Tim

Any debt taken on will be in chunks at varying points through construction and only when construction begins. Again the media are using reporters who have attended the Steve Morgan Accounting and Finance College. The are taking into account things like deferred income that relates to season ticket sales which is in effect a paper debt. At the last reporting date the club were in £36m of debt (bank debt and amounts owed on transfers). Expect the figure to be either the same or lower in this years report.

You mean to nil? The club have bank debts of only £17m while the amounts owed to other clubs stands at around £20m (net taking into account monies owed to us from other clubs). The majority of that is not payable until atleast next season at the earliest. (note these are as at 31st July 2005 balance sheet date). No money needs to be put into the club, externally, to pay the debts as the clubs cashflow is sufficient enough to pay these on time. Working capital isn't great, however the club deals with alot of cash sales and the management of these will be to have them coming in as and when bills need paying.

It's that Mihir Bose fella again, ignore anything he writes. He try's to make out he is in the know but clearly has no contacts, while he has also attended the Steve Morgan school of accountancy and economics.

Last major investment valued the shares issued at about £6,250 a significant premium at the time. While if someone is looking to take control of the club then you can guarantee there won't be a discount on the price of the shares.

Newcastle have a kop? They have that s***hole called the gallowgate end but that's about it. Seriously though, no idea but it isn't bigger than the current kop. The current kop is the largest single tier stand in england (if not europe, not 100% sure though).

Ged poynton was on radio city a couple of weeks back saying the "new kop" would hold around 14,000 to 15,000 seats which is a couple of thousand more than the current kop and about a 1,000+ more than the designs already out.

The plans have been changed apparently. Will hopefully see some update plans soon. If we have the same as arsenal then we lose the single tier Kop. there are about 7,000 executive seats in the new ground. There are about 63 boxes.

Steve Mclaren was at the match (with joe cole by the looks of one of the pictures on gettyimages.com )

It would be interesting to know what she thinks of how long it took the NWDA to do the financial appraisal for the grant applied for by LCC. According to reports at the time the NWDA had the application for over 12 months before even looking at it. There's alot of people in a number of sections of government/government sponsored programmes that have questions to answer over this.

Was that a rumour about Morgan or a rumour started by morgan?

I'm not, the post are making this out to be a last ditch thing when the truth is that this has been going on for atleast 6 months (when the takeover panel received confirmation of talks taking place).

The post/echo are making themselves look like they don't know what is going on. Which is probably the case. I did like the bit about them saying the club have to prove they have £180m in their bank account though. If they truely believe that is the case then they are dumber than I thought.

I think it will be 64 boxes holding about 640 people. Then another 6,500 executive seats.

I have posted an estimate previously for the potential revenues of the increased capacity. Currently we take in about £25m from league games for ticket revenues. That comes out to around £30 per ticket average. Assuming the same average, and a average attendance of 60,000, it gives total league revenue as £34.2m However take into account the individual aspects of seating and the current related prices (ie a box at anfield currently costs £41,000 per season) gives estimated league revenues of £48m at current prices. By the time the new ground opens that could be upto £55m. (average of £42 to £48 per ticket) Factor in potential european games brings upto an extra £2.5m £2.9m per game which is a potential doubling of current european game revenues. In a best case scenario (25 home matches sold out in league and europe) brings in total ticket revenues in the region of £63m to £72.5m per season before any sponsorship revenues. In a worst case scenario (19 league matches at 45,000 average but with more corporates in due to improved facilities) brings in match revenues of £36m to £41m. Midway point scenario (22 home matches, league and group stage, with a 52,500 average attendance) brings in an estimated £48.5m to £55.5m. Break even point for the project is bringing in increased revenues of around £15m to £20m per season. That equates to around 50,000 56,000 average attendance in the league only (ignoring other cost factors due to not knowing what the related costs are).

About 10 to 15 years depending on a variety of factors, including interest rate of debt, revenues of the increased capacity/sponsorship of stadium and if all of that increase in revenues was used to pay off the loans.

Was originally down as having a capacity of around 13,200. Capacity of the ground will still be 61,000 as per the planning application. They will have probably have made some subtle changes to increase the capacity at one end.

From Radio City's site

Of course they are real increases. My point wasn't about competing with the mancs, arsenal and chelsea (it must be noted that in 2006 we have spent more on players than arsenal, man utd, spurs and everton have put together, net that is). It was about it giving leeway for the period of construction when cash management will be at its most important.

All of the figures are out there in the public domain, some are just harder to find than others. Much of the rest is my own opinion. As you point out, some of the potential rises in revenue will get used up in transfer and wage budgets, but the one thing it does allow is leeway in how the club would use any potential investment. It would also be music to a lenders ears to see such a huge increase in revenues, especially during the period of construction when the risk is at the highest. What I have posted is a bit of a basic view on the financial situation. There are many many other factors to consider, not least the financing of the stadium. There are issues of cost of raising finance, the cost of putting Interest Rate Swaps in place, costs of refinancing if they do what arsenal did. Then there is the projected ticket revenue, I've tried to base it on what the equivalent prices are at anfield and at today's prices. I've not allowed any leeway for a more flexible pricing structure when it comes to differing opponents or allowing more kids in. Then there's the obvious knock on effects of merchandise sales etc. Oh yeah fyds, I don't know if you've spotted my post on rawk, planning permission was granted on those three properties on walton breck road this week. We will find out in the next 4 weeks or so about the grants, but might hear a bit of info from development/supporters club soon if they are indeed going to move to these new offices. yeah but we are winning trophies so there are bonuses to pay too. That is what kept the absolute value of wages up in the last financial year reported. Should reduce for the financial year just ended though, just not sure by how much.

