Financial worries

[sandy]

1 hour ago, jags on tour said:

I really hope Queens Park are groundsharing with us again next year so we can actually say it for real!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/60763899

“Coyle will help in the Spiders' promotion challenge” 

He is coming, he is coming, he is coming down the road!

[Norgethistle]

46 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

You may well be right on the numbers, although it doesn’t necessarily mean full time. 
Regards 2020 wages to turnover, there wasn’t really much that could have been done, given how late the season was curtailed. 
I guess 2021 was a concious decision, so not out of control, particularly. I guess it depends on how turnover matched forecast.

 

Remember in 2020, 80% of a proportion of wages were paid by the UK governments furlough scheme

[laukat]

42 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

You may well be right on the numbers, although it doesn’t necessarily mean full time. 
Regards 2020 wages to turnover, there wasn’t really much that could have been done, given how late the season was curtailed. 
I guess 2021 was a concious decision, so not out of control, particularly. I guess it depends on how turnover matched forecast.

 

Appreciate the comments.

Granted it doesn't mean fulltime but the overall cost of the wage bill suggests we are paying too many non-playing wages.

2020 wages to turnover would only have been a marginally better % if the season had completed. If we assume turnover was 2019 levels (unlikely to be that high due to parachute payment inflating turnover) it would have went from 77% to 67%. So wage to turnover was already on target to be over 70% before Covid curtailed the season.

2021 may have been a conscious decision but it could well have been disastrous if promotion hadn't been achieved. I get why you would consciously want to retain as much of the playing staff wages as possible to ensure a better chance of promotion but I don't get why we needed so many non-playing staff when all games were behind closed doors?

Also in 2021 the wage bill drops by £600k but we only have 1 less member of staff. Is the reason why the wage bill is lower in the accounts because the non-playing staff were being part paid by furlough? 

I couldn't initially get my head around @Norgethistle instance on due diligence but I think someone needs to get a greater understanding of why we have so many non-playing staff, what they get paid and what their terms &conditions are because we seem very reluctant to get rid of any of them. 

[Lenziejag]

3 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

Remember in 2020, 80% of a proportion of wages were paid by the UK governments furlough scheme

 

3 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

Remember in 2020, 80% of a proportion of wages were paid by the UK governments furlough scheme

That’s true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the furlough amount received is shown in the same account as the wages. I don’t know, though

[Lenziejag]

3 minutes ago, laukat said:

Appreciate the comments.

Granted it doesn't mean fulltime but the overall cost of the wage bill suggests we are paying too many non-playing wages.

2020 wages to turnover would only have been a marginally better % if the season had completed. If we assume turnover was 2019 levels (unlikely to be that high due to parachute payment inflating turnover) it would have went from 77% to 67%. So wage to turnover was already on target to be over 70% before Covid curtailed the season.

2021 may have been a conscious decision but it could well have been disastrous if promotion hadn't been achieved. I get why you would consciously want to retain as much of the playing staff wages as possible to ensure a better chance of promotion but I don't get why we needed so many non-playing staff when all games were behind closed doors?

Also in 2021 the wage bill drops by £600k but we only have 1 less member of staff. Is the reason why the wage bill is lower in the accounts because the non-playing staff were being part paid by furlough? 

I couldn't initially get my head around @Norgethistle instance on due diligence but I think someone needs to get a greater understanding of why we have so many non-playing staff, what they get paid and what their terms &conditions are because we seem very reluctant to get rid of any of them. 

I understand concern, and published accounts are supposed to be transparent, but they are anything but. That’s not the business fault, it’s the people the made the rules for reporting so hazy.  

[Norgethistle]

5 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

 

That’s true, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that the furlough amount received is shown in the same account as the wages. I don’t know, though

Furlough was paid as soon as wages were due. For once UK govt we’re very fast in paying out

[Jaggernaut]

2 minutes ago, Norgethistle said:

Remember in 2020, 80% of a proportion of wages were paid by the UK governments furlough scheme

Is that in case anybody thought it might be the French or the German government, or something like that?

Or is the "UK government" somehow special (apart from being controlled almost entirely by Russia)?

Many countries compensated because of covid. Why are you fixated on the so-called "UK"?

[Lenziejag]

Just now, Norgethistle said:

Furlough was paid as soon as wages were due. For once UK govt we’re very fast in paying out

That’s not what I was meaning. I meant, where does it show in the reports. Maybe, somebody that dealt with furlough could tell us.

[Norgethistle]

1 minute ago, Jaggernaut said:

Is that in case anybody thought it might be the French or the German government, or something like that?

Or is the "UK government" somehow special (apart from being controlled almost entirely by Russia)?

Many countries compensated because of covid. Why are you fixated on the so-called "UK"?

Partick Thistle are in UK and are covered by that governments PAYE, and welfare, not Frances or Germany’s. Hence why it was paid by UK government (or effectively the tax payer over next 40 years). 

[jaf]

24 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

That’s not what I was meaning. I meant, where does it show in the reports. Maybe, somebody that dealt with furlough could tell us.

The accounting profession were told to show it separately as “other income / government grants received”, not netted off against wages. 

[Lenziejag]

1 hour ago, jaf said:

The accounting profession were told to show it separately as “other income / government grants received”, not netted off against wages. 

So in the 500K that has been discussed, there will be some furlough receipts ?

[Lenziejag]

Here’s another wee thought on the results. If PTFC only published the B/S like the 2 or 3 other clubs that I have looked at, would we be thinking we have been so badly managed ?

