Member Info for SaltedPopcorn

Do you actually believe that, Cambridgeblue? To me, that statement looks risible and is a good reason why the official site is the last place I would look for enlightenment.

Yes, I said my calculations were being generous. The fundamental problem is that the income (most of which comes from ST sales in the close season) do not sustain the club throughout the season. If the club is not promoted, I would expect next season's ST sales to be the same or less than this season. If they are promoted, the sales will increase but so too would the costs. Given the annual business plan consists of raking in money in a one-off exercise and effectively committing a year's worth of expenditure up front, it needs all the planning to be right in June/July. Miss that and you have an unavoidable year of pain in front of you - requiring donations or sale of assets to tide you over. I can't see the plan being right this June-July, so that means RFC will not have an opportunity to get a balanced budget in place before July 2016. That's a long way off.

From memory, the club was told by auditors that it could not use 2014-15 ST money to support activity in 2013-14; and that the money would be released incrementally to ensure that people who had paid for a season of watching football were likely to see at least a substantial portion of a season of football. I think I read that the final drawdown was before Christmas. Of course, this was all unsubstantiated rumour - who knows what the truth was. As for attemdances, the interim results showed ST sales of 24,589. That means there were 6838 non ST holders at the most recent game. Most of these would have been paying customers, but clubs tend to give out a certain number of complimentary tickets too. Let's assume, though, that they all paid and let us be generous and assume an average ticket price of GBP15 (full price 17, concessions 12, juniors 5) - that would rake in fractionally over GBP100,000. I would be pretty confident that the actual figure would be some way short of that. This is also not terribly different from attendances throughout the season. Therefore I would expect to see the typical monthly expenditure (1.5-1.7m based on loans taken throughout the season) to already factor in these small income streams. The problem remains that the club spends considerably more than it earns; and most income is derived at the start of the season creating a breating space in July-August and a pretty terrible picture once that money has been spent (typically October). As long as the club spends more than it earns, it will be dependent on money sourced from secured loans (sale of assets), soft loans (donations) and sale of equity (donations again). That is not sustainable.

I didn't find it but I heard that a bunyip had run off with it somewhere beyond the black stump.

I'm back in the land of the living - even if this stock isn't. And happy happy to see the forum still alive and well.

I am off at some ungodly hour tomorrow to spend my Easter with the inlaws in the Blue Mountains. Their internet is on trickle feed, so I doubt that I would be able to check into this site whilst I am away. By the time I am back, I expect Sevco will have been delisted and this forum will have closed. I hope I am wrong, but I suspect I am not. I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed the past year or more. It has helped me enormously in my understanding of governance as a concept and, believe it or not, this has helped me to perfrom more effectively in my day job. Regardless of where Sevco ends up in the future, the short history to this point should be a textbook example of how not to run a company - or what happens when those setting up a company choose to operate it for their own good and not the good of shareholders. There are lessons to be taken in how to deal with a fiercely loyal but gullible customer base; and how to handle PR in an environment where media are afraid of losing their own customer bases if they tell the truth. It is also a lesson in what happens when a governing body values one of its members more highly than it values its own integrity - with parallels to cycling, weightlifting and (if anyone wants to Google it) Essendon Football Club right now. I hope Scottish football will flourish. I know this may, ironically, come at the expense of the UEFA coefficient, but a more open domestic competition would surely bring in more customers across the piece. I lived in Edinburgh for a while and never bothered to adopt a football team purely because with Rangers and Celtic winning everything, there seemed to be little for the Edinburgh clubs to play for. Without that duopoly, I might well have been persuaded to go to Gorgie and cheer on the team whose stadium I could see from my windows. I would like to wish all the posters here the very best; I hope your dreams come true and hope you have not lost more than you and your families could afford on chasing those dreams. Most of all, I hope to be back here in a fortnight, continuing the banter.

The clear inference about the 278k is that it is rent. Presumably for something that nobody is supposed to realise Sevco doesn't own. Now I'm not saying that this is true - just that this was clearly the inference that readers were supposed to draw.

These five players are an excellent illustration of why dual ownership of clubs should not be allowed, even if they are in different countries.

If the deal was such that all five players came as a job lot, it might be defensible on the grounds that the one who plays is good enough to warrant taking the four lame ducks he came with. Not saying I believe this argument, but just that it might be used in defence.

I'm expecting an announcement on the morning of Thursday next week.

