[Archived] Blackburn Rovers balance sheet

[thenodrog]

Exactly. Don't expect me to be thankful for their altruism. Oh, what a fraction of this money could have achieved 2/3 years ago with a little more sense and less arrogance.

Fools and their money...........

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/news/8736180.Blackburn_Rovers_owners__Why_we_sacked_Sam_Allardyce/

How does that read now? And to think some numpty's around these parts hated a top Premier league manager (who had already saved us from certain relegation once) so much that they lapped it up with relish. We've been relegated and lost a bloody fortune. I'd like to think that there have been lessons learned by a lot of people both in India and here, but I seriously doubt it.

Oh btw what did happen to 4-4-2? Even Steve bloody @#/? Kean had to give up to that.

[Rover_Shaun]

I was wondering when someone would bring Sam into it. Took longer than I expected. Not that it isn't a valid point even if it has little bearing on the here and now

[Stuart]

Confirmation of the 27m losses merely goes to show how unrealistic the concept of Trust ownership is.

I can't believe this is still a view - especially of a regular poster.

Option 1 - The Trust have a stake in a well run Championship club as a board member with stable, solvent owners

Option 2 - The Trust pick up the pieces running a team in the Skrill Premier or below

But if FFP does come to pass, it won't matter if owners are wealthy or not, because they will still have to raise money through income. Me and you could pitch up to the bank with a business plan, Rev.

Personally I'm glad the Trust already have a couple of bases covered so we don't have to.

[West Yorks Rover]

Northern Rover ‏@Northern_Rover 35m

Bala chilling. Deary me, is that meant to look cool? pic.twitter.com/0tkWZPSMzY

May as well put this here. Always thought Balaji was a right tit? Well here's his left one.

Funny, you never see him and his sister in the same photo.

[thenodrog]

I was wondering when someone would bring Sam into it. Took longer than I expected. Not that it isn't a valid point even if it has little bearing on the here and now

Thats cos there are still plenty of plonkers out there who still refuse to admit that their judgement isn't worth a light.

[OJRovers]

FFP in the championship is just going to benefit the clubs coming down from the premier league and make it easier to bounce straight back up. It will weaken the championship clubs so much that they won't have much hope of staying up even if they go up.

[yoda]

Funny, you never see him and his sister in the same photo.

same said about Michael and Latoya Jackson

Mrs D is Balaji

scarry

[darrenrover]

Has anyone considered the 'group of companies scenario' ? Where BRFC and VLL are under the umbrella of a protracted group structure and on that basis losses in one subsidiary company offset profits in another and thus proves to be tax efficient.

Perhaps financial gurus such as philipL may be able to throw more light on the matter as my suggestion is mere conjecture.

If this were so, Rovers wouldn't be such a massive financial burden on the Raos as we all tend to think.

[Rover_Shaun]

same said about Michael and Latoya Jackson

Funny, you never see him and his sister in the same photo.

[yoda]

photo shop

[West Yorks Rover]

That has been tampered with !

[Leonard Venkhater]

Northern Rover ‏@Northern_Rover 35m

Bala chilling. Deary me, is that meant to look cool? pic.twitter.com/0tkWZPSMzY

May as well put this here. Always thought Balaji was a right tit? Well here's his left one.

Well Bob, trivia is such a fine thing.. I don't expect it to gain him any sympathy, but the medical term is" gynaecomastia". Apparently, the left is the most common presentation..

"Got the Gynaecomastia,,Glasgow Mafia Blues.".......Don't think it will be a hit....

[bob fleming]

I'm not even going to look it up Len. Is gynaecomastia the inability to fasten a shirt up properly?!

[Leonard Venkhater]

I'm not even going to look it up Len. Is gynaecomastia the inability to fasten a shirt up properly?!

Haha..Very 70's -oldest swinger in town, Shadsworth Sett End look.."I've got so much to give.."

.

Trust me..You don't need to look it up. Gynaecomastia is Greek word, which means the magical;ability to assimilate 20 years of premier management knowledge by a kind of mental osmosis.

Well he did learn the game very quickly, didn't he? Now you know how...

[yoda]

That has been tampered with !

you notice how all the heads are a different angles,

they were wobbling

[Leonard Venkhater]

you notice how all the heads are a different angles,

they were wobbling

Ha Brilliant!

[bluebruce]

Sorry if this has already been answered, but it's late at night for me to go reading the whole thread.

I'm hoping the more account-savvy can explain something for me. The LT says that this is the second set of accounts Venkys London have filed. The first set was a small (negligible) profit. The second set...well, the turnover is down by approx 45 million. But the staff costs are down by 30 million and the operation expenses by 7 million. Which implies that there is an 8 million differential instead of the 27 million one posted. So, where has the other 19 million come from? Did we really spend that much on transfer fees last summer and January? Maybe signing on fees were counted separate to 'staffing costs'? And agent fees too I suppose. But these also have to be up on last year's accounts. Turnover presumably includes player trading, so we'd be looking at player spend, signing on fees and agents fees being 19 million higher than such fees were in the preceding summer and January? That seems...far fetched? Or is there some other source of costs that will have gone up considerably? Usually you spend less in all or most areas after a relegation. Something just seems a little off.

