Newco corporate governance, King loan, curious dates

The exceptional circumstances of season 2020-21, a year without fans, saw both Celtic and Newco furloughed staff and accessed the Job Retention Scheme, through which the government initially paid 80% of wages.  Celtic made up the income balance for all staff, Newco, however, paid up only selected staff, reducing their costs and loss accordingly.

Celtic did not make any redundancies during the year, Newco did.  If you lost your job while millionaire footballers continued to be paid, you might have a view on “absolutely necessary”.  Some of Celtic’s income went towards keeping people in a job during a global crisis.  Like Newco, they could easily have sacked staff and left others on reduced pay, but like Newco, they had a choice and chose solidarity with their staff.

In Newco’s chairman statement, Douglas Park opens with a demand that “those in positions of power and influence”, acknowledge the “major strides” the club have made with their diversity and inclusion campaign.  I suspect he means the Scottish Government, Celtic would be happy with an equal crack of the whip from the First Minister when she picks her moment to take an interest in football from a podium.

To be fair to Park, he signed the note before reports of more sectarian singing last week.  If he is viewing the world through a prism of satisfaction in this respect, I suspect progress under this regime has ended.

Having gone for the Government in his first paragraph, Park dedicates the second to making it clear he would like Neil Doncaster removed as chief executive of the SPFL under the guise of “corporate governance”.  Doncaster has steadfastly refused to favour Newco.

“Corporate governance” was the defence then-chairman of Newco, Dave King, gave to the Takeover Appeal Board (TAB) in his appeal against the Takeover Panel decision that he, Douglas Park and others acted as a concert party in their successful takeover of Newco.  They lost, TAB upheld the decision.

The October 2019 decision meant chairman King was ‘cold shouldered’, preventing firms regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority from working with him.  Those in glass houses should not throw corporate governance accusations around.

The Ghost of Halloween Past.

At the year end (30 June 2021), a Dave King loan of £5m was outstanding, due to be repaid by October 2021.  I know what you are thinking.  Newco released these accounts on 5 November, surely, Dave King had his money if it was due by October?  The first thing that struck me when I read the accounts is that date Douglas Park signed the accounts; 26 October.  Accounts are usually dated the day they are released, why were these dated 11 days earlier?

You need to read to page 60 of the accounts to read that King’s loan is discussed as “due for repayment in October 2021”.  If it was paid, why not just date the accounts the date they were issued and clarify this point?  These things are never random.

The note also reveals King charged 8% for his loan.  Nice, if you can get it, not so nice if you are paying it.

There are some key metrics I would like to discuss next.  This is all a bit ‘CQN from 2004-2011’, so apologies if we are going over old ground.