The St. Mirren FC 2023/24 thread

[FTOF]

8 minutes ago, Hendo said:

I think having a yearly loss of £1.6 million and a staff wages to turnover ratio of over 90% is significant cause for concern. 

I didn't say that I wasn't concerned.

Much of the loss was incurred due to the training ground revamp.

As pointed out in the accounts, that was a one off cost and such a significant financial outlay won't occur again.

I'm satisfied that the board have put measures in place to ensure that we maintain financial prudency as we move on.

[RandomGuy.]

Tbf about £1.4m of that is the private flights Tanser takes back and forward to Holland every day.

[FTOF]

11 minutes ago, Buttocks Brown said:

As a very short summary, the loss is due to us spending all of our £1.7 million loan from the government (plus a bit more) in 12 months?

That debt will be repaid, interest-free, between now and 2042. Just about every club in the top flight is in the same boat (in fact most borrowed more than us: https://www.gov.scot/publications/foi-202100215652/ )

Putting that to one side, we have nearly £1,000,000 in the bank and are on course to break even from 23/24? 

Here now, we can't be having such measured responses to our impending "financial armageddon".

It might seem that I'm being flippant. 

However, as Billy Gunn points out, others, expressing views counter to mine, have absolutely been painting a far worse picture than actually exists IMO and need called out for their anti-Kibble agenda driven shite.

Edited January 11, 2023 by FTOF

[Buttocks Brown]

7 minutes ago, FTOF said:

Here now, we can't be having such measured responses to our impending "financial armageddon".

To be honest, it's still a bit of a novelty to see the club in the black!

It must have been 2 decades or more that we were very heavily in the red. I think the debt had reached £2 million before being cleared by the sale of Love Street.

I won't be having any sleepless nights over where the club is just now!

[Div]

Some stuff from the accounts;

The wage budget went up £734K in the 12 month period being reported

This is pretty much in line with what we were told (budgeting for 7th). Looking at who left and who has arrived since it's sort of hard to imagine that budget has reduced much, if any, this season.

We have "Listed Investments" of £294K

Anyone know what these are?

On the field we initially maintained the playing budget in line with the previous season but the signing of two players in the August Transfer Window and player bonuses took playing costs higher. A significant transfer deal collapsed on Deadline Day meaning that the increased playing costs could not be matched by the anticipated transfer income.

This is an interesting one. Assume this relates to the proposed transfer of McGrath to Hibs at the end of the January window and I assume the two inbound players it refers to were Ronan and Gogic?

Off the field there was a significant increase in the planned costs for the renovations at our Ralston Training Ground. This was largely caused by changes to the size and specifications of the new building.

I was at Ralston watching a youth game in September I think. I didn't notice anything particularly different about the set up. It still looked like a collection of Portakabins. Has that changed? Does anyone know exactly what it was we did at Ralston that cost so much?

[Billy_Gunn]

5 minutes ago, Div said:

I was at Ralston watching a youth game in September I think. I didn't notice anything particularly different about the set up. It still looked like a collection of Portakabins. Has that changed? Does anyone know exactly what it was we did at Ralston that cost so much?

Allowing Tony Fitzpatrick to handle it.

[Div]

27 minutes ago, Buttocks Brown said:

To be honest, it's still a bit of a novelty to see the club in the black!

It must have been 2 decades or more that we were very heavily in the red. I think the debt had reached £2 million before being cleared by the sale of Love Street.

I won't be having any sleepless nights over where the club is just now!

The world has changed since then however. The club can't easily access borrowing like it could back then. Given that prize money is paid in tranches throughout the season with the bulk coming at the end of the campaign it's hard to see how cash flow won't be a serious problem for us between now and May.

Expect to see a few departures from the club in the next three weeks.

 

 

[Buttocks Brown]

12 minutes ago, Div said:

The world has changed since then however. The club can't easily access borrowing like it could back then. Given that prize money is paid in tranches throughout the season with the bulk coming at the end of the campaign it's hard to see how cash flow won't be a serious problem for us between now and May.

Expect to see a few departures from the club in the next three weeks.

Glen?

[buddie06smfc]

22 minutes ago, Div said:

Some stuff from the accounts;

The wage budget went up £734K in the 12 month period being reported

This is pretty much in line with what we were told (budgeting for 7th). Looking at who left and who has arrived since it's sort of hard to imagine that budget has reduced much, if any, this season.

We have "Listed Investments" of £294K

Anyone know what these are?

