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Guest ToqueJambo
On 03/12/2020 at 08:21, Rudy T said:

 

My opinion for what it's worth is, after seeing Mercer, CPR/Deans and Romanov as owners I feel a lot more positive about the long term future of the club under Ann Budges stewardship. I'm bitterly disappointed that with the strength of the club off the pitch that we've been honking on it.

 

 

This is why I like Budge. There are so many charlatans in football. We've often been strong on the pitch and honking off it, leading to major problems (potential club-ending problems) three times in the time I've been watching Hearts. Each of these times has been very stressful. 

 

Very rarely do we get it right on and off the pitch at the same time, few clubs do. Under Budge 14/15 to december 16/17 we could say we were getting it right. When we did some good things under Mercer, Robinson and Romanov on the pitch we were often in a mess off it in various ways, or we ended up in a mess not long after the good on-pitch things. 

 

Budge has always said she wants to hand over a club in a great position to progress (ie debt free and hopefully well-placed on the playing side of things). She will undoubtedly do that IMO when she leaves after this season (or after COVID) or the year after, I assume.

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6 hours ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

 

This is why I like Budge. There are so many charlatans in football. We've often been strong on the pitch and honking off it, leading to major problems (potential club-ending problems) three times in the time I've been watching Hearts. Each of these times has been very stressful. 

 

Very rarely do we get it right on and off the pitch at the same time, few clubs do. Under Budge 14/15 to december 16/17 we could say we were getting it right. When we did some good things under Mercer, Robinson and Romanov on the pitch we were often in a mess off it in various ways, or we ended up in a mess not long after the good on-pitch things. 

 

Budge has always said she wants to hand over a club in a great position to progress (ie debt free and hopefully well-placed on the playing side of things). She will undoubtedly do that IMO when she leaves after this season (or after COVID) or the year after, I assume.

My question. If we made a profit last year. If we had some wages furloughed. If FoH upped the monthly subsidy, Why do we need extended credit?

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2 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

My question. If we made a profit last year. If we had some wages furloughed. If FoH upped the monthly subsidy, Why do we need extended credit?

Because we have lost a tonne of income.  

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WheatfieldWarrior
6 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

My question. If we made a profit last year. If we had some wages furloughed. If FoH upped the monthly subsidy, Why do we need extended credit?

 

We only made a profit because we had £3.7M in donations provided from the benefactors covering a shortfall from ticket sales, matchday hospitality, reduction in tv deal share as championship club and other income streams.

 

While donations are really welcome, they may not come in before they are needed, so it's prudent to have access to cash we may need to continue to run the business month to month.

 

 

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12 hours ago, davemclaren said:

Because we have lost a tonne of income.  

Get that but we have also lost a tonne of expenditure, police/ stewards etc etc!

My point is we have been pretty much blinded about the delay in transfer/ ownership/ control whatever. Surely we expect transparency and an explanation of how the finances work post Budge!

Right now we have no idea and rely on blind hope!

From where I am sitting we have 75% of shares and no control, not that I actually expect FoH to run Hearts, but we should understand if we are viable surely!

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11 hours ago, WheatfieldWarrior said:

 

We only made a profit because we had £3.7M in donations provided from the benefactors covering a shortfall from ticket sales, matchday hospitality, reduction in tv deal share as championship club and other income streams.

 

While donations are really welcome, they may not come in before they are needed, so it's prudent to have access to cash we may need to continue to run the business month to month.

 

 

So what you are actually saying is we are making huge losses and the business model is unsustainable at the 11th hour?

By the way the figures are for last years trading, we take another hit next 'summer' or whenever the accounts finish! The model we are being sold seems scrabbled on the back of a fag packet!

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On 03/12/2020 at 18:36, Sherbet said:

I'd have more faith in budge if she could prioritise and realise that football is the purpose of the club

 

This 100%.

It's nice to have a touchy-feely, HR compliant office in the background but a football club primarily needs winners on the field. There's no trophies handed out for ensuring everybody's birthday is remembered. 

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18 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

So what you are actually saying is we are making huge losses and the business model is unsustainable at the 11th hour?

By the way the figures are for last years trading, we take another hit next 'summer' or whenever the accounts finish! The model we are being sold seems scrabbled on the back of a fag packet!

