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Messages - bidbaggie

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1
Albion Matchday Forum / Re: Pre Match Chat
« on: February 03, 2023, 08:03:50 PM »
Hold up theres no red button for me on NOW TV  :(

It’s playing silly wotsits on sky as well

It’s working now so might show on now soon

2
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: January 05, 2023, 05:14:24 PM »
We made an operational profit every year until 2019/20 season.

The losses in 2018/19 were due to losses in player trading (we spent more on incoming players than we received on outgoing players). What I'm not sure about is if this includes transfer fees, or is just the costs involved in carrying out the transfer.

Losses in 2017/18 were due to reduction in media related income & an exceptional level of player amortisation.

There is nothing to suggest that WBAFC historic income to wages ratio is out of control.

Whichever way you dress it up, they were still losses though - ie the club has less retained profits at the end of the year than at the start

Apologies if i have misunderstood your post but your point that says about player trading losses due to spending more on new players than monies received for those we have sold - this isnt correct - this figure is a write down of all the player valuations we have on our books (whether old or new) plus or minus the profit/loss on the ones that have left in that period.

I can explain more if you want with examples of what i mean but it would probably bore the flaps off most people




3
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: January 04, 2023, 04:48:23 PM »
Only bit that sounds wrong there is before the revenue, I understood they have first dibs in all cases written into law.

Hi

My understanding is the rank goes

Secured creds with a fixed charge
Administrators fees
Preferred creds (employees first, then HMRC)
Creds with floating charge
Unsecured creds
Connected unsecured creds

Shareholders get what's left


4
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: January 04, 2023, 04:41:36 PM »
Do you know whether football related debts are just for transfer fees or whether it also covers wages owed to players to fulfil contracts as well?

Looking at the 30/6/21 accounts (appreciate a lot has probably changed since then to the 30/6/22 set), it appears that the club owes 27m for player registrations - 12m in less than a year so have been paid by now and 15m greater than 1 year (KG I presume). Can't think of anyone we have bought for any great money in the last year so that means we would owe around 15m as at now. For context, the club was owed 1.5m less than a year and 700k more than a year.

If that whack was to be paid before MSD in the event of an insolvency it would take out a large amount of their security, but as you say, there seems ample anyway - fixed assets are in the books at 77m so a 20m loan is in effect approx a third of the book value

If you do have factor in player contract payments ahead of loan, then this would change the landscape somewhat as the annual wage bill was 77m (although that would look to halve as this is the prem figure)

To answer your question about charge over holdings shares, given the fact that the owners reside 5000 miles away in a very restrictive country and there is a history of loans being given at low rates and not paid back i would also be surprised if something hasn't been put in place. Maybe not with any real intention of having to call it in but mainly to stop any silly bollox going on with respect to dividends/loans being paid to effectively take the £20m back out!

5
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: January 04, 2023, 02:15:34 PM »
I would guess that player registrations would be covered under the IP/other assets part so would assume that those are tied up as well!

I think that a key thing to remember is that no lender wants the borrower to default unless you are borrowing off some shady backstreet chancers who are just lending money so they can pull the plug and get the assets on the cheap - clearly MSD are not one of these. As a general rule, lenders don't lend money unless they are confident that it will be paid back and there will have been a huge amount of financial modelling to justify that this is the case including different scenarios and stress testing. As MSD have lent, i would assume that the club have passed the relevant credit approval tests on these!

A stake and a seat might give a better return but is a longer term strategy than just realising their investment through sale/recovery of assets. It is also possible that they want someone in attendance at board meetings in a non exec role to keep an eye on things anyway.

Don't forget, over half the debt can be recovered from one place - all they need to do is find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow where the debtor has hidden it...


6
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: January 04, 2023, 01:31:37 PM »
With more details surrounding the loan being uploaded we can see the 20m is secured against the ground etc as we would expect but it's also secured against the club badge, trademarks etc.


Can someone with more intelligence than me explain if this is normal? Surely the ground, middlemore road land etc would cover the 20m?

The full debenture (security document) can be found on companies house and read in all its 61 page glory if anyone is interested.

From a quick review (2 minute scan so please do not take this as read), it would seem that MSD have fixed and floating charges over everything the group own - whether that be property, IP, debt receivables etc - basically, in the event of a default, they can appoint administrators and will recover their remaining balance against these before anyone else gets a penny back (including Tax Man and employees of the club) although an amount will have to be set aside for non secured creditors but this will be a fraction

I don't have working knowledge of football finances but this is fairly standard when borrowing monies - security is normally separated out where you have more than one lender - ie you take out a mortgage on property from one institute but borrow monies against future sale proceeds from another. If there is only one lender of finance (i think this is the case with WBA), they normally take security over everything unless they are cock sure that the asset they have charged will return their investment in a default (ie like having a 70% loan to equity value mortgage against your house)

I can send a link to the document if people want to pm me




7
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: September 14, 2022, 02:29:59 PM »
I say this all the time on threads like this....

But can somebody, really simply, explain all this to me (lol, sorry!).

I am awful with things like this.

All I can see at the moment is;

Lai owns WBA
Lai owns another company, lets say XYZ.

Lai lends XYZ £7m from WBA.

Lai doesnt pay this loan back.

WBA make profit. Lai pays himself £7m.

Lai then writes off the loan with this £7m so in affect WBA are £7m down?

Am i right?

In a nutshell yes!

