quayside

I'd rather not - but some people may wonder why NUFC had an overdraft of £48m and the Group only had £36m, and I'd rather they didn't.

Thanks Quayside. Always an interesting read. Just to clarify the bold bits, is it right to say there are now 3 companies.... Newcastle united - £20m overdraft Owned by St James Holdiongs - £36m overdraft Owned by MASH Holdings - No figures available Or was the £20m overdraft referenced in the recent club statement a red herring? Yes that's about it although the numbers are a bit different. MASH owns St James which owns Newcastle United Ltd, which owns Newcastle United Football Company Ltd. Overdrafts in the various accounts are: MASH - Unknown St James - £36m Newcastle United Ltd - the same £36m as St James NUFC LTD - £48M I suspect the £20 million figure you quote came from a journalist, and it may be what the bank demanded that the overdraft was reduced to. I am now hoping this thread is not going to head off into the world of how consolidated accounts are prepared....

Sounds likely - a 75% wage cut to move to, at best, a mid table club.

Don't forget that those accounts are consolidated in the NUFC accounts, which means the holding company is insolvent in itself, but NUFC Ltd is not. There is no guarantee from Ashley in the NUFC accounts and the auditors are perfectly happy to sign them off without anything to say. Ive not seen the holdings accounts so take your word that is not the case in those and that a guarantee is in place. You've lost me there - can you explain? The NUFC balance sheet shows an insolvent position of £58 million as at 30th June 2009, and Ashley's commitment is specifically referred to on page 11 (under the heading Fundamental Accounting concept). Because of that commitment the NUFC accounts were prepared on a going concern basis and the auditors signed off on that.

If anyone is interested the St James Holdings accounts have now been filed for year ended 30th June 2009, this is the parent company of NUFC. There are a few points that come out, some of these are already known and some clarify certain rumours that have been doing the rounds. - As at 30th June Ashley's total investment (ie purchase cost plus loan) was £242.9 million. Since the year end the accounts report that he loaned a further £25.5 million making his investment up to £268.4 million. - Obviously, since St James (like NUFC) is in an insolvent position it was necessary for him to personally guarantee to fund it for the next 12 months. Also, as with NUFC, he has shunted all his investment into current creditors instead of creditors due in more than 1 year. - The rumour that Ashley has set up another company to act as the parent to St James Holdings is true. the company is called MASH Holdings Limited. It is a new company and has not filed any accounts and is not due to do so until late December. If there is any significance to the setting up of this company it is not apparent from the St James accounts. - At one point in the year Ashley's investment had risen to £248.8 million, indicating that between that point and the year end about £6 million of his loan was repaid. This may be where the rumour about Ashley taking money out of the club came from. Although as I said above he put £25.5 million back in some time after he had received this repayment. Ashley has taken no money out by way of interest, salary or dividends. - St James Holdings has a bank overdraft of £36 million, secured on the Group's fixed assets. This is a sharp increase from the previous year end where the overdraft stood at £1 million. - As at the year end the Group was owed £17 million in transfer fees, of which £4 million was due in more than 1 year. The accounts repeat the club's philosophy of paying up front for players purchased even though this is not the case when players are sold, as is apparent from the £17 million still owing. There may be some other points in the accounts which I've missed, but I've just had a quick look and those are the things that stood out for me.

Wasn't sure which thread to post this on - but apparently the Telegraph is saying we are looking to recruit a new Director of Football above Hughton.

True enough but a bunch of foreigners fell way before that - and he has done better than most managers would have done with that squad consisting mostly of journeymen and players if not over the hill then certainly looking down the far side of it.

They are keeping everyone 'guessing about monies available'. They have done the vast majority of their 'deals on the quiet', and looking at the agent centric section of the statement they will apparently continue to do their best to keep it that way. I've no doubt that's right. The club will invest some money this summer imho - but they want to keep their dealings below the media and fan radar because publicity and speculation are a hindrance to working efficiently in the transfer market. None of which alters the fact that the statement was put together by an idiot.

How do you mean? They have a massive squad with massive wage bill? Not sure I'm picking you up right, because I don't see the parallel? I wouldn't call their squad 'massive' as such. They invested little money in their playing squad and had to sell to buy- and look where they ended up. Scraped survival by the skin of their teeth. We also have a huge wage bill, just a smaller squad. They had injuries and suspensions to key players and their squad couldn't cope. They were f*cked the moment Dyer got injured.....

Well - who would have thought we could end up debating the meaning of "capital outlay" on here? I wouldn't read anything very complex into the use of the words at all. As Matt said there was no great intellect involved in cobbling together that statement. It's just trying to say that the club will not invest in the squad imho. So to me it means nothing more sophisticated than "sell to buy". I still wouldn't rule out some modest investment this summer, but the club is trying to keep expectations low so that no one gets pissed off when we fail to sign Torres. Christ that statement is a shocking effort, the more I read it the worse it gets

That wasn't that hard was it? It shocks me how whichever monkey that was paid to draft this statement managed to word it in the worst way humanly possible. Next time please get any reasonably educated college-graduate to proofread your s*** please. Actually never mind, because if they stick to their word Thank God because there won't be a next time. Nice work - that is a very good effort at drafting the same message in a positive and sensible way. It's way too good for Ashley though. He has proven throughout his business career that he doesn't give a toss for PR.

