[Archived] Latest VLL Share Issue

[awhom111]

I keep forgetting to post this, but Companies House had this filed a few days ago:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/document-api-images-prod/docs/Ppw6wiW3cGvmHyzV67F5mvaFF4HvRks_O4FkW1mAwDA/application-pdf

I have not really been trying to calculate how much we might need, but it is no real surprise that more shares were issued.  The next thing to look for is the parent company's accounts which are due before the end of the year.

[chaddyrovers]

Over 6 millions pounds

[philipl]

With the transfer activities etc I had guestimated Rovers looking at a £6m hole this season. 

The bad news is this means sales before any signings in the January window.

[tomphil]

Although it may mean no forced sales again to pay the bills like the last few years.

I do keep wondering what happened to that 30 million per season SKY are so quick to preach to the world about every time we are on live

[BenRTID]

Interested to know what we are we saying about this investment of nearly £7m? Is it a good thing, bad thing, indifferent? Does it change anyone's opinion on the Venky's, who on the face of it continue to throw money at the club but with woeful mismanagement.

Logic would say these shares were issued to stop Rovers going into administration, resulting in a likely 12 point deduction and with that, consecutive seasons in League 1, which could potentially spell the end of Blackburn Rovers FC altogether.

The cynic in me says this is purely another investment made purely out of the interests of damage limitation to their losses...their only interests is personal gain.

One thing I suppose we can take from this is the Venky's are clearly going nowhere. If they sold the club, we would go straight into administration due to the huge director loans owed to the Venky's and these newly issued shares would suggest they are not in the mindset to part company anytime in the near future, and certainly not whilst the club are in League 1.

All we can hope for is TM does indeed take us back into the Championship, and manages a couple of years of stability back in that division, and that is when the Venky's may decide the time is right for them to pass the club onto an owner(s) who know how to run a football club. Make no mistake, as and when the decision to sell the club will be purely from on a financial timing standpoint.

This saga is far, far from over.

We continue...

[tomphil]

Running costs, simple as that and most of it as a result of their mismanagement and black holes they have created.

Simply paying the bills as is their duty as owners, nothing more nothing less.

Every club owner has to somehow guarantee the finance to keep their clubs lights on.

[Brian-Potter]

Share issue is for £6.5m and will no doubt have immediately been loaned straight to the club as is the norm.

I would very much doubt that this was to stave off a threat of administration. As it is almost 6 months since the last cash injection via share issue of £5m, it’s more likely that this is them honouring their commitment in the accounts to continue funding the club and to cover summer trading.

Especially considering that since relegation to League One our status as well as revenues will have dropped which will mean other sources of funding will be much more difficult to secure.

Either way, it’s over £11m gone into the club in 6 months and with that in mind I would deduce that (a) they are going nowhere and (b) there is little chance of administration in the foreseeable future.

 

[alcd]

The L1 FFP rules allow losses if they are financed by equity subscriptions.

[AshleyClifford]

To constantly believe that they are "funding the bills" is bizarre. We are in league 1. The recent share issue is similar to other clubs yearly budget, at the top end. 

During the summer we spent large amounts on new players and kept a large chunk of the squad together.

say we are poorly run. Mismanaged, etc.

but never can we say not well funded.

 

[tomphil]

21 minutes ago, AshleyClifford said:

To constantly believe that they are "funding the bills" is bizarre. We are in league 1. The recent share issue is similar to other clubs yearly budget, at the top end. 

During the summer we spent large amounts on new players and kept a large chunk of the squad together.

say we are poorly run. Mismanaged, etc.

but never can we say not well funded.

 

A rather odd post which I think if you look back at the books and so called 'investment' over the last couple of years you might want to have a rethink.

[BenRTID]

53 minutes ago, tomphil said:

A rather odd post which I think if you look back at the books and so called 'investment' over the last couple of years you might want to have a rethink.

Could you elaborate - interested to know more

[DE.]

The only reason they're providing "investment" now is because there are no more players of value to sell and cover the losses. Lenihan is about it and he won't fetch any more than £2.5m up front. The whole reason we're in this mess is because of chronic under-investment at all levels. 

I wonder how much of our wage budget is still being eaten up by players who had their contracts terminated by mutual consent and managers who stuck around for a couple of weeks before getting the boot?

[tomphil]

1 hour ago, BenRTID said:

Could you elaborate - interested to know more

Shouldn't need explaining really after the club was liquidizing playing assets, whatever reasons they left for, the money wasn't reinvested in the buying of players. During that time I think the input into VLL was minimal compared to the previous years and according to the accounts the club was taking high interest loans to get by. It appeared the taps had been turned off to all but a drip. This however you dress it up played a big part in leading to relegation to the 3rd tier for the first time in nearly 40 years, a new low in 7 years of continuous lows by the Venky & co stewardship.

Now it appears they have been turned back on again, could be a variety of reasons but lets be honest there was no players they could sell for 5 or 6 million quid they've come to the end of the production line with that one for the time being. Paltry offers for Lenihen and he was injured anyway so they've no option but to issue money to keep the club going as is their duty.  I posted on here a while ago that of we ended up in lge 1 then we'd be almost 100% reliant on them to fund everything because the clubs own income would be so low and there'd be no one left to flog for real money, well here we are.

They may well be lending up front with a view to taking back some when the next crop is ready to sell but the most probable theory is after the 2 teams of accountants have been in they've restructured the finances and secured a new line of funding so that will be running us for now. If they've stemmed the flow of cash out after a lot of the fall out of the Kean years have been finally squared off then some of this money might get put to good use i.e a player or two again in the window along with help keep what we have but I won't hold m breath on that.

I'll reserve judgement till the next set of accounts as for all we know they might have to pump this cash in to cover previous external loans that have been running the club so there still could be another downscale.

