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Club debt rises to £163.8 million!!!

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wanderlust
xmiles
Banks of the Croal
scottjames30
rammywhite
observer
Soul Kitchen
Hipster_Nebula
terenceanne
NickFazer
karlypants
bwfc71
Natasha Whittam
BoltonTillIDie
aaron_bwfc
Copper Dragon
doffcocker
Jack Russell
Culcheth_White
Reebok Trotter
Norpig
Sluffy
Triumph
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Natasha Whittam

Natasha Whittam
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

You're missing the point - clubs just don't go out of business these days. Leeds owed millions and millions, yet just a few years later they're in a healthy position and doing better than us.

The same will happen to us. Although we'll need to sack Freedman if we're going to stay in this division for much longer.

Culcheth_White

Culcheth_White
Andy Walker
Andy Walker

I might be wrong, but is the bulk of our debt owed to Moonshift investments? And Moonshift have to give us 10 years notice to recall any debt owed to them? 

It is worrying if Eddie does die, will the debt die with him? I can't see his family writing off the huge debt.

bwfc71

bwfc71
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Reebok Trotter wrote:What would happen if heaven forbid, Uncle Eddie, were to pop his clogs? I'm sure I read somewhere that neither his son or daughter have any interest in football.

I have quoted quite a few times before but whether he pops his clogs or whether he loses his interest in the club and wants out there is a 10-year claw-back clause in the facilities which means that as soon as its announced the number has to be returned we have 10 years to fully repay it

To be fair I am not sure whether its 10 or 15 years (I need to review the material but currently at work so don't have the info at hand) but we do have time to pay it back!!!

Natasha Whittam

Natasha Whittam
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

bwfc71 wrote:Just had a briefest look at the accounts.....

Firstly Burnden Leisure is registered at Companies House and as such is classed as a separate entity from owner Eddie Davies.  Therefore is doesn't matter how much Eddie is worth as Burnden Leisure is completely separate from his own personal wealth.  

MIL is, I assume, referring to the Investment Funding company that is based in The Bahamas or British Virgin Islands, ahich again I am presuming, Eddie has a personal stake in.

Also lets not forget that Eddie does not pay the same rate of personal tax as any other "millionaire" who lives in the UK as he lives in the Isle of Man which is a tax-haven.

Finally lets not forget that due to various Data Protection laws one can only guess at Eddie's personal wealth due to his own assets and what he has owned previously - WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT REAL WEALTH EDDIE ACTUALLY HAS - therefore a good educational guess is that it is much more that popular speculation - unless one has access to all his financial accounts!!!!!

From the accounts there are 4 exceptional costs which have attributed to the rise in the debt:-
1.  Buying out De-Vere's with regards to the Hotel
2.  Buying the Sports Educational company
3.  Removing Coyle and his team and bringing in Freedman and his team
4.  New catering contracts

What, also, hasn't helped are the new sponsorships which are approximately 70% lower in value than the previous ones.  Then of course there are the mundane costs such as utlities, like for everyone else, have gone up in value and costing much more now than 12 or even 18 months ago.

With regards to MIL, again, as I have stressed before they will probably have many financial products with which to help with the investment of BUrnden Leisure - such as revolving facilities, ForEx, long-term loans etc etc etc which also help with the spread of the cost and the lower interest rates which Eddie seems to have gained for the company.

But when you consider what the assets we do have such as prime land, the Arean, The Stadium, The Hotel, The Academy, the new office block and educational block (when completed) - add all those up and the financial worth still outstrips what we owe! (But fair enough the debt cant continue to spiral upwards like it currently is doing).

What did surprise me in the cost cutting out of the auxillary staff only 3 have left during the last financial year!!!!  I thought that would have been quite a few more, but why bring in new Directors???  Also , if anything, they now need to look at their more peripheral costs such as the continuation of the funding of the "Match Day" buses and the one-off bargain bonanaza cheap ticket matches as well as the pre-match drinks hall/venue.

To be fair, if you take out the exceptional costs (Hotel, Educational company and Coyle sacking) then the debt is actually just fractionally higher than last year (not even by a million!!!).


Yes it looks bad, from from a detailed popint of view looking at all areas then its not as bad as one thinks - its just the large numbers that look frightening!!!

I say this without any sarcasm - that was a good post. Thanks.

Natasha Whittam

Natasha Whittam
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

Mr Amos - in these accounts do the club have to value the playing squad?

That would be a laugh if they do.

Reebok Trotter

Reebok Trotter
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

Natasha Whittam wrote:
bwfc71 wrote:Just had a briefest look at the accounts.....

Firstly Burnden Leisure is registered at Companies House and as such is classed as a separate entity from owner Eddie Davies.  Therefore is doesn't matter how much Eddie is worth as Burnden Leisure is completely separate from his own personal wealth.  

MIL is, I assume, referring to the Investment Funding company that is based in The Bahamas or British Virgin Islands, ahich again I am presuming, Eddie has a personal stake in.