[awhom111]

I had a chance to look through the accounts and here are some observations:

-Comparing a 12 month period (April 1st, 2012 to March 31st, 2013) to a 17 and a half month period, which is what the statements do, is exceedingly annoying to add to the existing annoyance of the cutoffs for the fiscal year for the holding company not aligning with the club and the season.

-In addition to the club, the holding company also has the investment in Hitlab, but other than as a 3 million asset on the books, it appears to have no effect on anything.

Revenue (total of 35,681,644):

-Gate Receipts 14.5%

-Sponsorship, Advertising, and Commercial 10.1%

-Broadcast 70.0%

I think you can see the issues on the revenue side if we are not promoted before parachute payments run out

Expenses (total of 62,820,478):

-At nearly 40 Million, our staff costs alone exceed our revenues by nearly 11%. Note that this does not include transfer expenses.

Balance Sheet:

-We currently have over 52 million in book value for property with 6.6 million of that in the form of land.

-Our current liabilities (due between April 1st, 2013 and March 31st) are listed at over 32 million with another 5.2 million in future years.

Owner's Equity:

-Over 24 million new shares in the holding company were issued with 10 million of them covered from reserves from the prior year, and the remainder being another cash injection.

Overdraft:

-The current Bank of India arrangement runs through at the end of the month. It was done at Libor +240 last time. At the end of the March we had 10.3 Million in bank loans and overdraft.

-On operations alone, we had 20.9 million more cash go out than come in over the course of the year. Various financing mechanisms reduced that to only 11.8 million more going out than coming in after taking into account other cash activities.

After the statements (between April 1st and whenever these documents were finalized, likely late in August):

-We have had 1.5 million more in transfers out than transfers in from transfers made since March. This probably missed most of the later activity in the transfer window.

-Employee termination agreements since March have resulted in us owing 2,790,000.

-The total of all add-ons to transfers in that we could possibly owe (not counting percentage of sales figures) is 8.4 million.

Transfers:

-Over the period, we purchased players for 16.6 million. Note that this does not say anything about how much of that has been paid and how much will be paid in the future.
-We paid out 12.6 million in transfer fees and received 8.2 million.

-Assuming that I am understanding the categorizations correctly, we owe about 8.7 million on transfers from prior seasons during this year and another 3.2 million sometime after next March. Again these are on purchases made before April and do not include this summer.

-Following those same categorizations, we are owed 1.7 million this year for sales from previous seasons.

-Players we sold had a book value of 3.5 million at time of sale after originally costing us 8.4 million.

This is an important concept:

Transfer fees are amortized over the length of the initial contract for the purposes of determining our expense this year. Hypothetically, if we bought a player for 8 million in the summer of 2012 and signed him to a four year contract, he would contribute 2 million in expenses for each year of his contract in addition to his salary expenses. If we had hypothetically sold him during the summer of 2013, the only amount that we could claim as profit would be the amount we sold him for in excess of the 6 million that he would still be valued at on our books and of course we would have saved on his salary.

Sorry if this has already been answered, but it's late at night for me to go reading the whole thread.

I'm hoping the more account-savvy can explain something for me. The LT says that this is the second set of accounts Venkys London have filed. The first set was a small (negligible) profit. The second set...well, the turnover is down by approx 45 million. But the staff costs are down by 30 million and the operation expenses by 7 million. Which implies that there is an 8 million differential instead of the 27 million one posted. So, where has the other 19 million come from? Did we really spend that much on transfer fees last summer and January? Maybe signing on fees were counted separate to 'staffing costs'? And agent fees too I suppose. But these also have to be up on last year's accounts. Turnover presumably includes player trading, so we'd be looking at player spend, signing on fees and agents fees being 19 million higher than such fees were in the preceding summer and January? That seems...far fetched? Or is there some other source of costs that will have gone up considerably? Usually you spend less in all or most areas after a relegation. Something just seems a little off.

It is all a little bit more complicated than this. I will try to answer this sometime later perhaps.

[PAFELL]

Whoa, hang on a minute. You said "the majority spend well beyond their means" then name Leicester who lost £29m and Bolton. Both of which had owners who apparently are controlling those losses. Forest lost £12m and Brighton £8m, neither which measure up to rovers latest annual loss of very likely more than £30m.

The problem for me is that I'm not convinced that Rovers losses have been managed losses. By that, I mean planned for and at an acceptable level for the owners. You seem to be arguing that there is no problem because the owners are investing that money and will continue to do so. We don't know if there's any truth at all in that - do we? There is a viewpoint that rather than Venky's wanting to put money into the club, they are legally obliged to guarantee that debt. Now that's a very different situation if true. There's another problem here as well. How do they turn an annual loss of possibly £30m around within one year? Forest, with a £12m loss have a far better chance of turning that around, than we do. Not really comparable, is it?