So what you are saying is the model is to operate in the Championship with no-one attending games while continuing to spend capital costs on completing infrastructure forever. If that’s the case, I agree we are going to struggle to break even. If the model isn’t based on that then what you are saying is ever so slightly flawed. 

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kingantti1874
30 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

So what you are actually saying is we are making huge losses and the business model is unsustainable at the 11th hour?

By the way the figures are for last years trading, we take another hit next 'summer' or whenever the accounts finish! The model we are being sold seems scrabbled on the back of a fag packet!


absolute garbage.

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45 minutes ago, Sid said:

So what you are saying is the model is to operate in the Championship with no-one attending games while continuing to spend capital costs on completing infrastructure forever. If that’s the case, I agree we are going to struggle to break even. If the model isn’t based on that then what you are saying is ever so slightly flawed. 

Nah, what I am saying is quite clear, we are supposed to be ready for transfer of ownership and in a fit state for our future. 1) Covid has impacted that as has 2) demotion so 3) we need clarity on what the way forward is and is it sustainable? So far we have a fart in a dark room idea of what is going on.

We have financial experts on here assuming £m's of subsidy via FoH and the benefactors is a business plan for the long-term good of Hearts. My reading of last years finances are we made a loss and Anns loan = debts accumulating via more losses this year. But FoH is awfully quiet, why's that?

Our business model should be in place and like all good ones allow for worse case scenario. Is it?

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Guest ToqueJambo
1 hour ago, Jambo61 said:

Nah, what I am saying is quite clear, we are supposed to be ready for transfer of ownership and in a fit state for our future. 1) Covid has impacted that as has 2) demotion so 3) we need clarity on what the way forward is and is it sustainable? So far we have a fart in a dark room idea of what is going on.

We have financial experts on here assuming £m's of subsidy via FoH and the benefactors is a business plan for the long-term good of Hearts. My reading of last years finances are we made a loss and Anns loan = debts accumulating via more losses this year. But FoH is awfully quiet, why's that?

Our business model should be in place and like all good ones allow for worse case scenario. Is it?

 

 

We didn't make a loss though. FoH and benefactor donations are not subsidies. They are part of our income, and have been planned for. The benefactors didn't just appear out of thin air, Budge brought them on board. There's nothing stopping other clubs doing this.

 

Right now like all clubs we ar mostly in survival mode. In future, we will operate like every football club that tries to live within its means, whether those means continue to include benefactor donations or not. Personally I think having fans with money willing to help fund parts of the club is a good thing, but maybe that's just me.

 

What happens to FoH income after fan ownership is achieved is yet to be worked out as many people signed up to save the club and get ownership, but hopefully it continues to be a useful extra stream of revenue other clubs don't have.

 

 

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13 hours ago, WheatfieldWarrior said:

 

We only made a profit because we had £3.7M in donations provided from the benefactors covering a shortfall from ticket sales, matchday hospitality, reduction in tv deal share as championship club and other income streams.

 

While donations are really welcome, they may not come in before they are needed, so it's prudent to have access to cash we may need to continue to run the business month to month.

 

 

Are you suggesting that if someone likes James Anderson gives us a donation we should either refuse it or not use it for playing staff or/and capital expenditure?

You could also argue that if we charged less for STs our gross income (and consequently our net profit) would be reduced.  The real point is that we should live within our means wherever the money comes from.

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35 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

 

We didn't make a loss though. FoH and benefactor donations are not subsidies. They are part of our income, and have been planned for. The benefactors didn't just appear out of thin air, Budge brought them on board. There's nothing stopping other clubs doing this.

 

Right now like all clubs we ar mostly in survival mode. In future, we will operate like every football club that tries to live within its means, whether those means continue to include benefactor donations or not. Personally I think having fans with money willing to help fund parts of the club is a good thing, but maybe that's just me.

 

What happens to FoH income after fan ownership is achieved is yet to be worked out as many people signed up to save the club and get ownership, but hopefully it continues to be a useful extra stream of revenue other clubs don't have.

 

 

Mince.........they are subsidies that cannot be relied upon for long-term stability as they paper over cracks, what we are supposed to be creating, stability! Never once said that the benefactors money is not welcome, that must be something in your mind. We are already at the point where FoH income etc should have been 'worked out', my point exactly as we are already beyond the point the change of ownership was 'planned' for! It still has a fag packet approach!

