We’ve already talked about the situation surrounding Leeds’s finances before: to put it simply, Leeds United was not as hunky dory financially as Ken Bates would like to have people believe. The financial reports for the year have been published, and it shows that had the sale to GFH Capital not gone through, things would have got increasingly worse:
Leeds City Holdings, the parent company, lost £3m, a not insignificant sum.
The football club itself, ‘Leeds United Football Club’, lost £2.2m before player trading. As we have often stated, Leeds were, under Ken Bates, reliant on a model revolving around the sale of the likes of Gradel, Snodgrass et al. at a profit, putting managers in an awfully difficult situation where budgets were repeatedly slashed. So where the sale of Howson etc. was supposedly inevitable, once Premier League interest came, this is not the case. Leeds United under Ken Bates NEEDED to sell the crown jewels last year, and did so.
Leeds United Media and Yorkshire Radio lost £122k between them (the latter losing a whopping £100,000). Keeping things in-house certainly working for the best, eh Ken?
The Centenary Pavilion, one of Leeds’s efforts at diversifying income away from match-days, lost £233,000. It is alright having the best conference facilities between Wetherby and Sheffield, but it doesn’t matter when no one is there to fill them.
The group lost £536,000 overall, a massive drop from the £2,988,000 profit that was made in 2011. Is this much of a surprise, with attendances falling and the club losing masses of money in merchandise due to an increasingly embittered fan base?
Furthermore, the club entered into an agreement on 7th of July 2011 where it sold “£5 0m of season tickets" for the 2012/13 season and the 2013/14 season to Ticketus 2 LLP. Ticketus are, of course, infamous for their role in the Rangers downfall. It must be assumed that the figure is five, and not fifty, otherwise the situation is worse than thought. This was used to fund the East Stand development, which, whilst nice and all, surely won’t bring in £5m over the next two seasons to service this debt?
Preference shares worth £4m upon a “change in control" were sold to Lutonville Holdings Limited on the 21st of December 2011.
Leeds City Holding closed with a debt increase from £1.3m to a whopping FIVE MILLION, TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS. Ken Bates, as much as he liked to delude everyone, did not leave Leeds United debt free.
Was the sale to GFH Capital an unmissable inevitability? The reality is Ken’s regime could probably not sustain itself in the face of such financial issues
The Debts continue to grow at Leeds
posted on 4/1/13
probably is....
a lot will "cut and run"...
difference is the new chairman and board coming in wont have the direct finance to buy outright..
equity companies have that cash..
they then "own" everything outright which allows them if required to just sell off parts of the purchase which on their own are "good sellers" and allow the running down of other parts which are not.. Good parts of the purchase with no debt attached to them can be sold for much more than they were worth whilst the "whole" purchase was in "debt"...
Once you own everything including subsidaries you can pick and choose what to sell off and what to ignore , the final "fire" sale of whats left is just to cover expenses etc..
Get it cheap, get rid of the debt, get shut of the costs/outgoings /staff etc , sell off the profitable/attractive parts and finally dispose of the rest..
An equity company will not have paid a penny more for l=eds united and subsidaries than they can re coup wether it make a profit or not.. An investment company might well have paid more with a longer term view.. It appears no investment companies were the slightest bit interested.. That tells you more about football in general than it does the le-ds situation.. You need a "benefactor", we have one on a smaller scale, how long that will last I dont know..
posted on 4/1/13
I'd think this group being in the business they are know where the money is, and they'll know if whatever they are taking on is big enough and capable enough to do what they want it to do!..
I'd say they know what they stand to gain with a team coming out of this league as you say on the,(well, no so, but)cheap and what's to be made when they get it as far as they are planning!..
I'd be sure that if it doesn't go how they plan that someone else will be keeping tabs and it will make a good bidding war if it goes that far!..
But, seeing it the way you do, its seems funny how a buyer will put up money before the takeover is even completed, and the reason for that was Bates didn't have the balls or money to do it!..
Someone put that money up and I think its they/them that are holding back on anything else while Bates is still there, when he goes then we'll know who or what is with our club, because then money will be spent!..
Something says this bank is just a front runner for someone else, and its that someone else who's pulling the strings!..
posted on 4/1/13
Something says this bank is just a front runner for someone else, and its that someone else who's pulling the strings!..
...........
Germany,bates has already said that their is a very wealthy individual that has come in with gfh.what ever the accounts of gfh are don't really matter as it is not their £52mill that has bought the club.
posted on 4/1/13
The person behind gfh is a royal from Bahrain, gfh are not the ppl funding the team.
posted on 4/1/13
we have all seen "the person behind"....
ask notts county and others.. it was a load of chancers with "notes of intention"...
posted on 4/1/13
super, I know there was a hell off a lot of talk about someone when the takeover was first brought to light!..
38, should we ask Nott's County who'd pay for players before buying the club, and then pay 52mill?..
I don't think anyone would unless they had the backup to do it!..
posted on 4/1/13
think we should all wait and see...
posted on 4/1/13
posted on 4/1/13
Superwhites
Town's wage bill is nothing like the figure you guessed. Taken from the accounts for the 2010-11 season:
'The total football expenditure including all football player costs and other football related costs increased to £7.29m.'
Note this includes manager / coach and other costs as well as players wages.
No doubt this will have increased now we are in the Championship, but then so will the income- Hoyle is not subsidising the club to the extent you suggest.
posted on 5/1/13
Berkshire,leeds wage bill last season was over £13 mill and doing not think your wage bill is far behind with the likes of beckford and Vaughan on loan then there is clayts who wanted a certain amount but was told he would not be 1st choice so warnock did not think he warranted that amount so hudders must be paying him what he wanted which will not be peanuts.would not bet against hudders wage bill being more than your turnover.do not know how your club could survive on £7 mill turnover when leeds is almost 5 times that!!!!