pitch even if Irish weren't here !
500k does seem a relatively small amount but without it we'd be 500k more in the red each year. It would be bad business to simply get rid of all the revenue streams that only bring in the 500k....

[3points]

To put things into perspective, we owe our shareholders £36m and total loans of £59m according to our latest accounts. Brighton owe their shareholder (Tony Bloom) £147m. BHA value their stadium at £142m compared to ours at £25m. The main difference being is that Tony Bloom is lending money on an interest free basis (similar to the old SJM days) whereas we have borrowed money from Global Fixed Income Fund 1 Limited, a third party, presumably as the Thais do not have enough free cash themselves.

It also appears, per Companies House, that some of the Thais loans have been converted in equity post year end (about £8m or so) as of 25 October 2016 or so.

One final interesting* point is that the parent company to the football club has changed its accounting reference date from 30 June 2016 to 31 January 2017. This means the holding company does not need to file its accounts until 31 October 2017 so we still do not necessarily get a full picture of what's going on now.

[JamieY26]

Only £518k from London Irish and £584k from their last season in the premiership...... Hardly seems worth it considering we paid £750k to lay the pitch!

Although Irish make (I believe) a 50% contribution to the pitch costs and amazingly we would need a pitch even if Irish weren't here !
500k does seem a relatively small amount but without it we'd be 500k more in the red each year. It would be bad business to simply get rid of all the revenue streams that only bring in the 500k....

Don't get me wrong, I love having a decent rugby team on my doorstep, but I wonder how often we would need to replace the pitch if it was just football being played on it once every couple of weeks. The pitch looked dreadful for the QPR game. Maybe its time to up the rent?

[Nameless]

I believe the pitches are good for something like 80 games a year, so if you took 15 or so rugby games out you might get an extra season's use. But we'd still be worse off financially.
The state of the pitch for QPR was odd, there had been no rugby since 31st Dec so hard to imagine that had been an issue.
I had heard they were planning to reseed the pitch, maybe the reseeding hadn't gone to plan ?
Will be interesting to see what it looks like for Fulham 2. Rugby on Saturday and a u21 game on Monday but generally quite light usage in Jan so far.

Usage so far - 23 football matches, 9 rugby
Max usage to come - 14 football matches, 10 rugby. Football could be higher if we progress in youth competitions

[Brum Royal]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?

Also with GMac signing a new contract and now Illori coming in, that wage bill isn't going to be getting any better any time soon, unless we're planning a big sale in the summer in the event of not getting promoted.

[Hound]

The rugby question will be going away if and when they move to Brentford anyway. Not a fan of the sport personally, but can see the benefit of Irish playing in Reading. 500k is a pretty small sum for the damage to the pitch though as a result IMO - I don't know if the club gets any percentage of food sales during the games as well.

On reflection of these, I'm not sure these figures are so bad. I think its accepted only clubs in the Prem really make any money, I still think the club has the potential to attract an investor with money and who wants the kudos of owning a football club in a decent part of England within touching distance of London, and a potentially large fanbase. And that is probably the most likely way you can get success nowadays

And again seeing the sums Norwich and Forest are getting for players considering their league position, I'm sure we have the quality of players to sell to keep things going short term

[Nameless]

The rugby question will be going away if and when they move to Brentford anyway. Not a fan of the sport personally, but can see the benefit of Irish playing in Reading. 500k is a pretty small sum for the damage to the pitch though as a result IMO - I don't know if the club gets any percentage of food sales during the games as well

FFS...
We get 500k, which without LI becomes 500k less income which needs to be replaced. Any suggestions where we can magic up 500k per year (in addition to the 15 million we are already short....
We also get half the pitch maintenance costs paid. So without LI we suddenly need to find another 250k in pitch costs. i know there are two camps regarding whether rugby significantly damages the pitch but that is almost irrelevant. The pitch is needed, it needs maintenance and replacing every 2-3 years. The cost of th at won't change significantly if LI leave but we will have to cover the full cost.
As for the catering, we sell the rights to compass. I suspect they make very little at rugby matches currently but if there are 15 fewer events at the stadium the catering contract will be worth less.

[Dick Habbin's hairdo]

Only £518k from London Irish and £584k from their last season in the premiership...... Hardly seems worth it considering we paid £750k to lay the pitch!

Not being an accountant or pretending to understand the numbers, half a million quid or so for the Oirish to churn up the pitch does seem like chump change.

I mean, if one is going to be in debt for 70 odd million, then 500 grand for the rugger buggers to do their worst does seem a little, well, irrelevant.

Mind you, I suspect - or hope - that match day revenues from kiosk sales etc might also count.... but probably not that much.

[Hound]

calm down fella, I don't really care if they are there or not, and didn't say the 500k isn't useful, of course it is.

It just sounds a little low to me personally, even with the help with the upkeep of the pitch.

Realistically does anyone doubt playing Rugby on the pitch damages it? The money they give certainly isn't free money - it does come at the cost of the surface. Do RFC also need to employ additional people to cater for Irish playing there - i.e. additional groundsmen? I don't know the answer on that.

How much the damaged surface affects the ability for RFC to play football on it is a different debate though

[winchester_royal]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?
.

In order to comply with FFP, the Thais converted some of the loans due to them into equity.

[Brum Royal]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?
.

In order to comply with FFP, the Thais converted some of the loans due to them into equity.

Thanks, and forgive my ignorance here, but how do they do that (convert to equity)?

[muirinho]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?
.

In order to comply with FFP, the Thais converted some of the loans due to them into equity.

Thanks, and forgive my ignorance here, but how do they do that (convert to equity)?

Normally, it's where the company's creditors agree to write off some of the debt in return for equity. e.g., Company Y owes Company X 10 million, - Company X writes off the debt in return for a 5% slice of Company Y.

However in this case, the Thais are both the creditors and the shareholders. So they issue new stock in their company, and then swap it with themselves for the debt.

Basically, they have written off some of the debt.

[3points]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?
.

In order to comply with FFP, the Thais converted some of the loans due to them into equity.

Thanks, and forgive my ignorance here, but how do they do that (convert to equity)?

They just allocate themselves more shares. So if the amount they convert is £2m and the value of a share is £1, then they get an extra 2 million shares. Just accounting treatments - nothing to do with cash as the cash has already gone in (and been spent).

Another point to consider is that profit does not equal cash when dealing with many accounting matters. An example would be the expense of buying a player. If they paid £1m for a player (assuming all cash paid up front) and the guy had a 4 year contract then the cash goes on day 1, but the expense of the player would hit the profit and loss account at £250k per year. Therefore, in year 1 the debt will increase, but in years 2-4 the loss is not matched by a rise in debt

[winchester_royal]

Presuming these are the same accounts that the Evening Post did an article on the other day, I'll ask the same question that went unanswered on there:
If we lost £15m this year, how come the debt only went up by £5.3m?
.

In order to comply with FFP, the Thais converted some of the loans due to them into equity.

Thanks, and forgive my ignorance here, but how do they do that (convert to equity)?

They'll issue new shares (to themselves) at the value of the debt they are converting.

They're essentially writing off the loans as in the case of administration it is very difficult for equity holders to get their money back.