Latest BWFC Accounts - Year ended 30th June, 2020

Feby wrote:Why would Maguire know what the 6M was for?

Because he's a senior lecturer at Liverpool University on Football finance and 'goodwill' is entry level accountancy.

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Goodwill means simply paying more for a company that the actual assets total up to - you are paying a premium for things you can't quantify in physical terms, the following is a definition of it -

What Is Goodwill?
Goodwill is an intangible asset that is associated with the purchase of one company by another. Specifically, goodwill is the portion of the purchase price that is higher than the sum of the net fair value of all of the assets purchased in the acquisition and the liabilities assumed in the process. The value of a company’s brand name, solid customer base, good customer relations, good employee relations, and proprietary technology represent some reasons why goodwill exists.

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So the question Maguire should be asking himself is that if the money paid by FV for the club and hotel was £17.4m...

"The group will pay around £10m for the club side of the deal and a further £7.4m for the hotel".

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...and the accounts value goodwill at £6m and 'intellectual property' at £10m, which combines totals £16m, then does the physical assets such as the stadium, academy, hotel, land, car parks etc only worth £1.4m???  

(£17.4m - £16m = £1.4m)

Clearly that can be right can it?

So are the accounts saying the stadium, hotel, land etc, total £17.4m and they've paid £16m on top of that simply for the club name and the fans who will turn up whoever the owner happens to be???

That doesn't make any sense either?

What exactly have FV bought then?

Well in simple terms if no one had bought the club, the Administrators would have sold everything off (liquidated all the assets) and with the money the got from all the sales pay off all the creditors owed money to by the club.

Who are these creditors - well in simple terms there are two groups of them, the first group have loaned the club money 'secured' against an asset - meaning if you don't pay the debt back they take ownership of the asset instead.

There were three secured creditors according to the Administrators - Mike James (or rather a company he is a director of) was owed £6.5m, Eddie Davies Trust £5m and Brett Warburton £2.5m - that totals £14m.

They get their money back in full or take the asset instead.

The second group are the 'unsecured' creditors such as the tax man or suppliers of goods and services to the club.

If the sum of what they are owed, which I believe was around £10m can be obtained by the Administrators together with the £14m for the secured creditors, then they would need to sell the club hotel, etc for £24m in order to pay everyone off in full.

However the Administrators are saying they can only pay the unsecured creditors 30p in the £ from the proceeds of the completed sale to FV.

So 30p in the £ (or 100p) is equivalent to £3m to the £10m of unsecured credit owed.

If we add this £3m to the £14m being paid to the secured creditors, then it does indeed looks as though FV has paid (or taken on the commitment to pay) the reported £17.4m for everything from the Administrator.

Now if they had paid another £16m more for 'goodwill' and 'intellectual property' as well - then the Administrator would be paying the full £10m to the unsecured creditors and any money left over would be paid to the former owner, Ken Anderson.

The waters are however a little muddied because we don't actually fully know as yet two things, the first being exactly how much the two Administrators (club and hotel) actually ended up costing - it may well be that the £6m 'goodwill' (payment in excess of assets) is the amount it took to settle the Admins fees - however that probably shouldn't be shown in the accounts as an asset as such.

The second is the accounts actually show a payment of £8m for a purchase of 'intellectual property' but we don't as yet know what it is or to whom it was paid?

So to summarise Maguire was far to glib to skate over two key and unresolved issues of the accounts that still need clarification and which amount to £16m in total.  They go a long way into understanding far better what is actually going on.

Maybe he should consider less of playing to an audience - which he clearly likes - and more about looking at the basics and asking pertinent questions of what he sees.

Finally hello and welcome to the forum.

Hope I've answered your question to your satisfaction?

Feby wrote:Why would Maguire know what the 6M was for?

Because if he had any competence in financial accounting he would understand how goodwill arises in fair value accounting.

 I suspect though its a principle that he does actually understand. His problem is that he can't quite grasp the difference between the significant and the trivial, the reasonable and the unreasonable, the practical and the impractical. He might be OK at producing spreadsheets but he's just not very good at reading the motives that lie behind the balance sheets and that seems to be down to inbuilt and juvenile prejudices. Its as though he's never actually left Uni or lived in the real world.