I agree they needed the loan but as soon as they have the cash, they should repay it and look for more sustainable credit. The facility basically costs the club 25% of retail revenue (the marginal increase from 50% to 25%). Come the close season when everyone buys new shirts and scarves, that's a big wodge of cash to lose I'd reckon it could even make the Laxey loan (that was eventually not drawn) look good.

I would assume that the 5m Sports Direct facility is more beneficial to Mike Ashley than to Sevco. Therefore it would be sensible to repay it as soon as possible and get back the assets and some of the revenue stream.

Thanks Footy Fan!

Stu Do you really think that Mike Ashley and the Easdales care a hoot about protecting their share or trying to overturn the boardroom coup? I'd say they have accepted the result and are now just letting the new lot lie in the bed they have made for themselves. I can't see any point in trying to squeeze down their percentage holding. I would, though, be interested to see how they would go about raising equity against a company with no assets and whose existing shares are reportedly trading privately for 2p each. The reason I find the current state of affairs shocking is because there is no chance this loan will be repaid; it is likely to be joined on a monthly basis by firther loans, and these will not have security, interest or any other conditions. It is essentially a publicly listed company existing by the directors paying the running costs out of their own pockets.

I don't know how to do this - but would be interested to see my top words.

What the article actually says is that two years ago, one in eight Scottish clubs was in financial distress. I think that means five. Now, two years later, only one club is in distress and that is not Sevco. I read that as being Scottish football being in a stronger position now than two years ago, albeit perhaps the strength has come from being more willing to consolidate at a lower station rather than paying squillions to chase moonbeams. To my mind, this is a clear indication that Scottish football is better off without Rangers; it has led to more open competition, better entertainment and I suspect a better atmosphere at matches. I hope for the sake of Scottish football that this continues for years to come. You do not need European competition and TV revenues if you have an entertaining domestic product on show, week in week out.

But the problems here are not short term - and I wouldn't think any problem that was short term required restructuring. The problem here is a club that was set up three years ago, has run at a massive loss since Day 1, uses equity to pay running costs; now is turning to directors to pay the wage bill from their own personal wealth. As for new equity? Why would anyone want to buy more shares in a money pit with no unencumbered assets? Even the last time they tried to raise 4m, they fell short and got only 3m. And what did they do with that money they had raised? They used it to pay off loans. King and TPL have no need to reduce the Easdale block in percentage terms; they already have the numbers. Stu, do you have any idea just how bad the financial state of this club actually is? The dodges that are being used every month to get through another payday are shocking.

I think I read somewhere that the one-off costs of staging a cup match tend to eat up most of the ticket sales. Maybe that's right; maybe it isn't. But the idea of pulling forward STs is ridiculous - it is just robbing Peter to pay Paul. If you spend next year's ST money to get to the end of this season, you just start piling up the debt sooner next season. You can restructure to your heart's delight, but Leach and Llambias couldn't work out a way to make the business cover its costs and neither could Wallace. The true awfulness of the situation was hidden (albeit not very well) for the year and a half because there was money in the bank from the IPO. But since this ran out, the club has accumulated debt (despite getting another 3m windfall from new equity, has given away security on all its assets, and has given away revenue streams for sponsorship, advertising and retail. Still the debt piles up with salaries now being paid straight from the the directors' pockets. You surely can't tell me that things are improving.

I can read this only one way. The club tried and failed to secure finance by various means. The only way to meet payroll was for the directors to pay it straight from their own pockets. It was that or closure. That might be how a start-up business operates, but not a publicly listed company. Incidentally, there are three more months before next season starts. That means three more wodges of 1.5m (or more) needed, plus any one off bills such as staff bonuses (paid in June) and tax bills. Do the directors have 6m of personal wealth they are willing to write off? Assuming they don’t sell lots more equity (stop smiling…) that would bring a total end of season debt of at least 11m. The debt at the end of last season was 3m, so that means an annual loss of at least 8m despite having released more equity to raise 3m during the year. July brings relief – new season ticket money. It will put money into the bank balance - perhaps 8m allowing for a slight uplift on last year. But with outgoings of 1.5m and more every month, that would be gone before Christmas. Then the debt mountain starts to grow again. Revenue would be hit by no more sponsorship money and retail revenue reduced to a trickle until Mike Ashley’s 5m is repaid. If RFC survive to the end of next season, I could see the debt being 20m or more. Remind me again, just how big the debt was that killed off the first Rangers – the SPL club with guaranteed European competition, revenue streams and full houses?

They get paid in the close season, Stu.