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29 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

Mince.........they are subsidies that cannot be relied upon for long-term stability as they paper over cracks, what we are supposed to be creating, stability! Never once said that the benefactors money is not welcome, that must be something in your mind. We are already at the point where FoH income etc should have been 'worked out', my point exactly as we are already beyond the point the change of ownership was 'planned' for! It still has a fag packet approach!

Not sure what you mean by FoH income should have been worked out.
 

I’m sure, and it has been confirmed previously,  that several financial projections are produced for the next financial year ranging from assumed best to assumed worst case scenarios. No worse case scenario would likely assume a pandemic. 
 

 

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Guest ToqueJambo
1 hour ago, Jambo61 said:

Mince.........they are subsidies that cannot be relied upon for long-term stability as they paper over cracks, what we are supposed to be creating, stability! Never once said that the benefactors money is not welcome, that must be something in your mind. We are already at the point where FoH income etc should have been 'worked out', my point exactly as we are already beyond the point the change of ownership was 'planned' for! It still has a fag packet approach!

 

They are not subsidies. They are bonuses effectively that have allowed us to do things like extend the scope of the stand, raise our transfer budget etc (no matter how well or badly we've actually used the money). Without them we would have cut our cloth accordingly. 

 

We now have Budge's loan and funding from benefactors agreed to see us through this crisis. You can call that a subsidy if you like. We'll see how our finances look compared to others next year. However I'd put money on us being in a better position financially than most (listening to the bleating from Aberdeen for example about the losses they are incurring), even without FoH.

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Guest ToqueJambo
2 hours ago, Jambo61 said:

Nah, what I am saying is quite clear, we are supposed to be ready for transfer of ownership and in a fit state for our future. 1) Covid has impacted that as has 2) demotion so 3) we need clarity on what the way forward is and is it sustainable? So far we have a fart in a dark room idea of what is going on.

 

 Us and every other business, household and government in the world.

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3 hours ago, Jambo61 said:

Nah, what I am saying is quite clear, we are supposed to be ready for transfer of ownership and in a fit state for our future. 1) Covid has impacted that as has 2) demotion so 3) we need clarity on what the way forward is and is it sustainable? So far we have a fart in a dark room idea of what is going on.

We have financial experts on here assuming £m's of subsidy via FoH and the benefactors is a business plan for the long-term good of Hearts. My reading of last years finances are we made a loss and Anns loan = debts accumulating via more losses this year. But FoH is awfully quiet, why's that?

Our business model should be in place and like all good ones allow for worse case scenario. Is it?

Clear as mud. 
“we are making substantial losses and the business model is unsustainable”. 
these are you clear words. 
I explained two massive contributors being Coronavirus and infrastructure spend are not ongoing costs (hopefully) and our benefactors have helped us through these challenges. You totally ignore that. 

Your suggestion is we should have structured our finances to have £3m set aside for a rainy day.
 

“Robbie. The good news is we have managed to build up a substantial cash fund of £2.5m. 
“Great. How much have I got to spend on players?”  
“None. you need to sell a couple so we can get more money doing nothing just in case.” 

This is why we should leave finances to people who know what they are talking about. Heaven help us if we get fans running the finances. 
 

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8 minutes ago, Sid said:

Clear as mud. 
“we are making substantial losses and the business model is unsustainable”. 
these are you clear words. 
I explained two massive contributors being Coronavirus and infrastructure spend are not ongoing costs (hopefully) and our benefactors have helped us through these challenges. You totally ignore that. 

Your suggestion is we should have structured our finances to have £3m set aside for a rainy day.
 

“Robbie. The good news is we have managed to build up a substantial cash fund of £2.5m. 
“Great. How much have I got to spend on players?”  
“None. you need to sell a couple so we can get more money doing nothing just in case.” 

This is why we should leave finances to people who know what they are talking about. Heaven help us if we get fans running the finances. 
 

And yet you totally ignore the season ticket money has come in and expenditure reduced!

You seem happy to jog along and see what happens, that my friend is not planning!

The entire purpose of FoH and 'new' Hearts is to ensure we live within our means and do not go into debt again enforcing a sale to the highest penny in the pound bidder! It cannot really be that hard for you to comprehend that relying on FoH top ups and benefactors is not a resilient long-term plan! You also ignore that 1) FoH is meant to be the majority share holder already with a defined business plan and 2) that has been delayed indefinitely as no viable business plan is in place!

