Yeah, and that was with 20m worth of debt. Any team running on that type of debt should get no respect. Just like QPR, Leicester all little joke teams with aspirations beyond their station.
I just clicked on the Ipswich Town official site, and it came up 'Not Found' - hope that's not an omen! Seriously, though, what are the odds, with the 10 point deduction, on them finishing above Colchester next season?
The debt we were in was offset by our assets, such as our stadium and training facilities. ME has sold off your training ground to one of his companies and he is now "renting" it back to ITFC for 40k year or something like that and I am sure your assets do not amount to £80m. This means that your company (ITFC) is worth less than the amount of debt it owes even if it was broken up, Quite a lot less. When we were in strife we owed £20m or so, you owe 4 times that amount and have less assets. As a business it is not a good place to be in. In fact if your debts were owned by a bank they would have foreclosed on you by now and you would be bankrupt. Especially as according to the financial report things are getting worse and your income is shrinking. Its good that you guys are all happy with ME because you really dont have any other choice and wont have for years to come.
True. But that does not mean we will go down for certain. Debt free at the end of the season is a certainty though.
I really can't see what you lot are wetting your knickers about, simple facts we have 2 types of debt, internal of 72m and external of 7m. Fact 1. Marcus evans won't take himself to court to reclaim the internal debt, so ineffect the debt we could get took to court is for the external, which not being funny is peanuts. Fact 2. If marcus sells, the buyer will take into account the money owed to marcus evans group because they know that will be reclaimed at the earliest time possible. Can somebody please tell why that is so hard to grasp!
Marcus will not be able to sell, that is the point! You owe too much for any other owner to buy the club. You are totally at the whim of ME. There is no other possibility. Also, if the club continues to lose money he may well feel that it better to wind the club up, sell the assets and cut the yearly losses. It is simple business if you have a company that is loosing money year on year and the loses are increasing year on year then you either sell the company or wind it up. A business cannot continue to function when every year the hole is getting deeper. What if ME wakes up one day and decides that he has had enough? Thats it, you have had it. Many businessmen close businesses they own if they do not see a profit within 5 years as they believe if a business plan has not worked by then, then it will never work.
But that is all ifs and buts, which warky was chastised for a few posts early by yourself! Seems strange its ok for you to look into the future to try and prove a point, yet us not.
Warky was on about attendances improving for the last game or so IIRC? And things getting better in general, how does he have any idea what is really going on financially? Your club is loosing money year on year and it is getting worse. Fact. Businesses that lose money year on year and never turn a profit get closed down. Fact. Unless they are some dodgy tax write off. Tell you what Guru, lets see what your next years figures are like. Im not looking into the future, this has already happened.
Check you last paragraph kempy, else of course you are privy to ME sleeping patterns you are using pure conjecture in your arguement, just the same as warky did (more realistically) when saying a good season could see attendences rise.
You are clutching at straws Kempy! Oh and please learn to spell the word losing.. your lot should know all about that at the moment.
Dave made a point much earlier about NCFC being in a higher league. But the last time we mixed it with teams like Barnsley, Doncaster, Posh and Ipswich, we tended not to pussyfoot around at the lower end of the table for the majority of the season Pride of Anglia!!
I just struggle to see why a business man would persist with something that has NEVER made any money and does not look like doing so in the future. £80m of debts is simply too much given the turnover and profit margins of the club to think that it can be recovered. Im not clutching at straws at all something just does not add up. Good luck with him though. I do not know anything about ME, what does he do? Is he legit? Im a bit drunk, didnt know you were part of spelling police.
I find horse betting difficult unless you have time to study the form properly. Football is easier and you can make good cash on acca's that are fairly safe.
In an attempt to get back on-topic... I was curious how you'd go about making the club profitable again: Gate receipts were reported at £5.36m, from an average attendance of 18266. Working back, that gives an average ticket price of £12.76. On the same prices, a full house each week gives max gate takings of £8.89m. So even if the club turn the football around and get the fans back, that only reduces the losses by £3.53m to £12.43m. That's still massive. Looking through all the other drops in income, you can probably make a case for reducing that to around a £10m a year loss. The website says that in the season you received payments for Wickham and Walters, you made £10.84m in transfers, with the operating loss at £3.18m. That pretty much tallies with needing a full-house, decent league position and selling £10m+ in players each season just to break even. Assuming my interpretation is sound (again), I really fail to see how that's a sustainable business model, needing £10m+ a year in player sales is massive. The wage bill appears to be the problem, unsurprisingly: turnover was £15.04m, wages are £15.96m, which is 106% of turnover. If relegated that has to be <75% to avoid falling foul of FFP, so that's probably a good indication of an acceptable wage bill, in this case that means a reduction of £4.68m in wages, or £90k a week. It's a good job I'm not Marcus Evans, because I've no idea how to make the club profitable in the championship. It would appear he's not too sure either, as the comments on the OP's link suggest ITFC were in debt of around £30m in 2007 when ME first came on the scene, so he's more than doubled that in 6 years. To me, the business plan is "win promotion", but unless that happens next season, you'll have to obey FFP, which you'd currently fail as I explained before. So that means all other finances need bringing into line, or you'll be under a transfer embargo. Relying on player sales, it's probably around £2m a year minimum to get the right side of the FFP figure. I hope your academy is good! It might not mean anything, but I found this interesting. Buying the training ground for £1.32m and renting it back at £40k a year means it'll take 33 years before Evans turns a profit on that bit of business. Marcus Evans is reportedly worth £625m, having to put £16m a year in means that in that time he'll have sank £528m into Ipswich, and be 82.
