the andersred blog

So United's cash balance is always high in June. The graph below shows how the total has varied over the last few years. I have added the unusual impact of the quadrant expansion costs in 2005 and 2006 to show the underlying numbers. What is striking about this graph is that having had year end cash balances averaging £47m up to 2008, from 2009 onwards the average balance has been over £166m (including my estimate for this year).

What the graph shows is that two windfall receipts, Real Madrid's payment for Cristiano Ronaldo and Aon's prepayment of 45% of its four year sponsorship (both received on 30th June 2009 coincidentally), provided a "one time" boost to the club's cash balance that remain to this day.

The rest of the cash flows from 30th June 2008 to 31st March 2011 are pretty much a wash. The club generated £276m of cash profits (EBITDA), and paid out £328m in interest, debt finance costs, debt repayments and transfer spending (see table):

Despite the "boom" in football driven by ever higher TV income, fans across the country have faced years of inflation in the cost of following their team. Yet from the Taylor Report of 1990, through various government task forces, to the current DCMS Select Committee enquiry, the need to keep football affordable has been widely recognised. The incredible loyalty engendered by the sport means it is not a normal "substitutable" good, football fans are highly price inelastic and vulnerable to being exploited. The lack of supporter ownership means fans rarely have a say in the business models of what are really "their" clubs, whoever the short-term legal owners may be.

The last few months have seen some truly shocking examples of aggressive price increases, including the Champions League Final, the Conference Play-off Final and of course the price rises at Queens Park Rangers where, for example, a “Gold” season ticket will go up from £599 last season (£26 per game) to £759 next season (£40 per game). That’s a rise of 54% per match.

Of course, most promoted clubs raise ticket prices. Last season, Newcastle increased prices by 10% and West Brom by 13% (Blackpool held them flat). The other automatically promoted club this year, Norwich City, have announced rises of 8-15% for 2011/12.

What is puzzling is the scale of the QPR price rises which hit the club's core support so hard when a) they only bring in a tiny amount of extra money and b) the club and its owners really don’t need the extra cash.

Although QPR fans are no doubt grateful to their club's famous owners for saving them from financial oblivion in 2007, the motivation of the trio in owning QPR remains unclear. None are natural fans of the club, and whilst they have bankrolled losses (injecting £41m up to 31st May 2010 on top of the £14m paid originally), there has been no substantial investment in the playing squad or ground. Briatore has famously spoken of turning the club into a "global brand", but no mechanism to achieve this has been suggested.

In the three seasons up to 2009/10, the club spent a net £4.8m in cash on players and a net £5.3m on the ground. Net transfer spending in 2010/11 was close to zero. Success has come from finally finding a manager who is a proven promotion specialist, not from spending.

Meanwhile Ecclestone placed a £100m price tag on the club in April and there were abortive talks about he and Briatore selling out to Mittal in May this year (ending with the Mittal offer being dismissed as "insultingly low").

So QPR and its owners remain one of football's mysteries. These are the mega-rich owners who haven't bought any players and who, despite the £40m windfall coming the club's way, feel that what QPR really need to do is screw another £2m out of their fans....

Edit at 2.30pm 7th June 2011:

Although Premier League income fell as the club finished 7^th vs. 2^nd the year before in the league, this was more than compensated for by higher Champions League receipts. Last season was the first of a new three year cycle of Champions League TV rights and Liverpool benefited in particular from their 2^nd place league finish in 2008/09 which increased their share of the English "market pool". Early exit from the Champions League at the group stages was rewarded with entry into the Europa League. The difference in TV income between the two competitions is stark, with Liverpool's run to the semi-final only earning £2.5m, barely 10% of their Champions League income.

The fall in Liverpool's EBITDA in 2009/10 and the exceptional costs of getting rid of Benitez are reflected in the club's operating cash flow which fell from £36.5m to £23.3m (after c. £4m of working capital inflows each year). In 2008/09, Liverpool spent considerable cash on capex, transfers and other investments. In 2009/10 by contrast (reflecting no doubt both weaker profits but more importantly balance sheet problems) total net investment fell from £56m to £17m.

Stadium term debt facility £47m

It will not be clear until next year when the 2010/11 accounts which of these facilities have been used by the club (and possibly not even then if the revolver and letters of credit are used to support seasonal cash flow). In interviews, J W Henry has mentioned the retention of £37m of "stadium debt" and again it is not clear how this relates to the £47m term facility (is £10m undrawn?). The club's previous working capital facility (totalling £97m and including £37m of stadium debt) had an average cost of 450bps over LIBOR, and it would be reasonable to assume that margin had fallen with the new facilities (to perhaps 350bps). With 3 month LIBOR still at a rock bottom 0.26%, this would make the new facility pretty cheap for Liverpool, costing c. £1.4m for the aforementioned £37m rising to £3.5m if all the facilities were fully drawn.

Since Fenway took over there has been much debate and speculation about whether the new owners will decide to build a new stadium in Stanley Park or refurbish Anfield. Financially, neither option is easy. A new stadium would cost £350-400m but could generate significant naming rights and allow a huge expansion of corporate hospitality facilities (a necessary evil in a modern ground). The cost of the refurbishment option would be significantly lower but still expensive given the configuration of the ground, the possible need to move roads etc. A refurbishment would not increase hospitality facilities as much as a new build and naming rights would be lower. The previous owners' plans envisaged a 73,000, whilst any remodelling of the existing ground would only increase the capacity to c. 60,000.

