ricky2tricky4city
Les Howe
We refinanced ourselves post COVID (this is NOT the stadium debt, that was done well before). The refinance I'm talking about is the repayment of the government loan and some more to restructure some smaller BofA short term stadium debt. £250m in total.
From the accounts it's pretty obvious we hadn't made much use of the COVID Loan as our cash balance went to extremely healthy. (Basically paid back the gov loan with a large chunk of the money they'd lent us). It was at a rate of 0.5%, so on the face of it, why would you pay it back? The reason is you had limitations on how you could use it. So we refinance just to get in the same position BUT with money we can use how we want.
Since then the cash pile has dwindled, in part poor spending, poor selling. So we are close now (especially given this window) where cash flow will be more of a concern, and we have seen moves to mitigate that with the owner injections and the (costly) Macquarie loan.
Depending how sales go, and also league finishes, will naturally feed into the cash flow situation as just front loading big purchases works if results follow. (From the finance pov). Of course there is some underpinning from the stadium events/commercial etc.
(Just as a side point....squad management is an art, from the fact you are on a 3 year cycle regarding the spending rules, get that wrong and you can box yourself into corners)
From the accounts it's pretty obvious we hadn't made much use of the COVID Loan as our cash balance went to extremely healthy. (Basically paid back the gov loan with a large chunk of the money they'd lent us). It was at a rate of 0.5%, so on the face of it, why would you pay it back? The reason is you had limitations on how you could use it. So we refinance just to get in the same position BUT with money we can use how we want.
Since then the cash pile has dwindled, in part poor spending, poor selling. So we are close now (especially given this window) where cash flow will be more of a concern, and we have seen moves to mitigate that with the owner injections and the (costly) Macquarie loan.
Depending how sales go, and also league finishes, will naturally feed into the cash flow situation as just front loading big purchases works if results follow. (From the finance pov). Of course there is some underpinning from the stadium events/commercial etc.
(Just as a side point....squad management is an art, from the fact you are on a 3 year cycle regarding the spending rules, get that wrong and you can box yourself into corners)