It doesn't seem that we had a great 2013 from a financial viewpoint. Our income (Turnover) fell from approx £6.77M in 2012 to £6.32M and despite a fall in costs we ended up with a gross profit that was £344K lower. I suspect that the majority of this income drop was gate money ( perhaps £200K ? ) due to the fall in attendances at the HJ.

So to counteract the drop in income it looks as though Andy Gatcliffe has been busy cost cutting. We employed 12 fewer players in 2013 (59 in total), two less coaches and trainers, and 3 fewer admin staff. Our Admin expenses consequently fell by £220K, but this saving was wiped out by the cost of transfers (see Daryl Clark thread ) which amounted to a net £215K.

Our net profit for the year ended up as £18K, compared with £344K in 2012.

Here is an interesting question; I have not seen 'net transfers' in the accounts before, so does this mean the club are now expected to finance any future purchase of players ? We have after all heard about owners wanting their clubs to be 'self sustainable' and not be dependant on the owners goodwill. If that is the case, we might need to reign in some of our expectations about which players we would like to see at the club. It could mean that Simms and Clark will be the only big name players joining us next year (other than e.g. OOC free transfers / small purchases on promising youth etc).

Wasn't there a thread on here earlier in the season saying we were £300k under the salary cap and one of the lowest spenders in the league?

Does anyone remember that? It was probably one of rubber duckies threads.

Would the revenue from Wembley in 2012 been included in 11/12 or 12/13 reports? (Not sure what our FY is.) Am assuming the latter and so probably makes these results worse if you factor that in.

What about the cost of filling in the corners ,or is that a separate budget ?

The accounts are always drawn up to the end of November, so Wembly 2012 revenue should have been in the 2012 accounts.



The cost of filling in the corners is not included in the profits for a given year - it is viewed as a 'capital item', the same as for e.g. the purchase of a car. These items are depreciated however each year, and the depreciation is a charge included in the Profit and Loss account. So if the corners cost 1 million and the accountant believes they will last 20 years before replacement, the P&L would incur a charge of £50K each year. The money for the corners came largely from additional borrowing.

I would think it was reasonable for Simon Moran to expect the club to be self-sustaining now, he became majority shareholder about ten years ago and he put a lot in in that time especially the early years to catapult us to the position where we became trophy winners.

He's not indicated he wants to leave his involvement with the club but it's reasonable now that we are a big hitter in the game that we're not expecting him to keep putting in his own cash. Fair enough if he wants to pump some more in for a specific project he is interested in but he shouldn't feel like the fans feel there's some obligation on him to underwrite more big money cash transfers all the time. Fans can get behind the club by putting their money in too.

I've not seen the 2013 accounts but from 25+ years in accountancy I can tell you something...............................you will NOT get the full story from ready the numbers. Basically only the board and the major shareholders will know the ins-and-out of where the money is or the money goes.

Yes, could be true. Perhaps he viewed the last step in his regeneration project was to ensure the youth system was firmly established and producing a steady stream of players. He may even view it as a failure if he needs to put his hands in his pocket and buy us back into a top 4 place.

I suspect this set of accounts could be the poorest we are likely to see for some time. In the interim, all SL clubs were given an immediate £300k from Sky as part of the new franchise deal. On top of that we negotiated that big sponsorship deal with Emirates and also got a very good deal for the catering contract. The last I heard, the RFL were going to stump up half the money for a SL club to run an Academy, and by 2016 Sky will essentially be paying each club for their entire playing staff - providing we don't raise the salary cap of course.

Were any figures ever released for the Emirates sponsorship? The pessimist in me has always suspected that it was a case of shirt sponsor in return for biannual flights to Sydney.

You are normally quite an optimistic poster !

The club were quoted in the Guardian as saying that it was their biggest ever deal and that it was the most high profile in RL. But before it was announced somebody on here met the chairman waiting for a train and he let slip that it was " a 7 figure sum over 4 years". That would equate to a minimum of £250K/year.

You can rightly argue that this is just hearsay (particularly in your profession), but the information seems to hang together - the time period was spot on and the figure looks large without sounding silly. But yes, you have to judge it yourself.