You deserve a medal for listening to the whole of that cr*p, Sluffy. I managed 40 minutes of drivel and dribble before taking a much needed break returning again at the point where questions were coming in. Some of the questions were of interest but Maguire's answers were typically waffly. You are right that he likes playing to an audience but he does seem to need an audience that can't quite grasp it. Interesting, wasn't it, that Gordon Brown rang him up?

I didn't listen for much longer, there seemed no point. The nub of it though is that the balance sheet is pretty dire with all the equity capital and more being wiped out in the first year. The already evident negative equity is also much worse than seems at first sight because the assets include £16million of nebulous nothingness called 'intangible assets'. 

Sharon's taken on a lot and I do wonder about her own net worth and how far she can afford to push the boat out. Like the late Eddie Davies, I'm also sceptical about newspaper figures.

I'm also still wondering why these accounts haven't been filed when the club announced that they had been on 30 June. All three companies in the FV group remain in default. How come no-one other than you and I seem to be bothered or seem to notice? Its not good whichever way you look at it.

I listen through all the stuff Bob, I generally always do because I'd be myopic and biased as the people I criticise, for only wanting to hear one side of the story and believe that to be totally the right one - if I didn't.

I've always been happy to be proven wrong and learn something I didn't know from anyone - Maguire is a high profile university lecturer, specialising in sports (primarily football it seems) financial accountancy - so he clearly has skills and knowledge but as you astutely listed above, you can have all the skills and and knowledge but they are meaningless if you use them with the wrong attitude - the prejudice and bias you bring to the table distorts how you view the things you look at.

Maguire (and the interviewer) were more fixated on abusing the former owners (including Davies and his "£180m soft loan") than looking with a fresh mind about what didn't seem to sit right with these accounts.

But as the saying goes, 'in the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king', and thus because the vast amount of football fans know practically nothing about financial accounts or Company Law, they cling to every word Maguire says as gospel - and he is able to bond with them (unlike any other 'dull and boring' people like us Bob) much deeper and further by often abusing the clubs owners for the mess the clubs in anyway.   He builds a connection with the fans - he's playing to his audience by 'being one of them'.

I don't know if he does so deliberately or not but it clearly works for him.

Doesn't mean the one eyed king is any good though just that he can see a bit better than his blind followers who naively trust every word they are being told by him!

As for the clubs account and financial position, my thinking goes something like this.

When FV took on the debt they knew Warburton's £2.5m wasn't an issue as it is set against the awaited sale of a plot of land - they know the end outcome of that.

Same in a way with PBP/Mike James, as their money is tied to the hotel and it doesn't look as though he needs to or desires to sell the hotel anytime soon.

With EDT it looks as though they've bought the debt off by paying £2.5m up front and some performance payments at various stages in the future.

So what purchase costs did the FV consortium have?

The obvious one is the Administration - but I'm unsure who actually pays what here?

The costs for Administration as far as I understand it is in two parts - their fees, for doing the job - and the cost of trading whilst the business goes through the Administration process to the point of sale.

Did EDT and Anderson, who called in the two Administrations, become responsible for their respective fees or not?  

Or was the agreement that they took their fees from the sale amount?

Similarly whilst the company was in Administration, it was running at a loss - and again who covered these losses - presumably from money asked from the person wanting to buy the company out of Administration surely?

If I'm right in my thinking(?) then it would make sense for the FV consortium to have taken on a purchase price from the Administrator somewhat greater than the reported amount that I can only find in the press reports - namely £17.4m.
Maybe the true purchase price agreed was £17.5m for the assets/debt and (say) a further £6m for the Administration costs - which is shown in the accounts as 'goodwill'?

If my thinking is right it explains why the Administrators have accepted a secured creditor status against FV assets with EDT waiving their secured creditor status?  As FV didn't have the money up front.

At least it sort of fits anyway?

So in a sense FV's only real purchase outlay would be the £2.5m to EDT.

Their remaining costs to them for the year up to June 2020 would be the running costs - and even then they got a government grant for £1m towards them - and the payment of £3m to settle the unsecured creditors amount.