On the field we initially maintained the playing budget in line with the previous season but the signing of two players in the August Transfer Window and player bonuses took playing costs higher. A significant transfer deal collapsed on Deadline Day meaning that the increased playing costs could not be matched by the anticipated transfer income.

This is an interesting one. Assume this relates to the proposed transfer of McGrath to Hibs at the end of the January window and I assume the two inbound players it refers to were Ronan and Gogic?

Off the field there was a significant increase in the planned costs for the renovations at our Ralston Training Ground. This was largely caused by changes to the size and specifications of the new building.

I was at Ralston watching a youth game in September I think. I didn't notice anything particularly different about the set up. It still looked like a collection of Portakabins. Has that changed? Does anyone know exactly what it was we did at Ralston that cost so much?

The McGrath Hibs move was August no? & Gogic joined in the January. Presumably it was Ronan loan & Brophy joining permanently. 

[Div]

2 minutes ago, buddie06smfc said:

The McGrath Hibs move was August no? & Gogic joined in the January. Presumably it was Ronan loan & Brophy joining permanently. 

Yeah you are right about Gogic, but Brophy joined permanently in the Summer of 2021.

Must have been Ronan and someone else who I've forgotten!

[Lex]

Why has our staff wage bill went from £2.8m in 2021 to £3.5m in 2022? That’s a huge increase for any football club who haven’t changed leagues.  

Edited January 11, 2023 by Lex

[Div]

1 minute ago, Lex said:

Why has our staff wage bill went from £2.8m in 2021 to £3.5m in 2022? That’s a huge increase for any football club who haven’t changed leagues.  I knew we threw a load of money at the squad last summer, but I didn’t realise it was that much.

This is what "Budgeting for 7th" looks like in black & white.

[glenburn bud]

 

[Molotov]

36 minutes ago, Div said:

We have "Listed Investments" of £294K

Anyone know what these are?

A few years ago the invested £250,000 in the stock market.

It is possible that it’s that investment. But I’ve honestly no idea. 

No idea what the club invested the money in, but given the general financial market value over the last few years I’d have expected that £250K to have taken a negative hit rather than grown.

It’s entirely possible that the investment in the stock market no longer exists. Only question at the AGM will clarify this.

 

[djchapsticks]

Interesting stuff. 

I don't think it's quite as bad as being made up. Our turnover will have increased somewhat again this season given the modest rise in season ticket prices and increase in crowds through the door.

The wage bill does need to come down but we know that already. There is a confidence that we're operating now at break even but will be interesting to see if any more of the excess reserves have been spent between this set of accounts and currently. 

[McG]

2 hours ago, FTOF said:

I didn't say that I wasn't concerned.

Much of the loss was incurred due to the training ground revamp.

As pointed out in the accounts, that was a one off cost and such a significant financial outlay won't occur again.

I'm satisfied that the board have put measures in place to ensure that we maintain financial prudency as we move on.

Who was the chairman that neglected ralston for all those years for it to need such a costly revamp now? 

Edited January 11, 2023 by McG

[DumbartonBud]

1 hour ago, Div said:

This is what "Budgeting for 7th" looks like in black & white.

I had initially liked this post but reading deeper into it, it doesn’t look like we budgeted for that level of expenditure at all and a combination of circumstances led to income not as high as expected and costs being significantly higher than expected.
 

It does look like a number of cost centres were unexpectedly overspent during the course of the year rather than a planned and strategic choice made at the outset. 

[Molotov]

I don’t quite understand the need for the quote from the chairman relating to a failed deadline day outgoing transfer 

You rarely see commercial sales deals that fail to materialise listed as a reason for an operating loss. 

Now this must be referencing August 2021 as that is within the financial period concerned.

Who was the player concerned?

Was it a current player at the club at the time or a possible % cut from John McGinn failed transfer?

More likely the latter as that would have filled a massive hole. 

 

 

[Div]

Worth pointing out that the wage bill has gone up £700K but there’s only 2 extra players on there.

Yet there are THIRTY SEVEN more administration and management staff.

Thats almost double the number of bodies we had the previous year!

[djchapsticks]

Wonderful reading on Twitter from both arsecheeks who believe that this £1.6m loss is a direct result of them only getting one stand despite it being the accounts up until May 2022 when they still had two stands, and our gate sizes being up nearly 20% in number since then.

Fucking morons, no wonder everyone hates and laughs at them.