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Guest ToqueJambo
27 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

And yet you totally ignore the season ticket money has come in and expenditure reduced!

You seem happy to jog along and see what happens, that my friend is not planning!

The entire purpose of FoH and 'new' Hearts is to ensure we live within our means and do not go into debt again enforcing a sale to the highest penny in the pound bidder! It cannot really be that hard for you to comprehend that relying on FoH top ups and benefactors is not a resilient long-term plan! You also ignore that 1) FoH is meant to be the majority share holder already with a defined business plan and 2) that has been delayed indefinitely as no viable business plan is in place!

 

This was not the purpose of FoH. FoH was a vehicle to deliver fan ownership. And how many times does it have to be repeated, FoH (or "the fans") will not run the club day to day. We already have a new CEO who will be working on future plans. The club will be run by CEOs appointed by the board on an ongoing basis.

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iwasthere1954
7 hours ago, Jambo61 said:

Get that but we have also lost a tonne of expenditure, police/ stewards etc etc!

My point is we have been pretty much blinded about the delay in transfer/ ownership/ control whatever. Surely we expect transparency and an explanation of how the finances work post Budge!

Right now we have no idea and rely on blind hope!

From where I am sitting we have 75% of shares and no control, not that I actually expect FoH to run Hearts, but we should understand if we are viable surely!

You cannot expect any football club to come out and let everyone know where you are financially. 

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3 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

This was not the purpose of FoH. FoH was a vehicle to deliver fan ownership. And how many times does it have to be repeated, FoH (or "the fans") will not run the club day to day. We already have a new CEO who will be working on future plans. The club will be run by CEOs appointed by the board on an ongoing basis.

If you bother to look I specifically said FoH was not to actually manage Hearts at all!

If you bother to think FoH was set up to save Hearts long term not just at all.

If we get into debt again and if we need to raise funds for e.g. player pool during inflated signing fees/ transfer fees the FoH subsidy and benefactors may not be able to fund properly and we end up back at pennies in the pound buyers!

I've referred previously to Blackburn, left as a trust which was set aside promptly by a court order as they couldn't compete with the inflated transfer markets!

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Guest ToqueJambo
3 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

If you bother to look I specifically said FoH was not to actually manage Hearts at all!

If you bother to think FoH was set up to save Hearts long term not just at all.

If we get into debt again and if we need to raise funds for e.g. player pool during inflated signing fees/ transfer fees the FoH subsidy and benefactors may not be able to fund properly and we end up back at pennies in the pound buyers!

I've referred previously to Blackburn, left as a trust which was set aside promptly by a court order as they couldn't compete with the inflated transfer markets!

 

FoH wasn't set up to do anything long-term. It was set up to save us from the situation we were in in 2014 and deliver fan ownership after 5 years (which was then extended). What happens after that is down to whoever runs the club. FoH will hopefully continue as a way to generate extra funds, but how those funds are used going forward will no doubt need to be discussed and voted on by FoH members.

 

FoH aims:

 

"The early priority of the Foundation was to work in partnership with Ann Budge and her team to ensure that the rebuilding of the club could proceed effectively, supported by the financial contribution of Foundation members. The wider aim has been to move from this stage to achieve fan ownership of the club. Fan ownership, but not fan management, will thus become a reality, with appropriate governance processes being implemented. This will be delivered in early/mid 2020 when majority shareholding (75.1%) will be transferred from Ann Budge’s specially created company, Bidco, to the Foundation. Following this historic event, the Foundation’s aim is to continue to provide financial backing to the club by asking members to support the club ‘ever more’ through pledging for life."

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Just now, iwasthere1954 said:

You cannot expect any football club to come out and let everyone know where you are financially. 

I think we, assuming you are, as FoH members should be included so far as possible and have an idea where we are going. Right now we know very little, have no idea when the transfer of shares will happen and what state we will be in. Given it was meant to have actually happened we don't know the business plan aims! Not expecting the nth degree but being absolutely ignored as we seem often to be is worrying! Surely you can see that!

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1 minute ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

FoH wasn't set up to do anything long-term. It was set up to save us from the situation we were in in 2014 and deliver fan ownership after 5 years (which was then extended). What happens after that is down to whoever runs the club. FoH will hopefully continue as a way to generate extra funds, but how those funds are used going forward will no doubt need to be discussed and voted on by FoH members.