Having qualified for the competition in all but one season from 2001 to 2009, Liverpool is set-up as a Champions League club in terms of its wage structure and transfer policies, but to get back into the Champions League it needs to invest even more on the playing side and in the longer term it needs to take on substantial stadium debt just to catch up with its peers. That is a very difficult and narrow path to tread for owners who seem unlikely to inject significant equity and wish instead to rely on self-generated funds.

The club recognised an interest charge of £34.9m for the nine months (£11.2m in the 3^rd quarter). Because bond interest is paid in February and August, the cash interest cost year to date is actually £47.0m. This brings the total cash interest paid by the club since the 2005 takeover to £239m and total costs including fees etc to £369m.

LUHG 

This is the first in a series of posts looking at the challenges faced by English clubs in complying with UEFA's Financial Fair Play ("FFP") rules. Next season (2011/12) is the first year when clubs' "break-even result" are calculated. The tables below shows what "break-even result" the seven English clubs that played in Europe this season would have achieved on last year's figures (Liverpool numbers are for 2008/09 as they have not yet published 2009/10 results).

Relevant income

The "relevant income" calculation is the simplest bit of the FFP rules. All football club revenue (which I have divided into the common matchday/media/commercial and retail split) is of course included. In addition, the profit from selling players is included too. Profit in this sense means the difference between a player's selling price and the book value of his registration on the club's balance sheet. Players that come through a club's youth system have a zero book value and thus any sale proceeds are 100% "profit" in the FFP calculations.

Income from non-football operations is excluded, except where they are based at or close to a club's ground (such as hotel or conference facilities). Chelsea's hotel would therefore be included in the income calculation, as would Manchester City's "Sportcity" redevelopment around Eastlands. Arsenal's property income from the re-development of Highbury would be excluded.

The other major exclusion, and one no doubt likely to cause controversy, is revenue received from "related parties" (effectively the owner or people/corporations connected to them) in transactions that are carried out "above fair value". This rule (described in Annex X B 1j) says that transactions with a related party must be compared to the "fair value" that would have been achieved if the transaction was done as a normal commercial deal. Any income above this "fair value" is disregarded when calculating a club's income. This rule is designed to prevent owners subsidising their club by, for example, paying £50m per year for a box that would normally cost £250,000.

Relevant expenses




The expenses element of the FFP is more complicated and less intuitive than the income side. Staff costs are included and are by far the largest element, indeed it can be argued that the whole aim of FFP is to bear down on staff costs across European football. Other cash operating expenses are included (the basic costs of running a football club), but depreciation of fixed assets is not included. This means that there is no account taken under the FFP calculation of any costs from investing in stadiums or training grounds. Owners can finance such capital expenditure without limit under FFP.

Finance costs such as interest payments are included, but not if they relate to borrowing taken on to construct "tangible fixed assets" such as stadia, training facilities etc. In the table above, I have deducted the c. £14.5m of Arsenal's £20.8m of interest costs that relate to the club's financing of the Emirates.

The interest figure for United excludes the significant one-off refinancing costs the club recognised in 2009/10. My understanding is that such costs would not be included under FFP. On an ongoing basis, United's bond interest will be around £44.5m per annum.

A vital element of the expenses calculation is the inclusion of the "amortisation of player contracts" charge, which is how the cost of transfers is accounted for.

The accounting treatment of transfer spending is one of the least intuitive elements of finance for most football supporters. In the UK, the treatment is covered by "Financial Reporting Standard 10: Goodwill and Intangible Assets". In a transfer, the asset that is being bought and sold is not of course the player himself but the player's registration. This "asset" has a finite length of course, being the length of the player's contract with the acquiring club and FRS 10 says that the cost of buying the registration must be "recognised" over that life.

As with the income calculation, transactions with "related parties" not done at "fair value" are adjusted for in the relevant expenses calculation. This is to prevent owners subsidising their clubs through taking on club costs (such as directly paying players for example).

The final major adjustments in the expense calculation relate to spending on youth development and community activities. Both are excluded from the FFP numbers, meaning clubs can spend as much as they wish on these areas. I have estimated figures for all seven clubs as they are not separately disclosed in the accounts.

Income minus expenses = "break-even result"




Subtracting "relevant expenses" from "relevant income" gives us the all important "break-even result". This is the key figure under the new regulations. In the first two "monitoring periods", seasons 2011/12 and 2012/13, clubs are not permitted to make a loss greater than €45m (c. £39.5m) over these two years combined if they are to receive a licence to play in Europe in 2013/14.

As you can see from the table above, only three or the seven English clubs would have made a profit under the break-even calculation last year, and Spurs' profit was only due to profits on player sales. United would have shown a loss if the exceptional financing costs were included. The losses at both Chelsea and City stand out. The figures for Liverpool are misleading, because they include significant finance costs relating to the debt Hicks and Gillet loaded on the club which have now been cleared.

Enforcement and exemptions
Meeting the new rules is going to be hard for many clubs across Europe. A key question is the extent to which  UEFA actually enforce their new rules. The credibility of Michel Platini and UEFA as an organisation are clearly on the line, and I believe they will be enforced, although that may well mean banning a major club from European competition.

The rules do give one notable exemption to the calculations I have outlined for the first two seasons in which the rules apply (2013/14 and 2014/15), set out in Annex XI 2, the final page of the regulations. If a club breaches the "break-even" target in the "monitoring periods" for either of these seasons because of a loss in the 2011/12 season caused by wages paid to players under contracts signed before 1st June 2010 (when the FFP rules were published) the club will be let off (as long as losses are reducing over time). That is quite a big get out, and may well mean that City and Chelsea do not face the imminent prospect of a European ban. The exemption is only temporary however and the principle remains the same, if UEFA enforce FFP, many clubs are going to have to cut their wage bills and/or radically boost their revenues in the next few years.

LUHG