It's beyond that tbh. The numbers quoted are probably about right but it's like Ashley believes his previous PR disasters at Sports Direct and NUFC are the way to get the job done. Absolutely f*cking clueless....

Fantastic post that - and it has been proper football for me. It just reminded me of what the game is really about. As for our performance there have been times (especially towards the end of the season) when we've played entertaining football but we've also ground out results from some truly shocking games. There were times when it looked like it might go to crap (Derby away was one I remember) but Hughton/the players got it back on track fairly sharpish. I'll remember it long after some of our recent Premiership seasons.

We still owe the same money. In terms of the overdraft to the same institution; in terms of the debts to Ashley, it's just a different debtor but, largely, under the same conditions. Do you understand this? Do you think that it's been disappeared by the Llambias fairy? So can you not see that there is a slight difference between owing £111m ( probably nearer £140m now) apparently interest free to someone who has already forked out £137m to buy the club as compared to owing that sum to a faceless institutional lender with interest charges and foreclosure rights? And let's not even go into the question of whether said faceless institutional lender would have even considered lending us anything (let alone £111m) in the financial risk climate of recent years.

I don't think any of our players have had me off my seat more than Jonas this season. Good of you to share that with us....

Probably not. But for most of the season the club had no stability, no proper management, no direction and no focus and a lot of players who could do better performed like sh1t.

He might want to. But I would think his track record of floating Sports Direct at a gross over value and treating his shaeholders with contempt (shocking PR too) would make it a difficult sell to institutional shareholders. Plus football might not be the flavour of the month as a sector, the high profile financial issues have given it a bit of a "high risk, damaged goods" vibe.

Seriously? I'm shocked at that. Wise was on £1m/year was he not? Wise was never a director. There were rumours about what he was earning but no one knows for sure. He was called one. Was Executive Director (Football) just a vanity title? Are we sure Llambias is a director of Newcastle United Limited then, I can't believe he's only on £155k a year. The directors who served during the year are named in the accounts as Llambias, Williamson and Charnley. Williamson resigned in early June and was replaced by Charnley. The 3 of them earned a total of £331k with £26k going into their pensions. Wonder if any of them are on the payroll of Sports Direct or one of MA's other companies? Related party transactions need to be disclosed. Directors and shareholders are related parties. So I'm thinking that a director of the club (which is controlled by Ashley) who is earning from another company (that is controlled by Ashley) is a related party transaction and would need to be disclosed.

Seriously? I'm shocked at that. Wise was on £1m/year was he not? Wise was never a director. There were rumours about what he was earning but no one knows for sure. He was called one. Was Executive Director (Football) just a vanity title? Are we sure Llambias is a director of Newcastle United Limited then, I can't believe he's only on £155k a year. The directors who served during the year are named in the accounts as Llambias, Williamson and Charnley. Williamson resigned in early June and was replaced by Charnley. The 3 of them earned a total of £331k with £26k going into their pensions.

Seriously? I'm shocked at that. Wise was on £1m/year was he not? Wise was never a director. There were rumours about what he was earning but no one knows for sure. He was a director of at least one of the Companies connected with the club, I've seen the forms being filed Maybe so - but he was never a director of Newcastle United Limited.

Seriously? I'm shocked at that. Wise was on £1m/year was he not? Wise was never a director. There were rumours about what he was earning but no one knows for sure.

It's not in there at all But you shouldn't believe what Ernst and Young say like, they're part of the great deception together with Ashley and all that..... Well they did manage to hide all that extra debt for Shepherd that Mike only found after he bought the club. Have we always included manager's pay in the wage bill or is that new? Is the directors pay included in the £73m? That's a pretty big drop in revenue, a lot lower than Llambias was saying only 4 months before the end of that accounting period when he was saying turnover was £100m. I guess some of it could be put down to the boycott, but pretty worrying nonetheless. Ashley's probably lost us more in revenue than he's "put in". What Ashley found to his surprise was that most of the debt in the 2006 balance sheet was payable on demand if there was a change of owner. When he bought the club the latest accounts (2006) showed that the club was still solvent. Ashley didn't know, because he rather stupidly didn't do due diligence, that in May 2007 the club was in the process of losing £30 million for the year, and he had to fund it probably because no one else would. With the year end being in June the audited accounts were some months away from being prepared.... All employees pay including directors and management is included in the wage figure disclosed in the accounts. The highest paid director (presumably Llambias) is on £155k with £16k going into his pension, small fry compared to previous board excesses. With hindsight the boycott and Ashley's unpopularity definitely had an effect on revenue. The recession probably paid a part, football clubs aren't immune from economic downturns.

Was he? There's an awful lot we don't know about their spending policy. Spunked 22 million on Keane then flogged him back in jan. wtf He has hinted that buying Keane wasn't his idea iirc.

What date were those articles talking about the mass of redundancies that had been made? Staff levels have only fallen by 30 in those accounts. The staff note refers to the 1,380 temporary matchday staff whose jobs were outsourced. Could be to do with that?

It's not in there at all But you shouldn't believe what Ernst and Young say like, they're part of the great deception together with Ashley and all that..... :kasper: Must be a misunderstanding, they must have meant this year then, he's going to make £7m a month on this years projected turnover of just under £50m Yup - it must be that. When we got relegated he got the club's costs down to zero and simply pocketed the turnover.