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West Ham financial accounts revealed

West Ham’s newly announced financial accounts show a record turnover and record profit but mostly due to the new TV deal which came in last season. The accounts published at companies house today show figures for last season up to 31st May 2017.

The main areas show:

O Turnover increase of 28.9% (£41.2m) from £142.1m to £183.3m

O TV income grew by 37% (£32.6m) from £86.7m to £119.3m

This is in line with many other Premier League clubs when the new Sky/BT deal came into effect last season. Most clubs have increased their turnover by a similar amount.

Ticket income grew by 6.3% from £26.9m to £28.6m

The modest increase might be a surprise to some but with 10,000 Under 16 season tickets for £99 and 8,000 Band 5 season tickets for £289 and prizes frozen the only way to increase revenue in this area is to increase ticket pricing which would not go down well with fans.

O Commercial and sponsorship including corporate hospitality sales were up by 35.7% from £19m to £25.8m

This area includes the corporate hospitality called Club London which increased to 3,200 members and better sponsorship deals in the new stadium.

O Retail and shop sales grew by 2% from £9.3m to £9.6m

Again a rather small increase but there are some mitigating factors. The last year in the Boleyn Ground saw record revenue from retail from dedicated merchandise the club shop currently lacks a car park and has limited footfall or passing trade outside of match days.

O The club published a gross profit of £64.4m but this reduced to a net profit of £43m after playing trading, taxation and interest.

While the profit is impressive the club remains relatively cash poor as many transactions are paid for upfront but accounted for (depreciated) over many years in the accounts. These include the £15m for the stadium (depreciated over 99 years, the club shop, office and Westhamification of the London Stadium (depreciated over 10 years) and many players 50% up front but depreciated over the length of the player’s contract.

O The accounts confirm the Boleyn Ground was sold for £38m.

West Ham had already received £10m up front in previous years so the balance of £28m was paid in July 2016 by the developers. This was used mostly pay off bank loans of £14.7m and London Stadium upfront fee of £15m.

O Wages increased by £10.4m from £84.6m to £95m which means wages account for 51.8% of turnover.

The highest paid director wages (believed to be West Ham Vice-Chairman Karren Brady) reduced her salary from £907,000 to £868,000.  In comparison, Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis was paid £2.65m plus a £1m bonus in 2016 despite not winning anything as a club so it could be argued her salary remains below the market rate. David Gold and David Sullivan did not draw a wage or claim any expenses.

O An update on West Ham loans:

External bank loans totalling £14.7m to shareholders CB Holding ehf (Icelandics) and (GC Co 102 Limited) David Sullivan were repaid on 15th July 2016 to make West Ham externally debt free of long-term non-share holder loans. Interest was charged at under 5%.

The club re-paid their £30m short-term loan to Media Rights and Funding secured against TV money on 14th July 2017. In August 2017 they took out two new short-term loans with Media Rights and Funding totalling £25m secured against the training grounds and Stadium lease to help with cash flow. These loans are due for repayment in July 2018.

The Share Holder loan balance has reduced from £49.2m to £45m in August 2016 after David Gold and David Sullivan were repaid £4.2m of their loans plus £2.2m in interest.

Interest on shareholder loans totalled £12.7m in May 2017 but £10m of this was later paid back to David Gold and David Sullivan on 18th August 2017. The interest on the remaining balance has reduced from 7% to 4% from 1st April 2017 with the shareholder loan balance due for repayment on 1st January 2020.

Shareholder Tripp Smith paid a £9.5m interest-free loan to West Ham in September 2017 after buying 10% of the shares from the Icelandic’s.

A full copy of the accounts can be found at  https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/05993863/filing-history

 

About Sean Whetstone

I am Season Ticket Holder in West stand lower at the London Stadium and before that, I used to stand in the Sir Trevor Brooking Lower Row R seat 159 in the Boleyn Ground and in the Eighties I stood on the terraces of the old South Bank. I am a presenter on the West Ham Podcast called MooreThanJustaPodcast.co.uk. A Blogger on WestHamTillIdie.com a member of the West Ham Supporters Advisory Board (SAB), Founder of a Youtube channel called Mr West Ham Football at http://www.youtube.com/MrWestHamFootball, I am also the associate editor here at Claret and Hugh. Life Long singer of bubbles! Come on you Irons! Follow me at @Westhamfootball on twitter

11 comments on “West Ham financial accounts revealed

  1. So only £4.2m of their loans was paid off, yet Smith lends the club £9.5m interest free.

    I thought G&S had said in the past that shareholder loans couldn’t be made to the club interest free! They also said that they have not taken a penny out of the club – well £12.2m in interest actually paid to them is a lot of pennies! No wonder “the club remains relatively cash poor”.

  2. So would I be right to say then .. that TV income aside .. the OS dividend for moving from Upton Park is around £8m?

  3. So would I be right to say then .. that TV income aside .. the OS dividend for moving from Upton Park is around £8m? which unless I am missing something.. and I probably am.. seems a low number given that capacity rose by 20k or so per match?

  4. 7 now only 4% on shareholder loans is not a lot when you consider inflation is at 3% added to the fact they could easily invest in something like property instead and get returns of 15 to 20% on their investment ( if you add together yeild plus capital growth.)

    • When you consider that the base rate was 0.25% for all of when they were charging 7% and a personal loan is now around 3% with mortgages at about 4% they’re still cashing in. The downside is minimal as they would pay off the loan (themselves) at the first sign of trouble. Rather than take a wage, they pay themselves in interest and spin it as them running the club out of the goodness of their hearts.

  5. Overall results off the field are moving in the right direction – especially where they were a several years ago. But Sean no need to spin the article with comments like” In comparison, Arsenal CEO Ivan Gazidis was paid £2.65m plus a £1m bonus in 2016 despite not winning anything as a club so it could be argued her salary remains below the market rate.”

    I fully support a Director at a successful club being paid 1million plus however we are not Arsenal (a consistent top 6 team) – (plus I believe Gazidis paid back the bonus as Aresenal failed to qualify for the Champions League) So deciding to compare her earnings with that of a top 6 club are not relevant.

    K Brady earns as much as the Directors of Everton, Leicester, Newcastle and Watford combined.

    Directors at Swansea Palace and Southampton all earn much less than K Brady – in fact as far as I am aware only WBA of the non top 6 clubs pay more to their Director than WHU pay to K Brady.

    I have no issue with K Bradys earnings (and give her a bonus when we qualify for Champions League!) – we all know how important she is to D Sullivan. I just feel the comments you made in this article in relation to other Directors are not accurate…Otherwise a good summary -Thank you I appreciate all the work you put into these articles 🙂

  6. Why don’t we get all our loans off Tripp Smith? He don’t charge interest.

  7. I’ve always read this site, but this is the first comment I’ve made…

    I really am now convinced that you are starting to become a mouth piece for the club, the latest comments about the clubs finances are frankly unbelievable. How can people really still support the board after leaving our home for £9m a year…wait until next years come out!, will this still be acceptable?
    I’m losing confidence in this site…
    Regards

    Neil

  8. I don’t believe the figures one bit …I was all up for the move but I just wished we stayed at Upton park ..basically they said we will be rolling in it if we move and can buy world class players …but like someone else said we sold our identity for 9 million extra ..the more you think about it the more you can see. They really we’re just talking absolute rubbish just to get everyone on board …I’m the same I believed in the project with the stadium.. How wrong I was though…….I honestly really liked the Davids at first but now I can’t even look ast them without getting depressed about my club …they real!y only care about themselves and money even more ….IMO

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