Wfc Finances

Pozzo has genuinely driven me to fury. Especially his numerous backers and defenders among the fan base. It has been obvious since before the cup final season that Pozzo and his acolytes have been using the club for their own means. I’ve had years of abuse on here for pointing it out, especially when the buggers had such a great season under Gracia(!)

I feel empty about Watford now. What I loved is gone and I won’t get it back. Pozzo has taken it from me.

I want Pozzo and our fanbase to get what has been coming to them. And the game is afoot.

 

No sensible person could think that the owners do not sail close to the wind and probably do business with some right dodgy types

Mortgaging forward parachute money and using it to pay agents, whilst buying totally garbage players means as far as i am concerned

- best case is a managed decline
- worst case is that some of the dodgy stuff crossed the line and the combination of thethat, the lack of trust that anyone has in the owners, the cavalier way we dispose of manager which has burnt any goodwill we built over the Taylor/John era, the fact that next years parachute seems to have been spent already and a piss poor playing squad as soon as the likes of Pedro / Louza and Sarr go to delay the financial calamity, means that at some point in the next 2-3 years we go bust

 

Gross debt table from last season, £125m gross debt apparently.

 

Finally, something that we truly excel at.

 

I thought Brighton was the way forward? Where are West Brom who I thought were double ****ed?

 

Think Brighton are an odd case here, they've been wanting to buy low/sell high for a while but it hasn't quite clicked until recently. Imagine with the Potter money and the likely incoming sales of Caicedo + Mac Allister they can pay back some of that debt. They've got their model pretty honed now so imagine this debt will decrease over the next few years.

 

I imagine it won’t have factored in the Cucurella sale either which eats into a fair chunk.

 

Swiss Ramble has gone on to say that it’s all owner debt and none to outside banks/institutions. As our fans are big supporters of that sort of debt, we can return Brighton to their pedestal.

 

Yes and rightly so.

 

This is also true of
1/Blackburn Rovers (£144m owed to the Venkys-interest free and unsecured) and
2/Brum (£117m owed to the owners also unsecured and interest free).
3/ Boro (all owed to their owner Gibson)
4/ Stoke (Coates family)
5/ Cardiff

So all current championship clubs featured (with one exception) with debt over £100m is in fact debt owed to the entities who own the club-as @The undeniable truth and @GoingDown says this is an important distinction.

 

Would be interesting to see their levels of 3rd party debt.

 

Next to nothing in all cases
We had what £52m Gino and £77m third party

 

I’d be interested to see interest expense levels. WBA’s £20m MSD loan is at 14-15% for instance. Interest rate is similarly important to the owner/third party distinction.

Do you know what obligations auditors or directors to discuss threats to the business as a going concern. I noticed that Everton and WBA discussed that their going concern status may be under threat but our accounts did not.

 

On the first point almost all the 5 other cubs in Championship are interest free (like BHA). WBA have problems its clear

My understanding on the going concern is that the auditors have to be satisfied that as at the date of audit (not the y/e so somewhat later) there is enough cash due to meet liabilities for max 12months..

My personal view (and I did some rough calculations with assumptions on player wages/other expenses and transfer instalments due) is that we have enough due -parachute money/Pedro sale-maybe Sarr sale-and this ignores the Kamara sale also post June 22 to have convinced the auditors that we can survive until 1/4/24 (12m from audit date)

 

That’s concerning.

 

Swansea city showing what can happen when the parachute money runs out

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65546746

 

We have borrowed more money .

See the charge from 25th May:
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00104194/filing-history

We seem to have taken out a mortgage on a Combined Heat and Power Unit, and some 'Extension Works'. We can't even afford to buy fire extinguishers with our own money. I dread to think what our bank balance is.

 

Interest only 4% plus Close Brothers cost of money. So clearly the lender has more confidence in Watford’s finances than you do.

 

Give Gino a break!

 

I believe the training ground might be getting extended soon so that makes sense!

 

Spoiler: Exclusive photo taken during talks between the Close Brothers and Gino Pozzo

 

Seems to be defined as whatever it costs Close Brothers to borrow plus 4%, that doesn't sound great!

 

I have literally said that word for word in my post. I’m not sure but imagine that Close Brothers’ cost of money is a benchmark rate and pretty low.

 

July 2024

“The EFL can confirm that Watford FC have gone into administration”

Some moronic fans, “Give Gino a Break!”

 

If we were a year away from administration we would not find lenders willing to lend at 4% over lender’s cost of capital.

Don’t really see the point of this but this seemingly small charge is not going to imperil us nor is it a sign of impending doom.

 

Might it not be the case that you would be needing another of those apostrophes to have said that word-for-word in your post?

 

400 basis points mark up on their own cost of borrow on a secured loan. Hardly great? EDIT: see you've already answered and agree they don't think we will go into administration. But still objectively not cheap finance.

 

COVID mate.

 

I genuinely have no idea what you’re getting at.

 

Interest rates are now pretty high now, are they not? BOE base rate is 4.5%, close brothers won’t be able to borrow for less than this, plus 4% on top is a fairly nice margin for them. The important thing to us fans is is what it’s costing our club in interest which can’t be less than 9%.

This is probably a similar situation to the exchange rate used to make the Sarr fee look smaller, i.e. the cost being presented in a way which makes it look as small as possible, but only if you don’t think about it too hard and don’t get sucked in by the ‘it’s only 4%’ part.

 

Damn those pesky apostrophe’s!