Nothing says distressed sale of a football club quite as much as a loan securitised against incoming transfer fees. Until now, Newco directors have put their hands in their pockets to fund the money pit of a football club. The seemingly endless list of wealthy benefactors has finally stopped.
Newco’s most recent published accounts are for season 2022-23, a year in which they sold Calvin Bassey and Joe Aribo for around £25m (last season’s can be delayed no later than 31 March). The accounts showed £16.8m due for these (and possibly other) deals. Much of that money will have been paid in the 21 months since, while they sold around £11m of players in the same period. This means Macquarrie Bank (the lender) will have security over at least £10m income due from other football clubs.
US investors currently carrying out due diligence on the club, will be aware that no one with a closer attachment to the business is prepared to invest, that significant income streams will be paid directly to a bank, and that they have several motivated sellers. An aspect of due diligence is that it is carried out with an exclusivity clause. Newco will be unable to discuss an investment with other parties while this process is ongoing, which, according to reports, will take until June.
The potential investors are buying the income stream from ticket sales, European participation and commercial deals. It has been a while since Newco have reported a ‘normal’ trading season. Last season’s figures are not out yet, the season before was exceptional with Champions League income (£80m), the one before that was also exceptional, with a run to the Europa Final (£82m), while the two before that were affected by Covid.
You have to go back to season 2018-19 before they reported on a normal year, with participation in the Europa League. Revenue that season was £51m, which practically any competent backroom team would be able to improve upon.
I estimate Newco’s normal income level, in a season they achieve Europa League group participation, will come in around £75m. That is well below their last reported operating expenses (£92m), but, according to Philippe Clement, the wage bill has been cut since then and can be cut again.
£75m is enough to turn a profit at Newco, if you are sufficiently remote from crazy demands to spend more money. They are a genuine investment opportunity. Buy the club for buttons, explain how Uefa Financial Sustainability Regulations prohibit continuous loss-making, bring some sanity to the player recruitment model, make the club profitable and sell at a premium 3-5 years out.
To a US investor, this continual loss making must seem mad. It can be ended at a budget meeting and California is sufficiently remote that fan feedback will never reach them. Both parties will be keen to conclude. Market turmoil (leading to higher borrowing costs/better returns available elsewhere), and cultural aspects around Newco are risks which could dampen enthusiasm.
Notwithstanding that, this is the absolute stick-on opportunity Craig Whyte tried to pull off with Oldco. Stop the loss making, bring the club into compliance with Uefa FSR, bank the profit and sell up at a significant capital gain. Why wouldn’t you?
This is why it is important that Celtic are run at a profit. We will never become hostages to fortune, never depend on a supposed-sugar daddy and trade within our own means. Being owned by a genuine billionaire who, if he does achieves nothing else, maintains this policy, has benefits. I also think Celtic will look soft to data-first US sports people. We are far from invulnerable, which will encourage investment elsewhere by those who prize elite player trading models.
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AWOODY@4.22
As scullybhoy, Belmont Brian and a couple of others advised me after I replied to Ordinary Joe, don’t bite.
He is always at the wind up.
An Tearmann has a list of names he has posted under over the years.
All were spouting the same nonsense and used the same style of prose.
Great goal by Dortmund.
CELTIC40ME @ 6:22 PM,
Hi – Enjoyed your comment on the last blog re:Stadia relocation.
Yes, I’m sure taking over a potential 100mn revenue business and putting it right will have complexity and needs expertise over several disciplines.
My point was that Celtic and R2ngers have very similar potential and if Celtic are a well run business and R2ngers are a poorly run business, this could account for the difference in revenue and profit.
Yes a simplistic approach but a reasonable one on a football blog rather than a business /financial blog I’d suggest.
As Paul67 alludes to, a major part of R2ngers issue is their hierarchy cow tailing to their fans base rather than doing the right thing by the business.
Mike Ashley would have put this right and I’d suggest that P67 is correct and the Americans will do so, giving the more wild demands of the R2ngers deluded element short shrift.
