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Interesting article on Saints finances


qsaint

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Some very nice diagrams to illustrate some fairly obvious points that have actually been argued by some on here :

 

The one about revenue decline shows the lack of significance of matchday revenue compared to tv in the Prem (under the less valuable than now tv deal from 2005) quite nicely :

 

14%2BSouthampton%2BRevenue%2BGrowth.jpg

 

and this turnover v wages diagram illustrates the impact of chasing promotion under Wilde/Burley quite nicely...

 

20%2BSouthampton%2BWages%2Bto%2BTurnover.jpg

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Good artlice. It just makes you realise the perals and the potential financial woes of football. Promotion really could be key this year financially. If we get it, let's hope we can find the balance of investing well enough to stay in the league without overspending! Still there are clubs in a lot worse position than ourselves!

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Many many thanks to qsaint for bringing this blog and article to everyone's attention. Rarely have I felt more proud of my life long support of Southampton Football Club. We long term supporters have seen it all. " To hell and back" would be a worthy description. If the lads make the Premiership as Champions this season it will be an incredible nd worthy repayment of Marcus Liebherr's faith in Saints future. Rarely have I been more convinced that we have someone in the form of Marcus looking down upon us all with that amazing huge smile of his, contented that he has brought so much happiness to the supporters of Saints and the people of Southampton.

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He might want to change the part about being in the top division and finishing as high as eighth. If he is counting the 27 years then he should also say out highest finish was 2nd. Journo's always forget there was life before the Premier League.

Rest of the article made for a good read.

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It says there that Save Our Saints raised £130k. Pretty good going, in isolation...

 

That was rubbish. The only money was about £1m pledged on here. The SOS group was a self financed group that was organising a back up including liasing with other groups. In the end time ran out used up by the useless Pinnacle group leaving no time for a rescue which would have taken time before the club folded, but fortuitously Markus Leibherr stayed interested. No money was raised by anybody because if things fell apart it would have had to be returned which would have been a nightmare.

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A good read.

 

Was wondering who this was reffering to though....

 

"On the other hand, the notes to the accounts reveal that there are contingent liabilities of £7.5 million:

(b) up to £4 million to a former creditor if the club is promoted to the Premier League before 2015/16."

 

I bet that's Lowe. There were rumours that he was behind the scenes with this, and he did put the club into Admin with a smile. Perhaps he finally found the investment he promised...

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A good read.

 

Was wondering who this was reffering to though....

 

"On the other hand, the notes to the accounts reveal that there are contingent liabilities of £7.5 million:

(b) up to £4 million to a former creditor if the club is promoted to the Premier League before 2015/16."

 

Hmmm....£4m....coincidently around the same amount as the Barclays overdraft....

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Not exactly, as it was reduced to 4m, so we actually owed more...

 

True. Maybe they were just being kind and only asked for £4m. Or maybe I should stop trying to come up with conspiracy theories. I'm sure the Barclays chap going to work for the administrator was a mere quirk of fate...

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A good read.

 

Was wondering who this was reffering to though....

 

"On the other hand, the notes to the accounts reveal that there are contingent liabilities of £7.5 million:

(b) up to £4 million to a former creditor if the club is promoted to the Premier League before 2015/16."

 

Could this be Crouch (Leon)? He piled in loads of money near the end, although if I remember rightly it was never thought a loan.....

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That was rubbish. The only money was about £1m pledged on here. The SOS group was a self financed group that was organising a back up including liasing with other groups. In the end time ran out used up by the useless Pinnacle group leaving no time for a rescue which would have taken time before the club folded, but fortuitously Markus Leibherr stayed interested. No money was raised by anybody because if things fell apart it would have had to be returned which would have been a nightmare.

 

Don't tell me, tell the bloke that published the figure and the thousands of people who definitely chucked money into buckets.

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Definitely one of the former chairmen gang will be the mystery creditor. Could be anyone of them but more than likely it's the one who sold Saints to Nicola Cortese. I think this calls for a poll and bets to be collected when it is finally revealed. Personally I've always thought Lowe was the one who sold the investment to Cortese, but in there is a sneaky feeling Wilde may have pulled it all off.

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quote_icon.png Originally Posted by doubleonothing viewpost-right.png

 

A good read.

 

Was wondering who this was reffering to though....

 

"On the other hand, the notes to the accounts reveal that there are contingent liabilities of £7.5 million:

(b) up to £4 million to a former creditor if the club is promoted to the Premier League before 2015/16."

I bet that's Lowe. There were rumours that he was behind the scenes with this, and he did put the club into Admin with a smile. Perhaps he finally found the investment he promised...

 

Pretty sure this will be Aviva as only Barclays and Aviva were listed as being owed any where near that amount. Aviva were the only ones who could be forced into those sorts of values and terms because of the massive drop in the stadium value under liquidation contions. Barclays would have lost but not a great deal in comparison as there was some form of security against the loans.

 

We went bankrupt when the overdraft was reduced to £4M. We would not have gone bankrupt at that point if the overdraft was still £5M. The overdraft limit was tipped when we tried to pay Coles monthly salary, so no where near an extra £1M.

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This surprised me:

Nevertheless, they can hardly be accused of simply spending their way towards success, as their net spend over the last three years is in fact one of the lowest in the Championship, a long way below the likes of Birmingham City, Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Brighton.

