[Official Site] AN OPEN LETTER FROM THE CEO

How are we? We made a loss just under £5m last year. We've made losses in every year of this ownership. And there is no safety net for this reckless failing business model.

 

What's the cumulative loss?

 

A lot of the money came from cash in the bank at the point of the takeover. Mainly through sell ons for Stones and Mawson, as well as sales of Hourihane and Winnall. Topped up by sales of Potts, Lindsay, Pinnock, Moore, Brown, Struber and Ismael, as well as a loan from the EFL last year.

 

May 2021 Loss of £4.26m
May 2020 Loss of £280k
May 2019 Loss of £3.436m
May 2018 Loss of £176k

So £8.152m so far, plus whatever we lose in this current season.

 

They could easily inject some money through investments though. I don't think it's dire straits.

 

Sponsorship, tv rights

 

That's the concern. The money has always been there in the past but the pot is empty now with losses already incurred and minimal assets to recover them.
I really can't see how we'll avoid admin next season with the loss of £6m income after relegation (unless by some miracle we stay up) and a massive drop in ST sales.

 

They could easily have not taken £750k when the club were making losses and facing the Covid uncertainty. But they did. Exec pay could have been capped (indeed James Cryne said he didn't take a salary and OH didn't take rent for the ground), but we still shelled out record levels of directors pay.

And instead of taking an EFL loan, they could have funded our losses in other ways. But they haven't.

I'm not suddenly expecting a grandiose display of philanthropy from them.

 

The biggest loss incurred in our most successful season won't be a coincidence. I think there are mitigations for the first two seasons. Weren't they only in charge for half the season leading up to May 2018? May 2019 was absorbing losses of relegation with money we already had. We made a loss in May 2020, not because of poor running of the club, but because of the 750k. Though, we should've made a much bigger profit, but for a Conway spell as CEO.

The 750k, and Conway's complete incompetence when he's directly responsible for recruitment are my two issues with the ownership group.

I've no particular issue with Khaled at the moment. The West Stand was a shambles, but he's got a job to do in very difficult circumstances, and he probably had as good a January window as he could've done given those circumstances. Didn't have the cash available that Murphy did in Jan '20, so had to generate funds, which meant he probably had to wait for Hearts to generate funds as well.

 

Yes it's not money for nothing.

 

They "could" put money in, but they haven't so far. In fact, allegedly, they've taken money out.

 

and chicks for free....

 

My biggest issue with them is a spectacular lack of foresight, dovetailed with an equally spectacular level of hubris about their operating model, which despite only being a few years in at most of their clubs, is causing a good level of animosity and despair.

Given we've been sat on those results for months, we had the ability in the summer and this transfer window to try and reduce the wage bill while trying to generate some fees to fund the build up of losses. We didn't. Sadly, it's impossible to know if our owners dabble or just leave very green naive CEO's without any experience to plough their own furrow in a very challenging environment.

There are signs of having to now adapt, as Patrick did. Bringing in loans this window as an example, because we can't afford anything else. Bringing through youth players because we can't afford fees like we've splashed before. And bringing in older frees (Cole and Oulare) though sadly, they've been a spectacular failure to date.

The only way we can get back on an even keel is recapitalisation (I don't see that happening) or turning players back into cash, ideally to a level of what they inherited. I'm not sure we can do the latter especially effectively if we get relegated. And i suspect they may try and hold out for another transfer window hoping the market bounces back, though that would reduce contractual levels even more and waste the slight opportunity (but much more risk) of lengthier contracts.

My feeling is they have simply gambled and the markets and fate were against them.

 

Barnsley fans are whilst also funding 0aul Conway's purchase of the club

 

Kinda hard to judge them on that when the pandemic pretty much screwed every club though.

 

I’d disagree. We knew what was coming, and ramped up our cost base significantly and made little to no effort to subsidise the losses.

We can’t profess to be a sustainable club and then stack up a £4.2m loss despite uplifted revenues thanks to multimillions from furlough etc

 

At best we've had a politician's answer on this, and that's being generous.

Repeating the same statements, which happen to contradict the information in the audited accounts, is something different to what you're representing with the above statement.

 

Noone could really anticipate what was coming, particularly with short term and behind closed doors etc.

 

Not according to this:
BBC News - Cost of living: Food boss says prices could rise by up to 15%
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-60734384

 

It’s not a wise move to stack millions of pounds of cost base into your business when you have revenue uncertainty.

This is what they chose to do.