That was my point about being half way there, nothing to do with our football manager at all.
Where I would disagree with Paul67, is that they would be looking at recruitment and data-analytics to get ahead of the game in an “old firm” sense.
Sure, their recruitment needs vast improvement, yet most American investment arms look at leverage as a way to make money.
My “amateur” guess would be that after getting the basics right, in terms of stemming the losses, would be they invest heavily in the Club in the way of loans, looking at using the improved position to pay-off the “investment” with a high interest rate, while keeping the substantial debt with the Club.
This is of course the opposite of Celtic’s approach, yet no reason why it could be very successful.
The investment could get better managers, coaches and players making the team so much better…
Just~a~thot
Hail Hail
You throw a party.
Troublesome guests arrive. They are ugly. threatening and obnoxious. They terrorise the owners family and create havoc. They sing sectarian and racist songs with gusto, after all hate is the name of their game.
They wreck the place and laugh in the owners faces.
Decent people are frightened, the neighbours are traumatised and the police are having to work overtime to deal with them.
DO YOU INVITE AND WELCOME THEM BACK ?
Absolute insanity.
HH.
TONTINE TIM on 12TH MARCH 2025 4:02 PM
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👍
BOURNESOUPRECIPE @ 6:50 PM,
Totally agree, the slow lane became the hard shoulder at one point.
We now as you say have a teir one manager, that needs to be supported by teir one ambition.
Hail Hail
irney named in startin eleven for the arse……………… in Jotas position.
wow.
Passing the time watching Lille v Dortmund ……….I prefer to listen to the Spanish commentary if available and tonight’s co-commentator is Marc Crosas who just said Celtic is the team of his life when discussing Leverkusen ‘s result against Bayern………nice to hear someone who gets it.
onceatim CSC
SAINT STIVS @ 6:30 PM,
The identical business does not relate to how we are currently run but potential.
It is to do with the commercial sector, environment, supporters as customers, potential revenue streams, potential cost based.
Hail Hail
Chairbhoy on 12th March 2025 7:22 pmtook Fegus 4 seasons to restructure us.
WE HAD TO WATCH THEM WIN A 9. AND SACK TBin the process.
trust me, thems support have no appetite for doing things properly ie spending what you earn.
some think they can win europa and get direct access to the cl riches and that will propel them onwards just like that.
saint stivs
Yup it looks like Kieran is playing as part of a front three for Arsenal tonight…
Great to see him get some game time recently, and likely to play in Scotland’s play-off against Greece in the next week or so. All good
SAINT STIVS @ 7:28 PM,
Of course you would have much better idea than me as to the current mood of the hoardes.
Yet the Americans will have to convince them to take their medicine or play second fiddle to the Tims for eternity, surely even they must see the reality.*
Their well healed real Rangers Men have woke up and smelt the coffee…
* Yes, maybe initially they won’t see it, but it the Americans tell them it’s their way or Ibrox becomes a Walmart, they may get it.
Hail Hail
Hail Hail
The rules of the Scottish League determine that a ‘fair proportion’ of away supporters are permitted to spectate in Parkhead when their club plays in league games. Celtic adhered to these rules and even sold a ‘cheaper’ ST version that didn’t include two Glasgow derby games per season, to accommodate Rangers supporters.
Celtic play and stay within the rules and can’t be held responsible for other club’s behaviour. Sevco redefined a ‘fair proportion’ when they decided that the Broomloan stand shouldn’t be given over to Celtic fans anymore, the SFA allowed this thereby reducing the numbers from thousands to hundreds overnight. Celtic of course then reciprocated for the Parkhead game, but before then the fixture in terms of sporting integrity was mortally wounded.
Brendan Rodgers from his media interview clearly upholds the meaning of the rules, and proved the perfect ambassador to deliver the Celtic message. ‘Bans’ historically instigated by Rangers and more recently copied by Sevco are unsportsmanlike, and avoided by Celtic.