But it doesn’t have to be off profits made post the most recent accounts as there is already brought forward accumulated profits to do this

8
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: September 14, 2022, 12:38:57 PM »
Yes, I've got that now.

It looks as though there is a provision in the football club accounts of around £13 million to pay future creditor commitments. This looks as though it's not been included in Group accounts.

So, in reality, there's about £11 million in retained earnings, have I understood that correctly?

hi John

sorry for the late reply but really busy at work at the moment. If there is a provision, this would have already been taken into account within the 24m so wouldnt need to come off this in future periods - it would just be a cash movement when paid. The means the full amount could be distributed as a dividend subject to companies house requirements.

As i said before, i havent had chance to look at the accounts in any great detail so if you want to point me to the paragraph/note then i can have a closer look



9
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: September 13, 2022, 05:48:20 PM »
Can you point us to this in the accounts please? (The page will do) My understanding is we haven't made a profit for a very long time.

Of course, it is the profit and loss account carried forward on the Football Club Accounts (pg 14 - £11m) and there is also WBA group ltd (pg 15 - £24m)


10
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: September 13, 2022, 01:30:06 PM »
Let's wait & see.

PWC have been auditors since 2017. (from companies house website)

As things stand from what we know, to make a profit that would generate a £7 million dividend, GL would have to either, put aside £7 million from parachute payments or raise £7 million from the sale of assets (players or the Hawthorns).

For a Chairman who has expressed a serious desire to build a promotion team, neither option makes a lot of sense.

You can pay a dividend out of retained earnings so there is no need for him to have to do this - the profit generated does not have to be in the same year.

From a very quick glance at the accounts, there is enough in the brought forward kitty to do this. Paying a dividend would just then become an accounting exercise which would repay the loan back - the only cash that then needs to come out of the business would be the portion payable to the minority shareholders.

11
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Wba financial report 2021-22
« on: June 30, 2022, 02:03:14 PM »
The club cannot come out and blame Covid for our financial troubles when the owner has borrowed in excess of £5m from us and currently owes us nigh on £10m.

That would not have been far from evening out some of the losses that Covid may have caused.

And it is nice to know that when we were financially struggling that the owner of this club did not give a **** about that and proceeded to take money from his one failing business to prop up his other failing businesses.

it doesnt actually say that the money was for propping up another business, just that he took it out because they suffered - the cash might have gone nowhere near another one of his businesses for all we know

it is probably just a BS excuse which is being used to "justify" him taking cash out which he thinks the fans will accept and move on

I don't know what is worse, the fact that he has done it or the utter contempt he shows whilst doing it

12
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Wba financial report 2021-22
« on: June 30, 2022, 01:57:17 PM »
Its actually nearer 0.5% as the £50K represents almost two year's interest

which will end up closer to 0% if he keeps kicking the repayment date down the road

13
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Wba financial report 2021-22
« on: June 30, 2022, 01:24:12 PM »
Look on the bright side, he could have just paid this out as a big dividend or taken a nice fat salary and it would have been gone forever.

At least this way, we are definitely, definitely (pinky promise, cross my heart) going to get this back on the 15/9/21.

Edit: 31/12/22
Edit: 31/12/23
Edit: 31/12/24
Edit: Never

I actually feel sorry for him if his businesses have suffered due to covid - can you imagine how much it must now cost him to fill up his roller with unleaded or heat his hot tubs in his playboy mansions. Ivory backscratchers aren't immune to the ravages of inflation either - the poor lamb





 

14
General Football & Sports / Re: Matheus Pereira
« on: August 04, 2021, 02:32:21 PM »
Can't remember seeing that anywhere. I'm expecting the figures for season 20/21 to be worse than 19/20.

I'm not sure he said a dividend would be paid, I believe it was an illustration on how it could be paid.
If the club did go down that route, they would have to generate a profit from sales of around £7 million (£5 million holdings, £1 million minority shareholders, £1 million corporation tax). which would come out of the club & not be available for players.

I understand the club have now received an offer from Al H of around £17 million, so we're getting there.

The club doesn't need to show a profit in the  20/21 accounts to pay a dividend - it already has 31m of retained earnings on the Balance Sheet (as pointed out by California Dreaming on the Lai thread) that would allow a payment - payment of a dividend is a reserves movement.  In the main, it isn't a net cash movement either if the loan/interest is simultaneously paid off.  The only cash "out" would be the the minority shareholders so approx 700k assuming that the loan plus interest is 5m

15
West Bromwich Albion FC / Re: Guochuan Lai
« on: July 25, 2021, 05:56:52 PM »
WBA Holdings is Lai’s company that owns 88% of WBA Group. The published accounts sent to shareholders are WBA Group - these show no inter-company debt. The 22m shown as ‘company’ in the 2020 accounts is probably owed to WBA Football Club Ltd, 100% owned by WBA Group Ltd - you can tell this because it disappears on consolidation into the higher level Group accounts.
And yes, we have £31565k in the p&l account under ‘capital and reserves’ in the balance sheet.

Hi - sorry if I have quoted this incorrectly as this is my first post but not sure where the 31,565k comes from.  On the 13 month accounts ended 31/7/20 I have seen, the group balance sheet in WBA Holdings Ltd shows "capital and reserves" of 34,349k

24m of this is actually share premium account which isn't a distributable reserve.  The only amount that could be taken out as a dividend approx. £10m

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