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The 2018/19 accounts - the Grumpy take

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Actually @Grumpy Old Man surprised that ongoing support etc are not mentioned somewhere in the accounts to support going concern approach - given the loss etc and given current scrutiny we as auditors are under

Grumpy Old Man said:
Nope



Having had to do that for accounts going to Lord Weinstock when he was in charge at GEC, no :). God, that man's bullshit detector was the finest ever.
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Were you at Touche in those days - was that not a client IIRC
 

King Kareoke said:
Actually @Grumpy Old Man surprised that ongoing support etc are not mentioned somewhere in the accounts to support going concern approach - given the loss etc and given current scrutiny we as auditors are under



Were you at Touche in those days - was that not a client IIRC
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Trained at Touche, and spent too many hours in Rugby :). Worked for a GEC sub much later in my career.

King Kareoke said:
Actually @Grumpy Old Man surprised that ongoing support etc are not mentioned somewhere in the accounts to support going concern approach - given the loss etc and given current scrutiny we as auditors are under



Were you at Touche in those days - was that not a client IIRC
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Balance sheet total is positive after the share issue, and there's cash in the bank. There's no obvious going concern issue at the moment.
 
mikemanc said:
My view as an accountant is I don't care who's looking at my accounts I'm going to take every exemption that I can so I spend the minimal amount of time working on stats and trying to improve the business instead.

I don't recall ever seeing a cashflow in previous accounts so this isn't making the accounts any more opaque but nor is it increasing transparency. And to be honest, I don't think we can criticise the owners lack of transparency even if this is how they've decided to do their accounting. It's probably their accountants who've decided this company structure and disclosure anyway.
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Thanks mate - appreciate that.
 
Ale taster said:
:lol:
I know what you mean, this is a job for a social media savvy and financially qualified individual.
On both counts, I am a dribbling idiot.
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My favourite take on new technology was a crusty old social worker I knew emphatically telling someone who was trying to show him how to log on to a computer:

"That's no good to me, I am a squashed hedgehog on the so called information superhighway"
 
Looking much better as a viable club now, better financial status, but still some pruning required.

Hmmm, some hard choices ahead for someone at the club depending on seasons end.
 
Grumpy Old Man said:
This, hopefully, is the nadir, the final emptying of the cesspit of declining finances. We live in hope.

What can we say from the numbers, and what does it really mean going forward?

First, this year's figures

Income
Obviously, way down on 2016/17. TV income halved as expected. Gate receipts went down by £2.4m, a drop of just under 25%. That's the cost of PL fanboys and stayaways. Sponsorship fell off a cliff, down 80%, while commercial and retail were down about 35%. Depressing, but pretty much what you might expect. Looking at 2018/19 gates, everything but TV income will probably have bottomed out. However, we're looking at another £15m or so drop in TV income in the 2018/19 accounts. That's why the new owners needed, and still need, tocut costs.

Expenses
Staff costs dropped by £35m (around 42%), lower than the fall in income. so staff costs were 73.4% of turnover (2017 - 67.5%). Bain got a £1m payoff (looking at his total pay, that's probably a contractual one year notice). On staff numbers, it looks as though redundancies affected 1 in 6 admin staff. It appeared that we still managed to spend around £2om on other operating costs. This is where Donald is really going to have to wield the axe to get the books balanced.

Other points to note from the P&L: a further £12m was written off player contract values, we made an £8m profit on the sale of the Charlie Hurley centre, and the lawyers and merchant bankers trousered £6.5m for the share issue.

Turning to the balance sheet, transfer debtors were £16.2m (£4.4m receivable next season), while transfer creditors were £19.6m (£3.5m payable next season). Other debtors include £9.6m due from another group company (not Sunderland Ltd). It's unclear who owes this, or why the debt is there. As expected, there arer no external debts, and there was a positive cash balance of £11.1m at the year end.

Looking forward, there are grounds for optimism, although we may continue to make smaller losses while the position the owners inherited unwinds. Clearly, there is much more work to be done on the cost base, particularly player wages, but it's a far brighter picture than when I was writing this time last year.
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That Alvarez surprise £9.6 debt could have come from Short’s companies as a kind gesture that was under his watch....
 
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