Bill wants out – but who’d want in?
By Simon T • Jul 7th, 2008 • Category: Fan Articles, NewsAt last weeks ESCALA dinner, Bill stood up & took a Q&A session, amongst some rather bizarre answers (that have already been the subject of much debate) when asked if he was looking to sell the club – he answered – yes.
He maintained that there’d been plenty of interest - but no takers. He also said that he’d taken the club as far as he could, as he didn’t have a spare £100M to throw at it.
The question now is – who would want it? Who will be prepared to come in and take over the club and take us on to the next level? Everton FC finished last season in the “best of the rest” position and the logical next step is to try and break into the Top 4, but when you take a look at the numbers – they make depressing reading and would have most potential investors running for the hills.
In the last set of accounts the club reported a loss of £9.4M, based on a turnover of £54.1M – our debt had reached £58.8M and our wage bill alone was £38.4M. Not looking good so far…….when you compare our wage bill to the “Big 4” – the lowest of which is Liverpool’s – there’s stood at £77.6M or 1.5 times our total turnover, given that fact, how can we realistically break into that elite group?
Given that shortly we’re going to have to invest in a new stadium, whether that ends up being Kirkby or another option, the bleak picture is becoming even gloomier. The figures for Kirkby are unsubstantiated, but the best “guesstimates” come out at around £78M – given that this is a subsided build – it’s highly unlikely that even if we don’t end up taking this option – that a future alternative will cost any less (more realistically more).
So based on the last reported borrowing levels, that would leave our total debt at £136.8M – with a business that’s losing money virtually every year, in the last 9 (the only year we made a substantial profit was the year we sold Rooney).
So given those numbers – who in their right mind would want to buy Everton FC? Surely any venture capitalist wouldn’t be interested? Which leaves who exactly?
Surely our only hope of moving forward is some “Sugar Daddy” Abramovich type tycoon, as any businessman who prefers his businesses to report their annual bottom line numbers in black rather than red – would laugh at the prospect of Everton FC as an “investment”.
As David Moyes has continued to perform wonders with a shoestring budget – Evertonians expectation levels are constantly rising and the demand for huge transfer budgets and star name arrivals has grown to the point were fans are now no longer accepting of the budgets we’ve survived on for the last few years – unfortunately the business is currently unable to match those expectations, as the numbers simply don’t add up. The days of Everton FC being the Bank of England club are long gone – whilst we’re on the shirt tails of the “Big 4” on the pitch, off it, we’re light years behind.
Yes he loves the club, and yes he does care, but somethings you just have to do.
So if you know any Bluenose Multi Millionaires, who’d be quite happy to throw a large portion of their children’s inheritance at Everton FC - drop Bill a line with their name and address, I reckon he’d be glad of it………..
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The gist of this article, however small and needs more analysis, is to the point, realistic and mature. Posing challenging and an unpopular argument. Well done. Although other sugar daddies have gone onto take over clubs which some might say have a lesser base - there are ethics - even in football.
I suggest we whore our club off to the Bin Laden Family or Disney like Derb County was going to do as with this new stadium surely we are a more attractive option than that of Derby County?
OR OR OR
How about we go the RS way and all donate 5,000 to buy our club and have a president
(not a real suggestion)
Everton make very little money from sponsorship and ‘of the pitch’ revenues.
If somebody bough the club with a few to putting these area’s right revenue and profit could be increased significantly.
We are a loss maker because we dont have a robust business plan in place. The failings of Wyness and Bill have been masked by the success of Moyes who has achieved off the back of a very limited NET transfer budget.
We are the 5th bggest club in the biggest league in the world awash with money. Our stock is rising and to think nobody would want to buy us would be a mistake. We are the only ‘big’ club left in the premiership now not to have been nought out - to the extent that Championship sides are now attracting investment.
At present we are not for sale - despite Bills comments at the ESCLA AGM - the planning application for Kirkby backs this up. He is first waiting to see if he can line his grubby little paws with cash following the Kirkby move.
His performance at the ESCLA AGwas nothing short of disgraceful. To not know about basic issues such as transport at Kirkby and the clubs merchandising is shocking. For a Chairman not to know about the basic affairs of multi million pound turnover business he is responsible for defies belief. Lets not forget however - he is an actor and I have seen similar vague answers from him before at AGM’s. He does this so he can evade the questioning. Also the disdain he showed some of the supporters at teh ESCLA meeting is just not on. Since he took over debts have doubled and assets sold.
Time to go Bill.
Another balanced article. Good work Simon.
I heard rumours a few weeks ago of a month from Mittal Steel - Indian billionaire….
What is ESCALA I know its a Everton supporters club but for where?
Try a web search Ed. Its for the London area I’m aware.
http://www.followeverton.com/web-search
Michael Corleone - the EPL is awash with money at the moment - most of it TV money & most of it is flowing straight into the pockets of overpaid players.
The clubs off field marketing & merchandising is poor, & has been for as long as I can remember - however even with the slickest marketing dept in the EPL we’d never create the kind of revenue’s required to close the gap on our closest rivals. As the market for these goods isn’t as great as the Big 4 - our recent success is limited - we may have finished 5th last season - but we’ve hardly been tearing up trees in the last decade - it’d take years of sustained success to build our “brand” to the same or similar levels.
Turning that business around & at the same time continuing the progress made on the pitch & resolving the stadium issue - wouldn’t appeal to many - as there’s no profit to be made, certainly in the short term. To buy the club, clear the debt & fund the stadium / player investment - you’d be looking at chucking the thick end of £300M at it - any investor will be looking for a return on capital employed in excess of 11% - if you can see how they’d manage that I’ll doff my cap to you sir. Unless of course they lumped the debt onto the club as the Americans have done at Liverpool. In which case the business would have to grow to 3 times it’s current size, merely to pay the interest.
i cant ,beleave ,whats happening ,why cant we find ,no big ,spenders ,when you have the ,likes of sunderland. willing to spend ,millions . on crap, surely theres someone out there willing to take achance, they only have to look at our history , us and the gooners longest ,serving teams in the big ,league , cant beleave it, gutting at the moment, to be an everton ,fan ,i only read earlier ,that rounds as signed a 12 month contract, dont no if this is true ,but if so is it ,the end of moyes ,after this season.