You just never know with this lot, nothing but nothing EVER makes sense.

 

[philipl]

Pros:

- it seems pretty certain Venky's don't want us to go bust

- funding a pretty decent basic League 1 operation including some over-paid players for this level 

- not able/willing to sell off physical assets

- maintaining a category 1 academy; the only one outside the top two divisions

- no genius level football management of the club but someone this season has removed the button marked "maximum self-destruction" from the Bungalow in Pune

Minuses:

- 2010/11

- 2011/12

- 2012/13

- 2013/14

- 2014/15

- 2015/16

- BIG ? over whether we will be able to make a promotion clinching signing in the January window

 

[Bigdoggsteel]

12 minutes ago, philipl said:

Pros:

- it seems pretty certain Venky's don't want us to go bust

- funding a pretty decent basic League 1 operation including some over-paid players for this level 

- not able/willing to sell off physical assets

- maintaining a category 1 academy; the only one outside the top two divisions

- no genius level football management of the club but someone this season has removed the button marked "maximum self-destruction" from the Bungalow in Pune

Minuses:

- 2010/11

- 2011/12

- 2012/13

- 2013/14

- 2014/15

- 2015/16

- BIG ? over whether we will be able to make a promotion clinching signing in the January window

 

I think January will be telling. If we are in or around the top I will be happy. Ideally what will happen is the following- Our rivals will be forced to sell their players who are performing well, while we keep our squad together and add some more quality, possibly even a couple of our rivals players. 

[EgyptianPete]

On 01/10/2017 at 13:01, philipl said:

With the transfer activities etc I had guestimated Rovers looking at a £6m hole this season. 

The bad news is this means sales before any signings in the January window.

That was also said before the start of the season but it didn't happen so may not happen in January.

[DE.]

Other than Lenihan we don't really have anybody to sell of significant value. Not in comparison to our running costs, anyway. The likes of Raya, Nyambe and Wharton might be worth something one day but not yet. Would anybody else in our team fetch anything over £500k? 

[JAL]

5 hours ago, AshleyClifford said:

To constantly believe that they are "funding the bills" is bizarre. We are in league 1. The recent share issue is similar to other clubs yearly budget, at the top end. 

During the summer we spent large amounts on new players and kept a large chunk of the squad together.

say we are poorly run. Mismanaged, etc.

but never can we say not well funded.

 

How much has the clubs overall debt gone down from this funding, in say just the last two years.?

[BenRTID]

Does anyone have a list of wages by player for the current squad?

[tomphil]

Said it a dozen times but the list of most interest would be the entire payroll of BRFC & VLL, who they are, what they do and how much they get.  Be interesting to see where the money flows after it goes in at the top and where other income goes from transfer and such like.

We'll never see that though and as long as no laws are broke they can use the books however they want I suppose.

[AshleyClifford]

I still maintain the belief that this season we have twice the budget of even are nearest rivals. While are turnover is larger than anyone else in the division the additional funding (which incidentally can't be a loan, as far as my understanding. due to the rules of the league for their version of fair play) is mainly needed to fund transfer activity and wages of the squad which is paid more than a lot of championship teams.

However if we go up we will benefit from the extra tv revenue,coincidentally 6m. Could mean no financial backing next year at all. But if they did they same level again who knows.

 

[tomphil]

Bradford City ?

Portsmouth ?

[Bigdoggsteel]

36 minutes ago, AshleyClifford said:

I still maintain the belief that this season we have twice the budget of even are nearest rivals. While are turnover is larger than anyone else in the division the additional funding (which incidentally can't be a loan, as far as my understanding. due to the rules of the league for their version of fair play) is mainly needed to fund transfer activity and wages of the squad which is paid more than a lot of championship teams.

However if we go up we will benefit from the extra tv revenue,coincidentally 6m. Could mean no financial backing next year at all. But if they did they same level again who knows.

 

That would be 12 million to spend on transfers and wages. Still a drop in the ocean compared to what some Championship clubs are spending. 

[RoverCanada]

By some rough calculations I did before, we're still losing some £4-7m per year. The decline in revenue dropping to League 1 can't be ignored. Doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

My pure speculation is Venky's started to run into cash flow issues after continually trying to cover losses of £20-£40m+ in the Championship. Covering losses of £4-7m I imagine is much 'easier' for them to do. Certainly makes us the financial giants of League 1, but not so much out of Venky's generosity given they're probably going to lose less money trying to get us promoted out of League 1 than if we were trying make a run of it in the Championship. Whittingham, Dack, Smallwood (plus hanging on to Evans and Mulgrew) are pricey by League 1 standards, but it pails in comparison to the £10m+ now being thrown at top Championship players.

[JHRover]

15 minutes ago, RoverCanada said:

By some rough calculations I did before, we're still losing some £4-7m per year. The decline in revenue dropping to League 1 can't be ignored. Doesn't seem out of the ordinary.

My pure speculation is Venky's started to run into cash flow issues after continually trying to cover losses of £20-£40m+ in the Championship. Covering losses of £4-7m I imagine is much 'easier' for them to do. Certainly makes us the financial giants of League 1, but not so much out of Venky's generosity given they're probably going to lose less money trying to get us promoted out of League 1 than if we were trying make a run of it in the Championship. Whittingham, Dack, Smallwood (plus hanging on to Evans and Mulgrew) are pricey by League 1 standards, but it pails in comparison to the £10m+ now being thrown at top Championship players.

This is the concern, that their only interest is in getting the losses down to a manageable level and it doesn't matter what league we are in to achieve that.

I expect one or two owners of rival League One clubs are looking over at us with amazement that these owners are needing to put these amounts of money in every few months to keep the doors open (allegedly) when the likes of Rochdale, Shrewsbury etc. are run on a completely different planet financially.