Brightons 8m debt was caused by increasing the capacity at the Amex and the on going building of new training facilities in Worthing. I expect that 8m to be wiped off as their attendence figures have increased. Which is a difference with Rovers. I cannot see how this debt Rovers have, can be paid off.

[Guest Norbert]

So in short, we're about 7/10 on the sh_tness scale then.

[yoda]

Brightons 8m debt was caused by increasing the capacity at the Amex and the on going building of new training facilities in Worthing. I expect that 8m to be wiped off as their attendence figures have increased. Which is a difference with Rovers. I cannot see how this debt Rovers have, can be paid off.

Not trying to make light of the situation but Its not the Rovers debt, it is Venkys London Limited debt.

A better way to look at it is the PL account for the club and how the restructuring has affected the day to day running costs. (that is what a buyer would be looking at) maybe PhilipL can clarify a bit

Venkys London Limited are picking up the tab at the moment, if they decide to cut and run from the club they will have to decide what to do about VLL as a separate issue I think. Good move by the Bank of India

[TBTF]

I had a chance to look through the accounts and here are some observations:

-Comparing a 12 month period (April 1st, 2012 to March 31st, 2013) to a 17 and a half month period, which is what the statements do, is exceedingly annoying to add to the existing annoyance of the cutoffs for the fiscal year for the holding company not aligning with the club and the season.

-In addition to the club, the holding company also has the investment in Hitlab, but other than as a 3 million asset on the books, it appears to have no effect on anything.

Revenue (total of 35,681,644):

-Gate Receipts 14.5%

-Sponsorship, Advertising, and Commercial 10.1%

-Broadcast 70.0%

I think you can see the issues on the revenue side if we are not promoted before parachute payments run out

Expenses (total of 62,820,478):

-At nearly 40 Million, our staff costs alone exceed our revenues by nearly 11%. Note that this does not include transfer expenses.

Balance Sheet:

-We currently have over 52 million in book value for property with 6.6 million of that in the form of land.

-Our current liabilities (due between April 1st, 2013 and March 31st) are listed at over 32 million with another 5.2 million in future years.

Owner's Equity:

-Over 24 million new shares in the holding company were issued with 10 million of them covered from reserves from the prior year, and the remainder being another cash injection.

Overdraft:

-The current Bank of India arrangement runs through at the end of the month. It was done at Libor +240 last time. At the end of the March we had 10.3 Million in bank loans and overdraft.

-On operations alone, we had 20.9 million more cash go out than come in over the course of the year. Various financing mechanisms reduced that to only 11.8 million more going out than coming in after taking into account other cash activities.

After the statements (between April 1st and whenever these documents were finalized, likely late in August):

-We have had 1.5 million more in transfers out than transfers in from transfers made since March. This probably missed most of the later activity in the transfer window.

-Employee termination agreements since March have resulted in us owing 2,790,000.

-The total of all add-ons to transfers in that we could possibly owe (not counting percentage of sales figures) is 8.4 million.

Transfers:

-Over the period, we purchased players for 16.6 million. Note that this does not say anything about how much of that has been paid and how much will be paid in the future.

-We paid out 12.6 million in transfer fees and received 8.2 million.

-Assuming that I am understanding the categorizations correctly, we owe about 8.7 million on transfers from prior seasons during this year and another 3.2 million sometime after next March. Again these are on purchases made before April and do not include this summer.

-Following those same categorizations, we are owed 1.7 million this year for sales from previous seasons.

-Players we sold had a book value of 3.5 million at time of sale after originally costing us 8.4 million.

This is an important concept:

Transfer fees are amortized over the length of the initial contract for the purposes of determining our expense this year. Hypothetically, if we bought a player for 8 million in the summer of 2012 and signed him to a four year contract, he would contribute 2 million in expenses for each year of his contract in addition to his salary expenses. If we had hypothetically sold him during the summer of 2013, the only amount that we could claim as profit would be the amount we sold him for in excess of the 6 million that he would still be valued at on our books and of course we would have saved on his salary.

It is all a little bit more complicated than this. I will try to answer this sometime later perhaps.

£52 million of property?? where is all that then? I cant think Brockhall is worth anything like that and Ewood would cost more to knock down and clear the site than its worth.Bizarre if you ask me.

Other than that all seems to be going well !!!

[yoda]

£52 million of property?? where is all that then? I cant think Brockhall is worth anything like that and Ewood would cost more to knock down and clear the site than its worth.Bizarre if you ask me.

Other than that all seems to be going well !!!

you may be right but the accountants rule the world

[tomphil]

Could the bulk of that 52 mill be the property/ land in India that's been mentioned. Maybe VLL's business is secured against that ? May also explain the magic number Nicko was touting around a while back

[Guest Norbert]

Hard to decide which are/were more dysfunctional, weirder and worse with money.