Also lets not forget that Eddie does not pay the same rate of personal tax as any other "millionaire" who lives in the UK as he lives in the Isle of Man which is a tax-haven.

Finally lets not forget that due to various Data Protection laws one can only guess at Eddie's personal wealth due to his own assets and what he has owned previously - WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT REAL WEALTH EDDIE ACTUALLY HAS - therefore a good educational guess is that it is much more that popular speculation - unless one has access to all his financial accounts!!!!!

From the accounts there are 4 exceptional costs which have attributed to the rise in the debt:-
1.  Buying out De-Vere's with regards to the Hotel
2.  Buying the Sports Educational company
3.  Removing Coyle and his team and bringing in Freedman and his team
4.  New catering contracts

What, also, hasn't helped are the new sponsorships which are approximately 70% lower in value than the previous ones.  Then of course there are the mundane costs such as utlities, like for everyone else, have gone up in value and costing much more now than 12 or even 18 months ago.

With regards to MIL, again, as I have stressed before they will probably have many financial products with which to help with the investment of BUrnden Leisure - such as revolving facilities, ForEx, long-term loans etc etc etc which also help with the spread of the cost and the lower interest rates which Eddie seems to have gained for the company.

But when you consider what the assets we do have such as prime land, the Arean, The Stadium, The Hotel, The Academy, the new office block and educational block (when completed) - add all those up and the financial worth still outstrips what we owe! (But fair enough the debt cant continue to spiral upwards like it currently is doing).

What did surprise me in the cost cutting out of the auxillary staff only 3 have left during the last financial year!!!!  I thought that would have been quite a few more, but why bring in new Directors???  Also , if anything, they now need to look at their more peripheral costs such as the continuation of the funding of the "Match Day" buses and the one-off bargain bonanaza cheap ticket matches as well as the pre-match drinks hall/venue.

To be fair, if you take out the exceptional costs (Hotel, Educational company and Coyle sacking) then the debt is actually just fractionally higher than last year (not even by a million!!!).


Yes it looks bad, from from a detailed popint of view looking at all areas then its not as bad as one thinks - its just the large numbers that look frightening!!!

I say this without any sarcasm - that was a good post. Thanks.

It was a good post.  :like: 

Copper Dragon

Copper Dragon
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Natasha Whittam wrote:You're missing the point - clubs just don't go out of business these days. Leeds owed millions and millions, yet just a few years later they're in a healthy position and doing better than us.

The same will happen to us. Although we'll need to sack Freedman if we're going to stay in this division for much longer.

It's not great comparing yourselves to Leeds though is it?

Leeds were getting 20 odd thousand on in League 1 and Bolton would probably have just half the turnover as Leeds.

You are unlikely to see Portsmouth or Coventry in the Championship or Premier League for a long time.

bwfc71

bwfc71
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Natasha Whittam wrote:Mr Amos - in these accounts do the club have to value the playing squad?

That would be a laugh if they do.

They haven't valued the players individually but as a net value.

2012 Net value of the squad was £49,750,000
2013 Net value of the squad is £14,100,000

A big difference!!!

2012 60 Players on the books
2013 59 Players on the books

Also noticed that BUrnden Leisure own the Freehold of the land which makes the asset worth even more than if it was Leasehold

Copper Dragon

Copper Dragon
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

I really can't see this working........



Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted.




FFP wrote:Championship clubs are permitted losses of £8m (£5m funded by shareholders) in 2013-14

Championship sanctions start in January 2015


bwfc71

bwfc71
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Copper Dragon wrote:I really can't see this working........



Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted.




FFP wrote:Championship clubs are permitted losses of £8m (£5m funded by shareholders) in 2013-14

Championship sanctions start in January 2015



The question has to be asked whether that is the club is allowed only £8million or whether its the holding/parent company!!!

As it is Bolton Wanderers FC is a subsidary of Burnden Leisure - therefore, in reality, Wanderers could have losses of £8million whilst the parent company could have losses of £160million! Mainly because they are treated as separate entities in the financial world!! If you look at the EOY accounts even they advise that a few subsiadries are NOT included in the final accounts - therefore teh debt of Burnden Leisure could actually be les, or more, than the £168million!!!

Copper Dragon

Copper Dragon
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Well that's the part that I don't understand and may be a dodgy way around it.

Although I'm sure that it is turnover of the football club to losses on wages and running costs.

I've read about it but it bores me to tears and I haven't taken it all in.

karlypants

karlypants
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

Guest


Guest

I don't think we need to worry about any fines associated with promotion for a good while yet.....

Maybe that's Darkside's genius plan.

He knows we'd get fined if we went up, so he appoints Freedman, safe in the knowledge that there's absolutely no way he'd ever get us up......

Clever.....

Copper Dragon

Copper Dragon
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

karlypants wrote:

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

Yes very much so.