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He says we got as high as eighth in our 27 years in the top flight but we were runners up 83-84 in the old 1st Division (and it still is the 1st division to us oldies).

 

 

Very good read though.

 

What he actually actually says is correct if you read the whole sentance: finishing as high as eighth and reaching the FA Cup Final (where they lost to Arsenal) just two years earlier in 2003.

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This surprised me:

Nevertheless, they can hardly be accused of simply spending their way towards success, as their net spend over the last three years is in fact one of the lowest in the Championship, a long way below the likes of Birmingham City, Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Brighton.

£12m for AOC plus Surman, goaldrought and little thief sales on the one side and none of the recent signings on the other, so this figure doesn't quite paint the whole story.
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Pretty sure this will be Aviva as only Barclays and Aviva were listed as being owed any where near that amount. Aviva were the only ones who could be forced into those sorts of values and terms because of the massive drop in the stadium value under liquidation contions. Barclays would have lost but not a great deal in comparison as there was some form of security against the loans.

 

We went bankrupt when the overdraft was reduced to £4M. We would not have gone bankrupt at that point if the overdraft was still £5M. The overdraft limit was tipped when we tried to pay Coles monthly salary, so no where near an extra £1M.

 

IIRC the overdraft limit was reduced to £4m and the club had got it down to around that amount. The amount that tipped us over (again from memory of what was posted on here) as in the region of £100k.

 

As an aside, I personally think that if it wasn't for wider issues in the financial system at the time, that payment would never have been bounced at that time.

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The £4m contingent liability is definitely due to Aviva on return to the Premiership (and I think even then a part of it is only payable if we stay there!). It was a part of the negotiations when ML came in and Aviva accepted a lower one off fee than what they were owed, in return for a future promise.

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What he actually actually says is correct if you read the whole sentance: finishing as high as eighth and reaching the FA Cup Final (where they lost to Arsenal) just two years earlier in 2003.

Nope, it is factually wrong, and ignores when we were runners-up during the 27 years that we were in the top flight (for the second time). Here is the whole sentence:

 

"This came as a huge blow to a club that had graced the top flight for 27 straight years, finishing as high as eighth and reaching the FA Cup Final (where they lost to Arsenal) just two years earlier in 2003."

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Nope, it is factually wrong, and ignores when we were runners-up during the 27 years that we were in the top flight (for the second time). Here is the whole sentence:

 

"This came as a huge blow to a club that had graced the top flight for 27 straight years, finishing as high as eighth and reaching the FA Cup Final (where they lost to Arsenal) just two years earlier in 2003."

 

 

Not factually wrong, just grammatically very poor so you have a point. Look at the following and it becomes a little clearer

 

"This came as a huge blow to a club that had graced the top flight for 27 straight years, finishing as high as eighth and reaching the FA Cup Final just two years earlier in 2003."

 

 

 

 

IIRC the overdraft limit was reduced to £4m and the club had got it down to around that amount. The amount that tipped us over (again from memory of what was posted on here) as in the region of £100k.

 

As an aside, I personally think that if it wasn't for wider issues in the financial system at the time, that payment would never have been bounced at that time.

 

I was dealing with the same people in Reading at the time and Barclays were in real upheaval. This being at the time that the government were having to step in to stop the whole financial organisations from going to the wall. Major restructuring and movement away from Reading, just at that time and Barclays just wanted out of the worst kind of debt possible. After just making mass redundancies at Barclays, we failed to reduce that overdraft in the January window and that was that. I am sure Lowe was aware but little he could do. If he sold off the assets that cheaply in that January window he was doomed anyway at a later date.

 

What really killed us off with Barclays was the fact they treated us like adults. After Wilde stepped down they had all the finances go through a set of accountants that reported to Barclays. But allowing us to take the finances right up to the bumper without consideration of the subsequent consequences, with Paul Allen as the parachute.

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He might want to change the part about being in the top division and finishing as high as eighth. If he is counting the 27 years then he should also say out highest finish was 2nd. Journo's always forget there was life before the Premier League.

Rest of the article made for a good read.

 

I think he was saying we finished as high as 8th just two years prior to relegation, not making it out to be our highest ever finish

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Pretty sure this will be Aviva as only Barclays and Aviva were listed as being owed any where near that amount. Aviva were the only ones who could be forced into those sorts of values and terms because of the massive drop in the stadium value under liquidation contions. Barclays would have lost but not a great deal in comparison as there was some form of security against the loans.

 

We went bankrupt when the overdraft was reduced to £4M. We would not have gone bankrupt at that point if the overdraft was still £5M. The overdraft limit was tipped when we tried to pay Coles monthly salary, so no where near an extra £1M.

It is Aviva if the article details are correct. I know that Aviva were being persuaded to accept a certain amount with a Premier bonus sweetner within certain period of time. It is definately not Barclays or any of the past Directors.
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Don't tell me, tell the bloke that published the figure and the thousands of people who definitely chucked money into buckets.

 

That was the club's initiative and had nothing to do with the SOS group but they used the term save our saints in the promotion of the collections. The Save Our Saints Group was formed at a meeting in the De Vere and publicised by The Echo months before the crisis and was aimed at trying to unseat Lowe/Wilde initially and only latterly focussed on a back up plan.

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