I think there are alot of people who are getting a bit mixed up in the search for investment and the link it has to a new stadium. Yes the search for investment is linked to the new stadium, but I don't believe it is in such a way that people have been suggesting. The stadium project is completely self financing in the models the club will be using, ie the profits generated each season from increased ticket sales (in league games only, as they are the only guaranteed games) exceeds the annual repayments if the entire project was funded by loans. It is even more self financing if a sponsor was to be found. Based on current ticket prices the projected (top end estimate) increase in revenue from the new stadium (league ticket sales only) would be in the region of £25m. If we made the group stage of the european cup each season and sold out all three games each season this would bring in approx £1m to £1.25m per game in ticket sales. Total being upto £3.75m for the group stage only. If the club were to get a stadium sponsorship deal, of the same value arsenal have, that would bring in an extra £3m per season. Thus bringing the increased revenue to £28m per season. With group stage sell outs it could go as high as £31m per season. Now on loans of £200m (at a rate of 6%, that's about 0.75% higher than arsenal's debt is at) the annual repayments would be £15.6m per year over a 25 year term, or £20.5m per year over a 15 year term. Now as can be seen the loan repayments (depending on structure agreed, but using a mortgage P&I, daily rest, repayment structure as a base) are easily covered by the projected increase in revenue. However that is in a best case scenario. What the club will have also been looking at in their financial models is what effect would there be if the ground didn't sell out regularly. This is where the stadium sponsorship and part of the reason for investment comes into it. What the club need to ensure is that if the stadium isn't full week in week out can the interest payments (at the very least) be met. Now the other reason I believe the club decided to look for investment was to do with the cashflow of the club during the period of construction. What the club don't want to do is take out loans for them to have the effect that it reduces the transfer budget due to having to meet interest payments. Getting investment in helps the club two ways. One, if some of it is used as capital for the project it reduces the debt burden and thus the interest payments. Second it can be used to give the club some vital working capital while construction is going on. With this the club can then ensure that Rafa gets the transfer budgets he would get were the stadium not being built (ie a budget like this summers) while being able to meet interest payments. There are three very important issues that have occurred since the club got planning permission 2 years ago. 1st. Arsenal obtained a £3m per year stadium sponsorship deal. This gives LFC the chance to explore getting either a deal of similar value, or to get an increased deal. 2nd. Shirt sponsorship values have exploded in the last 12 months. Man Utd's went up by over 50%, spurs went up over 100%, chelsea's went up by nearly 100% while Arsenal's went up by 50% (although they signed their deal much earlier than the other's mentioned). That gives LFC the chance of a much improved sponsorship deal, which is due to start next season. Get one of similar value to that of spurs/chelsea and we are looking at £5m more per season (over the life of the deal). Get one of similar value to the mancs and it is going to be nearly £10m extra per season. 3. The new premiership tv deal has been announced. I figure that tv revenues from the league could go up by upto £15m per season, over the life of the deal. All of these very important factors add up. From next season we could possibly see revenues going up by £25m per season, and that is before the new stadium gets built. If that is the case it significantly reduces the pressure on getting investment in for working capital purposes. Instead it can bring it into focus so it gets used either purely on capital expenditure on the stadium or a mix of that and transfers (if we get investment). (also when the new stadium is due to open, we will be into our next kit deal, probably with adidas and that has the potential to increase in value). The club will have run numerous scenarios to determine the short, medium and long term risks associated with the new stadium. The key is to minimize the risk in all three cases. That, unfortunately, is something that takes time. I wouldn't say they are valued at 6 times what we are. Alot of analysts said that the Glazers over paid for the mancs. Also all of their assets are being used as collateral for the debt they have.

double it and add some

The deadline is actually the end of the month.

we didn't get aurelio on a free. We had to pay a south american side to get him.

Don't forget gonzalez at about £4m, and paletta at around £2m (I think it was £2m). Despite what some people think gonzalez only signed permanently around the turn of the year. Here is a fact for you, we have spent more net this summer than Manchester United, Arsenal and spurs have put together (Note this was correct at time of posting, things may have changed in the few days leading upto the closure of the transfer window).

The thing is it wasn't just the cost of getting rid of Houllier etc that caused a shortage of funds that summer, it was also the advanced commitment to buy Cisse that brought the budget down. Those two items alone cost the club £24m. One full european cup seasons transfer budget spent. Had we not go cisse in that summer Alonso and Garcia would have been in earlier (and we wouldn't have have been any worse off in the striking department given Cisse was out injured for the vast majority of the season) whilst Morientes might have arrived earlier (yes ok it didn't turn out too well when he did arrive). We also need to look at what has happened this summer. One incident this summer cost us bringing in Kuyt at an earlier stage, and maybe making certain that Alves was going to be here. That was the unfortunate injury suffered by Djibril Cisse (there seems to be a common theme running here for some reason ). That would have added £8m to the clubs transfer budget. £8m that would have brought Alves in whilst still maybe allowing us to bring pennant in too. There are so many things in life that can be messed up by freak occurences.