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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An Dun
Can you tell me who you would have seen as easier teams for our CL draw ?
Aside from easier than Aston Villa there are none in my view.
If our draw was not the easiest I really would love to know what would be easier.
Burnley78 on 12th March 2025 8:00 pm
‘Marvin Compper fits BR strategy perfectly. He was signed under his leadership when he was 18 months in the job.’
We all know signing MC was a gamble that turned into a thriftless mistake.
But how many of the same blunders was Peter’s prodigy son allowed in the transfer market, before he got the gardening leave-ho ?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_H9ZEjY8Us
Real miss penalty Atleti galvanised
Paul and a few others have reservations about the way the club model is changing under Brendan, they see a threat to the system that has brought us success and profitability.
Would reaching the last 16 or quarter finals in the champions league every year be enough to outweigh those fears?
I have no idea but I do know it would be bloody brilliant. We’d also keep a top coach not to mention the stadium full, maybe even that upgrade to the main stand.
1988 film about links between Gweedore and Celtic.
If our draw was not the easiest I really would love to know what would be easier.
queens park, arthurlie largs thistle , hibs wummun, celtic b, dukla pumpherson, linfield and the rangers.
borgo67 on 12th March 2025 9:31 pm
Paul and a few others have reservations about the way the club model is changing under Brendan, they see a threat to the system that has brought us success and profitability.
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calemero syndrome.
the stadium is never full.
SAINT STIVS
Calimero
It’s an injustice, it is , yes.
aye.
Celtic’s first obligation is the health and safety of its fans and all who attend our ground.
Nothing supercedes that basic simple obligation.
—
celtic are a plc.
a plc’s first obligation is to the shareholders.
everything else is just window dressing.
No empty seats in the Metropolitano.
Is it ok to want Atleti to win?
Extra time as ever Looms
In the Netherlands and Belgium, the term “Calimerocomplex [nl]” is used to denote people who are staunchly convinced that their position as an underdog is due to their smaller size, either literally or symbolically, which covers up for their own shortcomings.
ergo anyone who thinks they know better about football than brendan
I get that many think being in the last 24 in the CL from the easiest possible draw (no one has volunteered an easier set of possible games other than perhaps Villa) is very good. Personally I don’t think it is better than par.
We see the like of Brugge and Feyenoord and Lille and Benfica from tougher games going deeper it may even be worse than par.
I also get that folk are happy with having a structure which leaves us at the mercy of one man. ‘In Brendan we trust’’ seems to be the mantra. That’s fine but this is football and the reality is football people are mostly transient. Even more so where ego is involved.
We can argue all day about whether the board continuity is good or bad but it brought us success for 20 years. Would an evolving structure with succession planning have yielded better results is difficult to say. Many seem to think it would.
For me for sure a structure which does not anchor our football department to over reliance on any individual would be the best option. Bayern type model is not perfect but feels best to me.
Happy for anyone to love Brendan and dislike suits if it makes them feel good though.
I will be as happy as anyone if Brendan goes one or even two better than his last best v rangers and Barry and his football dads come Sunday. I will also be happy just to beat them. Again.
I could never like Athletico.
Extra time in the Metropolitano.
Real left back went off around 80 minutes with a hammy and a red face.
He had a shocker.
€53m !!
Couldn’t lace Schlupp’s boots.
This is the bit where the experts say we’d be as well going straight to penalties.
Just to add to Burnley78’s opinion – I hate Athletico Madrid with every bone in my body, leopards don’t change. I was there in ‘74, never forget it.
Hoople 12 Mar 2025: 4/6
❌⚽❌⚽❌
❌⚽❌⚽🏆
⚽❌⚽🏆❌
🏆🏆🏆🏆🏆
https://www.celticnewsnow.com/hoople/
#hoople #celtic #celticfc
Anybody got a link to the Real Madrid game ?
FWIW I was in the Jungle that night, don’t really care who wins, but if I did it would be Atleti
Totally concur re 74 …do them Real 😎
Hi again BURNLEY…
I’m in the camp of having a well-developed and data-informed scouting and recruitment system, which can also accommodate the ‘captain’s call’ of a real football man who gets to augment the team’s maturity, power and pace when the data-driven system comes up short. For me, it has to be a blended model, not an either/or one.
And when you write…
‘I also get that folk are happy with having a structure which leaves us at the mercy of one man…’
Was the christian name in your mind as you make that point Dermot or Peter ? ;)
Experts get it right again……penalties
Happy for anyone to love Brendan and dislike suits if it makes them feel good though.
honestly b78.
what ego is it that you dislike or distrust brendan so much ?
SS
His own?
I don’t normally hold a grudge for over fifty years but I’m making an exception here.
Come on Real.
i worked in madrid for sometime in the early 2010s.
atleti fans are more like us.
i never met a one who knew anything about playing celtic in 74.
We can argue all day about whether the board continuity is good or bad but it brought us success for 20 years. Would an evolving structure with succession planning have yielded better results is difficult to say. Many seem to think it would.
————-
goodness me.
over those 20 years if a board member was replaced every 4 years, and 5 different younger people in their early 60s were involved now, we might have won more trebles and 14 in a row.
St Stivs – understood, but you must have met some very young folk, I’m 67 and I was 16 in 1974, Athletico Madrid support will be full of folk who know exactly what happened back then.
Jinkyredstar on 12th March 2025 10:42 pm
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aye mibbies, but they couldnt care less, honestly. modern day supporters the world began in 2002
Aye fine
Sorry, truncated post. So nothing existed before 2002?
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.
The bitterness towards our manager is there to see,comparing a ned Season Ticket seller for the huns is embarrassing, even by your low standards. You don’t want someone with too much control? How about your hero ,PL,who has taken £17 million plus out of a business this size,and ran every department which he had no skill set in,into the ground, why is he back? It’s very obvious you are trying to keep a business deal together somewhere down the line.
Happy to see RM go through. I was in the jungle that night in 74 and honestly thought a pitch invasion was on, it was that bad. Only Montevideo 67 was worse.
!!BADA BING!! @ 11:24 PM,
Seventeen years PL was our CEO – his tenure made him a very wealthy man.
Yet out of the Rangerses six titles this century, five were under PL’s watch.
That means we were runners up five times.
Of the eleven titles we won during the time Peter Lawwell was CEO – Aberdeen were runners up four times, Rangers were runners up three times, Motherwell were runners up twice, R2ngers were runners up twice, and Hearts were runners up once.
So as I’ve asked many times, during Peter’s great generation of Domination who did we dominate.
Hail Hail