+1. I imagine we're filing abbreviated accounts too?

No-one has mentioned the debt figure, or given an indication as to how Moran's invested money has been dealt with (capital or loans?). That could be very important for the future.

I don't follow the logic that he might now think 'job done' and not opt to stick more money in.

It's a pity you couldn't be bothered to actually read the accounts. It's a bit like commenting on a game that you never watched, surely.

Abbreviated accounts don't normally contain a P&L account, and those figures have already been quoted in the thread.

Loans over a year are around £2M, the vast majority of which are bank loans. Moran has £185k in his DLA, but one of his companies made a £500k short term loan available last year. I would guess that this might have been a bridging loan before receipt of the franchised £300k and other fluctuations in cash flow. So if Moran did up and leave suddenly, the club would certainly not disappear, but would obviously still need a good financial backer.

In previous years I assume Moran has simply paid up for some of our big transfers. This is the first time I have seen transfer costs recorded in the accounts and hence paid for via the club. Getting the club to be self financing is surely an important goal for Moran, and hence the comments about 'job done'.

The loans are on the following terms, I have no problem with the club borrowing money when they can get it at those rates;

£991,228 (2012 £1 Million) repayable monthly over 10 years at 1.75% above base rate
£498,573 (2012 £541,607) repayable monthly over 9 years at 3% above base rate
£600,000 bank overdraft

These have a personal guarantee from Simon Moran.

£775,000 owed to SJM Limited (£525,000 repayable within 1 year, £250,000 repayable in more than 1 year)

We have an asset in the stadium, which is being used every single day not just for rugby, for example;

Warrington Primary Care Trust (In 10th year of 50 year lease)
Warrington Wolves Community Learning and Sports Foundation
Warrington Primary Care Trust I.T training centre (10th year of 15 year lease)
PhysioFirst (extended 5 year lease)
Companies hosting meetings
Events

The club has invested to improve the training facilities at University of Chester, and improve the stadium. We have managed to get bigger sponsors on board, and there will be more Sky money available.

We are in a much better situation than when we were at Wilderspool, which was simply bleeding money.

Our figures don't look too bad to me. For any rugby league team to make a profit is a very good position to be in particularly after incurring transfer costs in excess of £200k (I recall Wigan made a small profit last year, about £27k I think, on the back of transfer fee receipts of over £250k). I wonder if any other teams will report a profit for the same period?

As for reduction in playing/coaching staff then I would imagine this is linked to the scrapping of the u20's. I'd imagine that the majority of the "lost" players ended-up as Swinton players.

Its worth doing a comparison with Saints' figures that have just been released:

Saints turnover down to £5.365m from £5.785m - so same sort of drop in monetary terms but greater as a percentage, although our previous year included a money-spinning Wembley trip. Their turnover is some £1m less than ours despite enjoying greater average attendances.

Saints loss has increased to £2.412m (yes that is two million four hundred thousand pounds LOSS) from £1.685m the year before. I'd have to think that a profit of £18k starts to look very good indeed after a look at these losses.

You might think this stemmed from Gatcliffe's cost cutting of the paying staff until you see that Saints have reduced their paying and coaching staff by 43 during the same period. Saints now actually have fewer playing and coaching staff than we do (84 for Warrington and 75 for Saints). It would seem from this than the reduction is linked to operating one less academy team rather than targeted cost cutting.

If you think we didn't have a great financial year in 2013 God knows how you would classify Saints' year.

they've had a 'Roy'.

I will have a look at Saints figures then. Don't forget though that the Profit and Loss also includes depreciation and amortisation (of goodwill) which amounted to a charge of £213,000 for us. None of that is 'real money', we didn't pay it out last year, and it can distort the picture of a company that owns a very large asset such as a stadium. So I will be interested to see what level of depreciation Saints had for their depreciation since they have such a new stadium. However, even if it cost £20M I can't see that annual depreciation could be more than say £500K. That leaves a lot of dosh to be explained, and you are right, on the surface at least, it looks an awful set of figures for the year.

Having looked at Saints full year accounts I would have to say that one or more Board directors have very deep pockets. Their operational loss was £2.17 M and on top of that they paid out £534K on their capital budget - I assume this was the stadium cladding.

