Rovers' finances

[RoverCanada]

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1003542814293143552

Thought I'd share that the ever excellent Swiss Ramble posted a Twitter thread covering Rovers' latest accounts.

He does an excellent job of distilling club accounts into easy to digest charts and figures.

Enjoy the always rather grim reading! (If there being a slight glimmer of hope now!)

[Herbie6590]

7 minutes ago, RoverCanada said:

https://twitter.com/SwissRamble/status/1003542814293143552

Thought I'd share that the ever excellent Swiss Ramble posted a Twitter thread covering Rovers' latest accounts.

He does an excellent job of distilling club accounts into easy to digest charts and figures.

Enjoy the always rather grim reading! (If there being a slight glimmer of hope now!)

I was just about to post this...a terrific analysis...??

[tomphil]

c27m in player sales and 10.5 parachute payments propping it all up in recent years.

Interesting times ahead.

[SIMON GARNERS 194]

"Last time #Rovers made a profit was 2012, their last season in the Premier League. Since Venky’s bought the club in November 2010, the club has accumulated £115m of losses, some achievement considering they have had 2 seasons in top flight followed by 4 with parachute payments."

 

That quote from Swiss Ramble says it all..total financial mismanagement on a spectacular scale.

Don't anyone dare say to me these people have the best interests of the club at heart even after promotion from the dead man's league.

Edited June 4, 2018 by SIMON GARNERS 194

[Bigdoggsteel]

Just now, SIMON GARNERS 194 said:

"Last time #Rovers made a profit was 2012, their last season in the Premier League. Since Venky’s bought the club in November 2010, the club has accumulated £115m of losses, some achievement considering they have had 2 seasons in top flight followed by 4 with parachute payments."

 

That quote from Swiss Ramble says it all..total financial mismanagement on a spectacular scale.

Don't anyone dare say to me these people have the best interests of the club at heart even after promotion from the dead man's league.

The clubs best interests are in their interests. They were just clueless. Let's hope those they have appointed now continue to do the right things. 

[tomphil]

You can lay the naive, partly duped and partly purposely ignorant line to the first few years for sure but the Owen Coyle fiasco and continuing heavy involvement of satellite agents connected to former bad advisors blows it out the water in recent years somewhat.

Lightening doesn't strike twice when it's costing tens of millions still from the first time around.

I think the situation is now paper losses of c10 mill or so per annum on VLL seem to suit the purposes of the ultimate parent company. Don't think they set out to lose money, certainly not 25 million per year but they know and knew from the off it needs outside funding propping it up and they are happy sustaining to more sensible levels to suit their accounting processes.

Edited June 4, 2018 by tomphil

[Leonard Venkhater]

33 minutes ago, tomphil said:

You can lay the naive, partly duped and partly purposely ignorant line to the first few years for sure but the Owen Coyle fiasco and continuing heavy involvement of satellite agents connected to former bad advisors blows it out the water in recent years somewhat.

Lightening doesn't strike twice when it's costing tens of millions still from the first time around.

I think the situation is now paper losses of c10 mill or so per annum on VLL seem to suit the purposes of the ultimate parent company. Don't think they set out to lose money, certainly not 25 million per year but they know and knew from the off it needs outside funding propping it up and they are happy sustaining to more sensible levels to suit their accounting processes.

Play Reach for my revolver Bingo...

Naive

Badly advised

Learned their lessons....

...and my own personal favourite (from Bob Coar)

Just the same as when Jack was here

[Stuart]

24 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Play Reach for my revolver Bingo...

Naive

Badly advised

Learned their lessons....

...and my own personal favourite (from Bob Coar)

Just the same as when Jack was here

“To be fair” that last line could just mean that our processes, governance and budget are stuck in the early 90s...

Meanwhile the game moved on. Even more rapidly in the last 7 years. Just about the same time this bunch of idiots have been in charge.

[tomphil]

37 minutes ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Play Reach for my revolver Bingo...

Naive

Badly advised

Learned their lessons....

...and my own personal favourite (from Bob Coar)

Just the same as when Jack was here

SpongeBurnleyBob Liepants.

[Leonard Venkhater]

10 hours ago, Stuart said:

“To be fair” that last line could just mean that our processes, governance and budget are stuck in the early 90s...