Waiting to cross London Rd until the guarded Billy Boys get in and out, of CP is an unpleasant experience, but banning generally makes source issues worse and until the SFA administrators stop being dictated to by one club, problems are likely to reoccur.
We’re told the CEO in particular ‘worked’ hard to have Rangers supporters reinstated at Celtic Park, if they misbehave then as sure as eggs is eggs, it’ll be the imaginary old firms fault.
THURSDAY 12TH
Fr Toner was in tonight, and brought me in some religious magazines.
My weight is 58.75 kgs. They did not take a blood sample because they want to incorporate other tests with it. So the doctor says they’ll do it next week.
Physically I have felt very tired today, between dinner time and later afternoon. I know I’m getting physically weaker. It is only to be expected. But I’m okay. I’m still getting the papers all right, but there’s nothing heartening in them. But again I expect that also and therefore I must depend entirely upon my own heart and resolve, which I will do.
I received three notes from the comrades in Armagh, God bless them again.
I heard of today’s announcement that Frank Hughes will be joining me on hunger-strike on Sunday. I have the greatest respect, admiration and confidence in Frank and I know that I am not alone. How could I ever be with comrades like those around me, in Armagh and outside.
I’ve been thinking of the comrades in Portlaoise, the visiting facilities there are inhuman. No doubt that hell-hole will also eventually explode in due time. I hope not, but Haughey’s compassion for the prisoners down there is no different from that of the Brits towards prisoners in the North and in English gaols.
I have come to understand, and with each passing day I understand increasingly more and in the most sad way, that awful fate and torture endured to the very bitter end by Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan. Perhaps, — indeed yes! — I am more fortunate because those poor comrades were without comrades or a friendly face. They had not even the final consolation of dying in their own land. Irishmen alone and at the unmerciful ugly hands of a vindictive heartless enemy. Dear God, but I am so lucky in comparison.
I have poems in my mind, mediocre no doubt, poems of hunger strike and MacSwiney, and everything that this hunger-strike has stirred up in my heart and in my mind, but the weariness is slowly creeping in, and my heart is willing but my body wants to be lazy, so I have decided to mass all my energy and thoughts into consolidating my resistance.
That is most important. Nothing else seems to matter except that lingering constant reminding thought, ‘Never give up’. No matter how bad, how black, how painful, how heart-breaking, ‘Never give up’, ‘Never despair’, ‘Never lose hope’. Let them bastards laugh at you all they want, let them grin and jibe, allow them to persist in their humiliation, brutality, deprivations, vindictiveness, petty harassments, let them laugh now, because all of that is no longer important or worth a response.
I am making my last response to the whole vicious inhuman atrocity they call H-Block. But, unlike their laughs and jibes, our laughter will be the joy of victory and the joy of the people, our revenge will be the liberation of all and the final defeat of the oppressors of our aged nation.
Celtic played 3 of this season’s CL quarter finalists, how about that for an easy draw ?
Aipple
Thank you
Bournesouprecipe
Marvin Compper fits BR strategy perfectly. He was signed under his leadership when he was 18 months in the job.
An Dun
Ferguson has 100% record in qualifying games. It is not that difficult.
Yes of course BR won a couple of games for the English teams he managed. He also failed to go deep with either club in lower tier comps. As he did with Celtic.
As stated he is of course a far more experienced manager than his counterpart but the record is as stated. Credit to Ferguson and not so great for our tier one manager.
That is all.
Bada Bing
All I suggest is we have a proper structure around our football department and we don’t allow one individual to have excessive influence and therefore be indispensable. That will only expose us to risk from a dominant domestic positon.
I don’t care who the people are as long as they are the best for the job. Ideally a wee bit less ego than our current David Brent type manager would suit me. They said still what is more important is that those tasked with the job are fit for it and that their is structure around it.
Ferguson has 100% record in qualifying games. It is not that difficult.
—-
He’s never managed a qualifying game but plough on.