The Balance Sheet has a line for Creditors, 'amounts falling due after more than one year' of nearly £16 M, up from £13.3 M in 2012. This looks to be the accumulated amount of money that directors have pumped into the club - It makes Simon Moran look like a pauper in comparison, and there was me thinking we had one of the wealthiest backers in SL.

Quote ="Winslade's Offload"Having looked at Saints full year accounts I would have to say that one or more Board directors have very deep pockets. Their operational loss was £2.17 M and on top of that they paid out £534K on their capital budget - I assume this was the stadium cladding. The Balance Sheet has a line for Creditors, 'amounts falling due after more than one year' of nearly £16 M, up from £13.3 M in 2012. This looks to be the accumulated amount of money that directors have pumped into the club - It makes Simon Moran look like a pauper in comparison, and there was me thinking we had one of the wealthiest backers in SL.'" The man in question is Mike Coleman (brief intro link: www.eurekahedge.co.uk/news/11_Ju ... modity.asp) born in St. Helens, educated in Oxford and now owns and runs a hedge fund, which led to him meeting McManus, and joining the saints board. To the inevitable: what if he pulls the plug? His only options are, given how the debt is accumulated in a shell company, would be to either convert it into shares, and take control or get Saints to pay it back in their own time. Given like McManus, he's a lifelong Saints fan, it puts us in as safe a position as feasibly possible. I won't have the argument about this years figures. I feel there's an awful lot of "setting up" (not "real money" being moved around - like the creation of a 2.3m tax asset) going on ... Ultimately, were run by 2 bankers.

Quote ="Winslade's Offload"Having looked at Saints full year accounts I would have to say that one or more Board directors have very deep pockets. Their operational loss was £2.17 M and on top of that they paid out £534K on their capital budget - I assume this was the stadium cladding. The Balance Sheet has a line for Creditors, 'amounts falling due after more than one year' of nearly £16 M, up from £13.3 M in 2012. This looks to be the accumulated amount of money that directors have pumped into the club - It makes Simon Moran look like a pauper in comparison, and there was me thinking we had one of the wealthiest backers in SL.'" The man in question is Mike Coleman (brief intro link: www.eurekahedge.co.uk/news/11_Ju ... modity.asp) born in St. Helens, educated in Oxford and now owns and runs a hedge fund, which led to him meeting McManus, and joining the saints board. To the inevitable: what if he pulls the plug? His only options are, given how the debt is accumulated in a shell company, would be to either convert it into shares, and take control or get Saints to pay it back in their own time. Given like McManus, he's a lifelong Saints fan, it puts us in as safe a position as feasibly possible. I won't have the argument about this years figures. I feel there's an awful lot of "setting up" (not "real money" being moved around - like the creation of a 2.3m tax asset) going on ... Ultimately, were run by 2 bankers.

Quote ="Magic Superbeetle"The man in question is Mike Coleman (brief intro link: www.eurekahedge.co.uk/news/11_Ju ... modity.asp) born in St. Helens, educated in Oxford and now owns and runs a hedge fund.'" Goodness me, I didn't realise there was so much money in Gardening.

Quote ="Magic Superbeetle"The man in question is Mike Coleman (brief intro link: www.eurekahedge.co.uk/news/11_Ju ... modity.asp) born in St. Helens, educated in Oxford and now owns and runs a hedge fund.'" Goodness me, I didn't realise there was so much money in Gardening.

Yes, I might start listening to The Archers and see if I can pick up a few tips as well.

I really wish most of this didn't go over my head, this discussion sounds fascinating.

A business class Emirates flight to Australia is about £5K each way, so £10K each round trip. Let's say 25 make the trip thats £250K alone.

So you are probably both right. Shirts for flights.

2014 accounts will be down I suspect with the falling attendances. The club might have to milk the cash cow and cash in on a huge transfer fee and sell Roy.

Extra £300,000 from Sky, plus the Emirates sponsorship.

And more Thursday games & whatever other nights sky decide they have a gap in their schedules ,followed by even fewer bums on seats.