Meanwhile the game moved on. Even more rapidly in the last 7 years. Just about the same time this bunch of idiots have been in charge.

Haha...But that is not how he said it/meant it .

It was an attempt to to justify the unjustifiable and to normalise the business of Blackburn employees awaiting the glacial speed of decisions in India..

[Threepenny Bit Foot]

"Looking at how Premier League TV deal has increased (with clubs receiving £95m to £150m), there could hardly have been a worse time for Blackburn to lose their Premier League status."

[Stuart]

2 hours ago, Leonard Venkhater said:

Haha...But that is not how he said it/meant it .

It was an attempt to to justify the unjustifiable and to normalise the business of Blackburn employees awaiting the glacial speed of decisions in India..

I know mate. It was just a joke. ☺️

[Leonard Venkhater]

4 hours ago, Stuart said:

I know mate. It was just a joke. ☺️

See Haha!

[cesus]

Not sure if it’s new news but “price of football” on twitter has put up details of our finances up to March. 

Major points drawn on are.

- Debt is £124 million. 

- £15 million loss for that year.

- Venkys put in £19 million in shares.

- Wages were £15.7 million.

- Net transfer income was £471k.

- Highest losses in League one history.

[tomphil]

Which all seems to suit the parent company.

Also those loses not offset by player sales for first time in a few years ?

 

[JHRover]

Big point being that the wage bill was significantly lower than the previous year and I expect now resembles the sort of level we should be at in the Championship.

It will never look much better than above at this level unless we get promoted or find a few players to sell off every couple of years to cover it (which likely prevents promotion from happening). That's a fact of life Venkys or not, sadly that is the way the Championship has gone and continues to go, and we like everyone else need wealthy owners injecting money. That's as much credit as I will give Venkys - every year they seem to be content to find money under the mattress to keep things going.

Another interesting point was that our revenues in that year dropped by £6 million due to a decrease in TV income, yet still stood at £10.1 million (£2.8 million on matchday, £2.8 million from media and £4.4 million from commercial). By comparison the previous year Sheffield United had revenues of £10.6 million (so 'only' £500,000 more than ours in League One despite significantly higher numbers through the turnstiles each week - perhaps demonstrates the ever decreasing importance of attendances). Bolton's that year in League One was £30.8 million. Not sure how that figure was so high as I don't think they were getting parachute cash by then.

[cesus]

Every time the finances come out at pretty much any club I am always staggered that anybody would own a football club. If I had £100m and Venkys gave me the club debt free tomorrow, I’d still be of the belief that my money would run out before I could get the club “self funding”. How much longer can football continue to run in this way, multi million losses are just the norm?!

[JBiz]

10 minutes ago, JHRover said:

Bolton's that year in League One was £30.8 million. Not sure how that figure was so high as I don't think they were getting parachute cash by then.

They even had to sell their training facilities to pay a tax bill at that time if memory serves.

[tomphil]

Didn't Bolton sell a player or two after relegation ?

Have to give credit to our lot for retaining players for a season at least to have a shot at going back up although as Bolton demonstrated you don't have to be that good to bounce straight back if you are managed correctly on the grass.

[Bigdoggsteel]

18 minutes ago, cesus said:

Every time the finances come out at pretty much any club I am always staggered that anybody would own a football club. If I had £100m and Venkys gave me the club debt free tomorrow, I’d still be of the belief that my money would run out before I could get the club “self funding”. How much longer can football continue to run in this way, multi million losses are just the norm?!

Well it would have been grand if they hadn't have made a mess initially and got us relegated. They could have tipped away putting nothing of their own money in if they had just kept Allardyce and given him some of the TV money to spend. If I remember correctly they bough the club for around £25 million. They could have sold the club for 3 times that if they had have managed things properly for 2-3 seasons after taking over. Wigan just sold for around the same, after being promoted from League 1. 

[Stuart]

34 minutes ago, cesus said:

Not sure if it’s new news but “price of football” on twitter has put up details of our finances up to March. 

Major points drawn on are.

- Debt is £124 million. 

- £15 million loss for that year.

- Venkys put in £19 million in shares.

- Wages were £15.7 million.

- Net transfer income was £471k.

- Highest losses in League one history.