Atletico score in 1st min.
2 2 aggregate with real
Celtic’s first obligation is the health and safety of its fans and all who attend our ground.
Nothing supercedes that basic simple obligation.
HH.
He’s got a 0% home record
An Dun
The facts are we lost 2 league games against teams in the QF and 1 Play off.
We played a beat 3 of the worst 4 teams. We drew with another who did not make the last 24. Only 50% of those we played reached the top 66% of the teams.
12 points v the weaker teams should have been safe. Potentially 3 points v Brugge at home would have been achievable given the respective resources. Only v Atalanta did we over achieve.
To not qualify for play offs with that level of opponent would have been huge under achievement. To not reach the last 16 was not great but given we played Bayern in play offs it is excusable.
An Dun
Seriously which teams would you have preferred we draw in the League stage ?
Apart from not playing Villa I can’t think of an easier team than those we had from each pot.
I felt that at the time of the draw and I have not changed my mind.
Good evening all from the Victoria Bar.
BURNLEY78
He needed a CB sharpish because Boyata downed tools and openly admitted Comperr was ‘down to him’ including all 60 minutes we seen of him.
He wouldn’t be signing his ‘type’ now was my point.
So no ‘bash Brendan point scoring ‘ for you there, no siree 👍
An Dun
Ref Ferguson
You are correct
I meant knock out games.
Bournesouprecipe
I do agree
That whole Boyata thing was very badly managed.
Not just by the manager. The big lad was badly advised and we, as a club, did not help matters. Nor did the manager. The last bit was probably the least of the issues.
The Marvin C problems were deeper then that as I think most people know.
Fed up with posts detailing how them can get there ship in order to get level with us . I for one are quite happy the way they are going .they are doing splendidly . Also the few on here getting in underhand shots at our manager .who is doing a great job , wonder who is working them from the back . We’re maybe doing too good for some .
The facts are we lost 2 league games against teams in the QF and 1 Play off.
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That’s worth highlighting Burnley, 4 of our 10 CL games were against CL quarter finalists. 40% of our games !
Can any other team say that ?
Great to see Martin (Morton) Kompper getting a mention in this dear green place….
But who was who recommended him for Celtic in first place?
Was it a well meaning sponsor who had played subbuteo back in the day, or an over promoted blogger drumming to The Big Pete Beat?
NotsodistantdrumsCSC
Ref Ferguson
You are correct
I meant knock out games.
——-
Yes mate, Ferguson has won his only knock out game of his managerial career and sits on a 100% record as a result.
Better % than Pep, Jose and Ancelotti !
daft thing.
i would be ok with arsenal or villa to win the damn thing. only so one of our own gets a medal.
qq,
name all the celtic minded players who ever won the european cup.
Now if it was perfectly safe, then we wouldn’t need safety nets for them.
Would we ?
BURNLEY78…
“Yes of course BR won a couple of games for the English teams he managed. He also failed to go deep with either club in lower tier comps. As he did with Celtic.”
As stated before, Brendan Rodgers has won knock out games with Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester City.
He got into the Con-L semi final with Leicester.
Ange, who you regarded as a great Celtic manager managed to get knocked out of the UCL, UEL and Con-L in the same season.
Without the derision that BR&CO receives for having a much better record.
The old Board’s campaign against our manager is now paper thin, the sooner these charlatans retire and allow new blood on our Board the better.
Hail Hail
B78 the way you talk about our manager is a disgrace.
You should be ashamed.
A very successful Celtic manager deserves better.
D. :)
like all celtic managers, respect the position for goodness sake.
Well said Chairbhoy.
Must be a game against Der Hun coming up, B78 is trying to divide the Celtic support in favour of his beloved Sevco and his wee Pal Bawwy.
Ps get younger blood on our board with better, newer ideas.
D. :)
BURNLEY78. It’s so good to see you doubling down and continuing to embarrass yourself.
Keep up the good work 🤦♂️