That is what should happen.

bwfc71

bwfc71
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

karlypants wrote:Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

To be fair that is what would probably happen rather than giving out a huge financial fine - possibly between 8 to 10 point reduction!

karlypants

karlypants
Nat Lofthouse
Nat Lofthouse

bwfc71 wrote:
karlypants wrote:Just going off what Copper quoted on "Recent stories have claimed QPR and Blackburn in particular could face huge fines pushing £60m if they are promoted."

Wouldn't it be better to fine the club by points and not money potentially putting a club more in debt?

To be fair that is what would probably happen rather than giving out a huge financial fine - possibly between 8 to 10 point reduction!

You would hope so as putting the club into more debt isn't going to help and seems a crazy way to penalise a club where a points reduction seems better.

With regards to our debt and our 4 big outgoings with the likes of the hotel and other developments that will be starting, if you take this away from the debt then our debt hasn't changed since last year.

If I understand your post correctly then we are not going to be able to reduce this debt much as long as we are in the Championship and we need to really push for promotion to get our £60M from the Premier League to be able to reduce it.

Would it really be such a bad idea if we threw say £10M at trying to achieve this with buying some better players?

I know Leeds did it and they did go bankrupt twice but surely must be worth a shot as a can't see us being back in the Premier league for the next 5 years then.

The thing is that no matter how you look at it we are in a lot of debt and if there are investors behind who we don't know about what's to say they just want to pull out and say "enough! wasted too much money I'm out!" for example?

There is only so much money investors will pump into a club ultimately to get a return on their investment as it is ultimately a business.

bwfc71

bwfc71
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

The way I see it is they have invested in buying out De Vere's and invested in the educational company thus they must see some sort of financial return which would help oy the parent company eventually whether its the 2013-14 financial year or the 2014-15 financial year.

If anything I predict only small tweaks are required as we still ahve to receive 2 more parachute payments (if we stay in The Championship) which will help but only slightly.

Problem we have now is if we gain promotion we will be the leading contenders to go straight back down and financially speaking that would actually be worse than currently as we wouldn't have a stable financial base for 2 season!!!!

Copper Dragon

Copper Dragon
Ivan Campo
Ivan Campo

Found this which may make it easier to understand for some.....



[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

NickFazer

NickFazer
El Hadji Diouf
El Hadji Diouf

There are two ways to go as I understand it, take a massive gamble, throw even more money at players and wages to get promoted back to the Premier League, then spend as little as possible and hope to get promoted again after the inevitable relegation. Secondly recognise the reality of the situation we are in and initiate a sound business plan to steadily reduce the debt, enable the club to become economically sustainable and learn the harsh lessons of our past profligacy.

IMO the first option is a fools errand and a massive gamble, plus the club would come under massive pressure to spend once more IF promotion was achieved. I see that the messages coming out of the club regarding where they see themselves have changed, in an effort to manage expectations, this should have been the message from the moment we were relegated.

My view is that the whole structure of the professional game is not sustainable in the long term and that the Premier League and Football League have made a complete pigs ear of managing their competitions. Clubs know what they can expect to receive in revenue from TV, sponsorship, ticket sales etc and they should budget accordingly. The whole thing is run on greed, greedy players, owners, broadcasters and supporters and is utterly reckless, no other business in the world would conduct its financial affairs like football clubs. They have always relied on the benevolence and good will of wealthy business men and community leaders but never to the extent they do now, it beggars belief that there have been so few casualties up to now.

Guest


Guest

NickFazer wrote:There are two ways to go as I understand it, take a massive gamble, throw even more money at players and wages to get promoted back to the Premier League, then spend as little as possible and hope to get promoted again after the inevitable relegation. Secondly recognise the reality of the situation we are in and initiate a sound business plan to steadily reduce the debt, enable the club to become economically sustainable and learn the harsh lessons of our past profligacy.

IMO the first option is a fools errand and a massive gamble, plus the club would come under massive pressure to spend once more IF promotion was achieved. I see that the messages coming out of the club regarding where they see themselves have changed, in an effort to manage expectations, this should have been the message from the moment we were relegated.

My view is that the whole structure of the professional game is not sustainable in the long term and that the Premier League and Football League have made a complete pigs ear of managing their competitions. Clubs know what they can expect to receive in revenue from TV, sponsorship, ticket sales etc and they should budget accordingly. The whole thing is run on greed, greedy players, owners, broadcasters and supporters and is utterly reckless, no other business in the world would conduct its financial affairs like football clubs. They have always relied on the benevolence and good will of wealthy business men and community leaders but never to the extent they do now, it beggars belief that there have been so few casualties up to now.


Absolutely spot on.

I've been banging on about this for ages.

Modern football is rotten to the core and it's the money that's ruining it.

Will it die on its arse?

Probably not, because there are too many wealthy / influential egos involved and they won't allow the golden Goose to croke because they'd lose too much.

However, I can't see things staying the way they are now for much longer.

We'll have a Global Super League at some point, with franchises in all the big cities and the rest of us will be left behind.

I fully expect to see Bolton playing in a 5000 seater stadium in North West League Two against Bury and Accrington at some point in my lifetime.

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