I've no idea what this £8m purchase of intellectual property is but I doubt very much that is simply for the name/'history' of the club- who would want to pay £8m for that???  

You could by a Leonardo Da Vinci drawing for that kind of money!

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Which do you think would be the better investment?



So Sharon and co are probably say £5m out of pocket anyway (and still need to clear the debt to the unsecured creditors (£3m or so) and also have presumably a further trading loss up to June 2021, they are still happy to fund the wages of all those players Evatt as wanted for this season and reestablish a reserves side - so no doubt a further trading loss for the year up to June 2022 will be shown as well!

She/FV/her investors must be happy to put in this seemingly unsecured money - for now anyway?

As such it isn't a problem but if they do decide to turn off the money then let us all hope we've reached the point at which the club is financially sustainable before they do!

I can only assume this is some sort of long term plan and maybe some of the investors (Nick Mason?) are investing at a loss in order to claim tax relief against his other companies??

Maybe there is a much bigger picture here than what we are seeing?

There’s a helluvalot to comment on there Sluffy and it’s wine o’clock so I’m not going to start tonight.
Just thought you’d like to know that th’accounts have landed at CH. You can’t see ‘em yet but it shouldn’t be long before you can.
Interesting comments on RobinsNest about GN and Salford.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:There’s a helluvalot to comment on there Sluffy and it’s wine o’clock so I’m not going to start tonight.
Just thought you’d like to know that th’accounts have landed at CH. You can’t see ‘em yet but it shouldn’t be long before you can.
Interesting comments on RobinsNest about GN and Salford.

Enjoy your evening tipple Bob!

I'm sure there is much to shoot down with what I've said and look forward to your views.

Doesn't look like your friends over on the Cheltenham site are big Gary Neville and Salford fans are they! (well the two who have posted anyway!).

Think they’re available now...

BoltonTillIDie wrote:Think they’re available now...

Afraid not BTID.
WW's noticed nowt. The Wanderer's noticed nowt. The Beeno's noticed nowt. Lov? Do us a favour!
Has it been noticed anywhere other than Nuts?

I thought I'd have a little look at the Admins report for the hotel to see if I could try and work a few things out, the following is the best I could come up with -

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It would seem on p12 of 35 that the sale of the business was for £7,472,425.00p

Made up of

property - £6,766,423
Fixture and fittings, stock etc - £706,000
Goodwill £1.00
Intellectual property £1.00

The Admins fees seem to come to £1,030,000 (p15 of 35)

made up of an initial estimate of £500k and a second agreed charge of £530k.


In Administration the company traded in deficit of £401,409.80p (Appendix III P26 of 35).

The summary of the accounts is shown on p28 0f 35 but unfortunately it is too blurred for me to read it.

However I note that £240,189.61 is being transferred from the Administrator to the liquidator to pay unsecured creditors so much in the £ owed to them.

PBP was a secured creditor to the sum of £6.5m which included accrued interest.

I was hoping to prove to myself that the Admin fees are deducted from the fees received from the sale and I think they probably are but can't say for certain because I can't read the key page to ascertain myself because it isn't clear enough for me to see!

Hey-ho!

Sluffy wrote:

Enjoy your evening tipple Bob!

I'm sure there is much to shoot down with what I've said and look forward to your views.

Doesn't look like your friends over on the Cheltenham site are big Gary Neville and Salford fans are they!  (well the two who have posted anyway!).

There's not a lot of activity on Robins Nest but there are a few posters capable of hitting the nail on the head re Salford and Neville:

'lost £65k a week 2019/20, total losses now exceed £9mill

this is a league two club, league two and that little turd GN has the audacity to bemoan the big six on ruining the lower league [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

typical UTD.' wrote longmover


'Him and his mates think they know everything, but when it comes to action they haven't got a bloody clue.' wrote Shade



Mind you, longmover and Shade haven't seen the BWFC 2020 losses yet. Neither have we really.


It looks like our accounts must have been filed late Friday afternoon so we might not see the figures until Monday unless CH staff are working weekends.


I'm going to take a look at how much Burnden Leisure owed (and who they owed it to) in 2017, after promotion to the Championship (with you know who in the chairman's seat) and do the same for 2020 when we'd just dropped into League 2 under FV. 