[jaf]

38 minutes ago, Lenziejag said:

So in the 500K that has been discussed, there will be some furlough receipts ?

but the 500k is mentioned in TBC accounts albeit in ambiguous fashion. 
this is why  clarity would be good. And given we are supposedly weeks away from the intended date of transferring the shares one would have hoped the clarity might have been able to be given without breaching any confidences 

[Lenziejag]

2 hours ago, jaf said:

but the 500k is mentioned in TBC accounts albeit in ambiguous fashion. 
this is why  clarity would be good. And given we are supposedly weeks away from the intended date of transferring the shares one would have hoped the clarity might have been able to be given without breaching any confidences 

I am not disagreeing with that. The more information the better. My point really was about the comparison that has been made with other clubs. I looked at 5 clubs accounts - only Thistle include a profit & loss.  The implication that had been made was that other clubs were managing better through the pandemic, primarily based higher cash positions than before the pandemic. 2 of the 5(Dunfermline & Falkirk),had share issues to boost cash plus the Covid grant, but still made losses, 1 - QOS at May 2021 had cash of nearly £1M. It makes you wonder whether they have spent any of that ? The only club that seems to have improved significantly is Raith Rovers, but that is probably due to going up a division.

[Norgethistle]

If I had been running a football club on behalf of my best mate, and his dying wish was for it to be transferred to the fans. I’d be damn sure to follow that, I wouldn’t just be agreeing to carry out due diligence, I’d be forcefully volunteering it to drive the process on. Be able to walk out that door, we nod to the sky and say, got it done for you palm just as you asked.

 

All this is doing, by being refused, or delayed is actually sullying his planned legacy for the club and its fans. 
 

So I can not understand why it’s came to this.

Edited March 25, 2022 by Norgethistle

[javeajag]

8 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

Remember in 2020, 80% of a proportion of wages were paid by the UK governments furlough scheme

Did we take much furlough money ?

[Jaggernaut]

11 hours ago, laukat said:

Again not an expert so this could very well be the equivalent of taking 2+2 and making 22.

I had a we look back at the accounts to try and see what our wage bill looked like under previous boards. The format of the accounts change to current format from 2013 so its only really possible to compare accounts from 2013 to current.

The table below is what I got to

Leage Status	Year	Turnover	Wages	%	No of employees	No of playing staff	No Non playing staff
League 1	2021	1477825	1453888	98%	87	22	65
Championship	2020	2660597	2043372	77%	86	26	60
Championship	2019	3040329	1954075	64%	83	24	59
Premier league	2018	4552558	2788507	61%	95	35	60
Premier league	2017	4101609	2605326	64%	83	35	48
Premier league	2016	3281221	2095796	64%	77	34	43
Premier league	2015	3035398	2046315	67%	75	30	45
Premier league	2014	2852295	1672749	59%	76	22	54
Championship	2013	1647457	899328	55%	78	22	56

I think this implies a few things:
1. The last 2 years have shown a lack of control on the wage bill relative to turnover

2. The lack of control on wages relates to the increase in no of employees

3. The rise in no of employees is in non playing staff. 

4. If we assume the football management team are in the non-playing numbers they are unlikely to be the reason why staff numbers have risen as we have at best 2 extra coaches than previous years.

5. Non playing staff appears to have increased by 5 when we got relegated to league 1. Surely the opposite would be expected ? relegation =less income=downsize= redundancies. Why does a league 1 club need 65 non-playing staff when a premier league club could operate on as little as 43?

6. Our non playing staff compliment was higher last season than at any point when we in the premier league. Why did we not downsize non-playing staff when we got relegated from the premier? Does JLow want to transfer to the fans so they do the dirty work of making the required redundancies on the non-playing side?

 

 

 

Interesting, thanks!

And food for thought....

[scotty]

8 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

If I had been running a football club on behalf of my best mate, and his dying wish was for it to be transferred to the fans. I’d be damn sure to follow that, I wouldn’t just be agreeing to carry out due diligence, I’d be forcefully volunteering it to drive the process on. Be able to walk out that door, we nod to the sky and say, got it done for you palm just as you asked.

 

All this is doing, by being refused, or delayed is actually sullying his planned legacy for the club and its fans. 
 

So I can not understand why it’s came to this.

You could almost understand it if the person in question continued to show some concern about the well-being of Partick Thistle but any sign of said person being interested seems to have evaporated.

[Lenziejag]

On 3/22/2022 at 3:15 PM, sandy said:

The relevant doc was posted on P&B. It’s an extract from 3BC accounts to May 2021, showing a £500k contribution to a subsidiary. They only have the Club as a subsidiary. 

This document only says that 536K has been committed by 3BC. And while PTFC acknowledge a substantial financial input by 3BC, the amount in PTFC is only 518K( at the very least you would expect it to be the same if all the money had been handed over) and that includes furlough. It is worth noting that in the 2020 accounts the figure was 225K, which I guess is not far off 80% of furloughed staff for 2 months(April & May). 

[Norgethistle]

7 hours ago, javeajag said:

Did we take much furlough money ?

We furloughed all players, playing staff and almost all the non-playing staff. Only Gerry I believe wasn’t 

[fifexile]

2 hours ago, Norgethistle said:

We furloughed all players, playing staff and almost all the non-playing staff. Only Gerry I believe wasn’t 

And Docherty too I think. We couldn't furlough him because we were committed to his signing which was after the furlough started. Hence he was the one in all the publicity pictures for the new kit etc at the time.

[Norgethistle]

1 hour ago, fifexile said:

And Docherty too I think. We couldn't furlough him because we were committed to his signing which was after the furlough started. Hence he was the one in all the publicity pictures for the new kit etc at the time.

Correct, but out the 65 employees at the club around 60 were