@Paul Mani Lowest budget, mate? It would have been some f__ up to not get promoted from League One on those terms.

On the face of it, our debt seems to increase every season no matter what our sales or transfers. Our operating costs never seem to get significantly lower so we are never going to wash our own face which means Venkys will need to continue adding to the debt.

Another reminder for those who have forgotten - or are too young to remember/understand the first two-thirds of the last 8 years - our future still relies on promotion to the PL asap (hence the lack of patience) or for new owners to step in. But while our attendances remain low we won’t even be on the radar as a potential project for anyone with cash to spend. 16th in the Championship attendance stakes, with 4 “town clubs” ahead of us - West Brom, Boro, Ipswich, even Bolton (currently). The first two have a much greater catchment and barely pass the town test but - come on - Ipswich and Wigan!

In Mowbray We Trust

In Venkys We’re Bust

[JHRover]

5 minutes ago, Stuart said:

@Paul Mani Lowest budget, mate? It would have been some f__ up to not get promoted from League One on those terms.

On the face of it, our debt seems to increase every season no matter what our sales or transfers. Our operating costs never seem to get significantly lower so we are never going to wash our own face which means Venkys will need to continue adding to the debt.

Another reminder for those who have forgotten - or are too young to remember/understand the first two-thirds of the last 8 years - our future still relies on promotion to the PL asap (hence the lack of patience) or for new owners to step in. But while our attendances remain low we won’t even be on the radar as a potential project for anyone with cash to spend. 16th in the Championship attendance stakes, with 4 “town clubs” ahead of us - West Brom, Boro, Ipswich, even Bolton (currently). The first two have a much greater catchment and barely pass the town test but - come on - Ipswich and Wigan!

In Mowbray We Trust

In Venkys We’re Bust

I'm not sure how relevant the attendance issue is. Clearly the city clubs who can fall back on 18000+ a week will be more attractive to buyers, but I don't think lesser gates precludes us from attracting new owners in future. I look at the bottom half of the Championship at the moment and most of the clubs down there are getting lower or very similar attendances - Wigan, Bolton, Reading, Ipswich, Brentford, Millwall, QPR, Rotherham, Hull, Preston - all of them are in a similar ball park to us which is almost half of the Championship. Add in Swansea and Middlesbrough who are getting around 18000+ a week at present but are being pushed up by recent spells in the Premier League and will likely drop significantly if they don't go up again.

As the figures show, a few thousand extra a week through the turnstiles obviously helps, but in the scheme of things when comparing to external investment, tv money and player sales it pales into insignificance.

As you say - WBA and Boro getting bigger gates - but both have had it far better than we have in the last 8 years - WBA just out of the Premier League, Middlesbrough were up there too and have had 2-3 promotion pushes and play-off campaigns recently.

Bolton are struggling to attract new owners but others have managed it - Watford, Bournemouth, Wigan, Reading and don't seem to have done too badly as yet.

[cesus]

10 minutes ago, Bigdoggsteel said:

Well it would have been grand if they hadn't have made a mess initially and got us relegated. They could have tipped away putting nothing of their own money in if they had just kept Allardyce and given him some of the TV money to spend. If I remember correctly they bough the club for around £25 million. They could have sold the club for 3 times that if they had have managed things properly for 2-3 seasons after taking over. Wigan just sold for around the same, after being promoted from League 1. 

Zero arguments from me on that point BUT I stand by my point. Give me the club debt free tomorrow and I have £100m in the bank, I believe I would run out of money. How the club can be appealing to anybody to buy astounds me.

[Bigdoggsteel]

4 minutes ago, cesus said:

Zero arguments from me on that point BUT I stand by my point. Give me the club debt free tomorrow and I have £100m in the bank, I believe I would run out of money. How the club can be appealing to anybody to buy astounds me.

Well I wouldn't recommend anyone who wins 100 million in the euro millions to buy a club. You need billions 

[JBiz]

45 minutes ago, Stuart said:On the face of it, our debt seems to increase every season no matter what our sales or transfers.

 

In Venkys We’re Bust

Not sure what I’ve done to the quote function but the point I was making is you casually missed wages - the main reason why we ended up in so much debt, and continue to require funding.

The irony of the last sentence, we’d be long since gone if it wasn’t for “share capital”!