Remember that the debt owed to Eddie was so soft that none of it was ever repaid and that Sue's had to settle for about 40% of the money Eddie put in after he'd given up ownership.


You might try it yourself. I have a feeling it might be a bit easier (and maybe a bit more revealing) than ploughing through the administrators statements.

It’s available, I’ve just checked

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Somebody is working weekends. FVWL Football Ltd accounts have just gone up. Loss £2.8million. Less than Salford's £3.3million. Yippee.

No accounts for th'otel yet. Shouldn't be long.

Just a little tip, Sluffy, if you want to be driven crazy, try figuring out how FVWL spent £8million on intellectual property and, if that doesn't work, try making sense of the amortisation.

And if neither works, there's always cigarettes and whiskey and wild wild women.

Bob and Sluffy were made for each other.

Thanks Bob.

I've never been a smoker, my brother is the big whiskey connoisseur and I tend to stay well clear of wild, wild women these days, so as a result I tend not to get too crazy or insane very (not that I ever did much anyway).

For the same reasons I'll pass on trying to figure out where FVWL spent £8m on intellectual property or the amortisations from these accounts - nothing is shown about the intellectual property purchase other than £10m being shown as an asset and amortisation rates seems to be in the gift of the owners for assets particularly the (intangible ones) as per the auditors definition (p20 of 27)

I note that the accounts state that FVWL were charged £4,767,208 for the Administration, I further note that goodwill is shown as £5,441,641.

A couple of things that caught my eye was that £5.5m was shown as amounts owed to group undertakings, in the creditors falling due in one year (p25 of 27) I wondered if that was something to do with EDT?  Also that 'other creditors' are shown at £3.4m.

The other thing I noticed is that the company seems to have built up a tax credit of £1m (p22 of 27 Taxation).  I also note under this heading that £135k of amortisation does not qualify for tax allowances (I don't know if that may give you or anyone else a clue as to what that may apply to - I'm guessing the intellectual property and/or goodwill perhaps?).

I too await the hotel accounts.

[quote="boltonbonce"]Bob and Sluffy were made for each other.

I'm not sure either of us thinks the other to be our dream lover.

Sadly it is probably more about birds of a feather, or at least the sharing of similar professional interests.

Hardly very romantic of us really is it!

OK, Sluffy, if you want to be like that don't expect a Valentines Card from me next February. 

Anyroad worra about th'accounts?

According to FV's views of 'fair value', FV will be paying £16million more than the assets they are buying are actually worth. So they've called the difference £10million for 'Intellectual Property' and £6million for Goodwill (or the accountants have to be more exact). 

The difference, in the past, would have been booked down to Goodwill but changes in tax rules make it potentially better to book some of it (or even a lot of it) down to Intellectual Property.

The Goodwill is being amortised over ten years, the Intellectual Property over fifty!!! If it had all been booked to Goodwill you'd have an annual amortisation charge of £1.6m which would make the reported loss figures look even worse and could result in problems with EFL loss rules.

I can't see that the £4.8m for Administration costs can include the fees of the Administrators (and their appointed agents) or I expect it would have been much bigger. So this seems to be just the administrative costs of running the club. Still a big figure, mind you.

The amounts owed to EDT and Brett Warburton are included in Note 15. The amounts in Note 14 are in addition to this and probably owed mainly to Football Ventures (Whites) Ltd.

The £135K, you refer to, will be the difference between the amortisation charged in the accounts and the amount HMRC allow, which I think may be 6.5%. Remember that these accounts don't actually cover a 12-month period but are a bit short of that.

We don't know who the other creditors are. Its not a small figure either but will, I'm sure, include unpaid costs relating to the Ruben's Administration. FV did enter into an instalment plan to pay their fees.

Hotel accounts still haven't appeared. It looks like the weekend worker has only dealt with those that were most overdue or those with the red warning on them.

So where are we? FV has lost £3million (excluding amortisation) in it's first year and owes £30million on a business its paying £16million over the odds for. 
Do you think FV are happy? Biggish Dave does apparently. 

Ten Bobsworth wrote:OK, Sluffy, if you want to be like that don't expect a Valentines Card from me next February. 

Anyroad worra about th'accounts?

According to FV's views of 'fair value', FV will be paying £16million more than the assets they are buying are actually worth. So they've called the difference £10million for 'Intellectual Property' and £6million for Goodwill (or the accountants have to be more exact). 

The difference, in the past, would have been booked down to Goodwill but changes in tax rules make it potentially better to book some of it (or even a lot of it) down to Intellectual Property.

The Goodwill is being amortised over ten years, the Intellectual Property over fifty!!! If it had all been booked to Goodwill you'd have an annual amortisation charge of £1.6m which would make the reported loss figures look even worse and could result in problems with EFL loss rules.

I can't see that the £4.8m for Administration costs can include the fees of the Administrators (and their appointed agents) or I expect it would have been much bigger. So this seems to be just the administrative costs of running the club. Still a big figure, mind you.

The amounts owed to EDT and Brett Warburton are included in Note 15. The amounts in Note 14 are in addition to this and probably owed mainly to Football Ventures (Whites) Ltd.

The £135K, you refer to, will be the difference between the amortisation charged in the accounts and the amount HMRC allow, which I think may be 6.5%. Remember that these accounts don't actually cover a 12-month period but are a bit short of that.

We don't know who the other creditors are. Its not a small figure either but will, I'm sure, include unpaid costs relating to the Ruben's Administration. FV did enter into an instalment plan to pay their fees.

Hotel accounts still haven't appeared. It looks like the weekend worker has only dealt with those that were most overdue or those with the red warning on them.

So where are we? FV has lost £3million (excluding amortisation) in it's first year and owes £30million on a business its paying £16million over the odds for. 
Do you think FV are happy? Biggish Dave does apparently. 

Thanks Bob, very informative and considered from you as always.

Biggish Dave and the good people at WW deserve each other and that's clearly why we'd never fit in on there even if we cared to.

I still am hesitant over the intellectual property issue though, in that I understand what you are saying but if I was an auditor I'd be saying I can't sign my name to you having £10m worth of intellectual property without some sort of evidence of such that will stand some scrutiny of such (I know I'm not an auditor but I'm sure you catch my drift).

We also have a purchase of £8m for intellectual property that is still not known about shown on FV Whites accounts?

I don't know if you have had a look recently of the Administrators report for the hotel?

I mention this because there is a line on the 'blurred' page I can't read (p28 of 35) that contains a line with a eight figure number on it that looks to me to be for £29m(?) or something similar - it clearly stands out to me as not being an amount attached to the hotel solely?

I had wondered if it indeed was the total purchase price paid for everything by FV - it certainly matches up to your £30m comment above.

The heading seems to be surplus/shortfall to fixed charge creditor (in this case PBP)

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I simply can't get my head around why anyone would it seems be prepared to pay what seems to be £30m for what in actuality looks to be £16/17m of 'real' assets???

All this run's far deeper than my expertise is capable of dealing with - I'm happy to admit that - and I guess FV have their reasons but on the face of it, to me, it doesn't make any sense at all?

(Then again neither has Wigan's recent purchase either!)

There most be something more than just a vanity project why people seem to be happy to throw millions of pounds away on owning a football club?

I simply can't see what it is other than some sort of a bigger picture than just owning a football club itself?

I'm out of my league on all of this.

It is tricky, Sluffy, but it might help if I tell you that the book value of the tangible assets in Burnden Leisure's 2017 audited accounts stood at £37million and had cost £58million.

FV, on advice, have decided on acquisition to knock £25million off the tangible assets and add £16million on to the intangibles to balance to the tabs they were picking up.

But these results do help an understanding of why it was difficult to get the deal over the line and why compromises were needed. It was EDT that had to do the bulk of the compromising. EDT may well have been pressed to compromise more but I expect Sharon just wanted to have a crack at it even though it all still seems to make very little commercial sense. All the reports in the media and social media have been twaddle, but what's new with BWFC?

I've a good idea of how the £8million might have been arrived at (I assume its correct) but I'd need to go through it all very carefully to prove it.

One thing you can say about Biggish Dave is that he hides his concentration and knowhow so well that it is almost imperceptible.