Well if fan ownership was not meant to be long-term we are in the shit as the set up is so complicated we cannot react quickly, hence the upcoming vote!

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Guest ToqueJambo
1 minute ago, Jambo61 said:

I think we, assuming you are, as FoH members should be included so far as possible and have an idea where we are going. Right now we know very little, have no idea when the transfer of shares will happen and what state we will be in. Given it was meant to have actually happened we don't know the business plan aims! Not expecting the nth degree but being absolutely ignored as we seem often to be is worrying! Surely you can see that!

 

What is this business plan you speak of? FoH's role isn't to develop a business plan. 

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Guest ToqueJambo
2 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

Well if fan ownership was not meant to be long-term we are in the shit as the set up is so complicated we cannot react quickly, hence the upcoming vote!

 

What are you on about? Fan ownership and the management and future "business plans" of the cub are two different things. And the vote is happening now or did you miss the email?

 

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7 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

What is this business plan you speak of? FoH's role isn't to develop a business plan. 

What! Never once have I said FoH develops a business plan! I have said Hearts should have one and it should be in place and sustainable. Is that wrong? Is that not what a board and CEO actually do?

I have also said FoH should understand and, reasonably, convey that to the members (not to the nth degree but better than taken for granted for sure).

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9 minutes ago, ToqueJambo said:

 

What are you on about? Fan ownership and the management and future "business plans" of the cub are two different things. And the vote is happening now or did you miss the email?

 

You been on the sherry?

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Guest ToqueJambo
8 minutes ago, Jambo61 said:

What! Never once have I said FoH develops a business plan! I have said Hearts should have one and it should be in place and sustainable. Is that wrong? Is that not what a board and CEO actually do?

I have also said FoH should understand and, reasonably, convey that to the members (not to the nth degree but better than taken for granted for sure).

 

What makes you think they don't have one? No doubt being updated as we speak due to the small matter of a pandemic, no fans in games and a looming or already in progress recession. Pretty much every business pan in existence has been ripped up at some point sin the last 6 months or so!

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On 10/12/2020 at 18:34, ToqueJambo said:

 

 

This is why I like Budge. There are so many charlatans in football. We've often been strong on the pitch and honking off it, leading to major problems (potential club-ending problems) three times in the time I've been watching Hearts. Each of these times has been very stressful. 

 

Very rarely do we get it right on and off the pitch at the same time, few clubs do. Under Budge 14/15 to december 16/17 we could say we were getting it right. When we did some good things under Mercer, Robinson and Romanov on the pitch we were often in a mess off it in various ways, or we ended up in a mess not long after the good on-pitch things. 

 

Budge has always said she wants to hand over a club in a great position to progress (ie debt free and hopefully well-placed on the playing side of things). She will undoubtedly do that IMO when she leaves after this season (or after COVID) or the year after, I assume.


Well said.

 

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WheatfieldWarrior
9 hours ago, Jambo61 said:

So what you are actually saying is we are making huge losses and the business model is unsustainable at the 11th hour?

By the way the figures are for last years trading, we take another hit next 'summer' or whenever the accounts finish! The model we are being sold seems scrabbled on the back of a fag packet!

 

 

No,  all I did was outline one of the reasons why it might be prudent to arrange a credit option should we choose to use it in the future.

 

We were given £3.7M to invest, so we did.  Ann is working to grow the size of the business, so you wouldn't see a large surplus of cash just sitting there in the accounts either way. 

 

 

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WheatfieldWarrior
7 hours ago, JamboAl said:

Are you suggesting that if someone likes James Anderson gives us a donation we should either refuse it or not use it for playing staff or/and capital expenditure?

 

No, why would we refuse donations?  I'd leave the decisions on that to the donor or Ann / Chief Exec / Board etc.

 

8 hours ago, JamboAl said:

You could also argue that if we charged less for STs our gross income (and consequently our net profit) would be reduced.

 

I'm not sure what point this illustrates.

 

8 hours ago, JamboAl said:

The real point is that we should live within our means wherever the money comes from.

 

We are living within our means over the 12 month period. The £3.7M is part of our means.

 

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3 minutes ago, WheatfieldWarrior said:

 

No, why would we refuse donations?  I'd leave the decisions on that to the donor or Ann / Chief Exec / Board etc.

 

You came across as though there was something wrong with donations implying that we only made a profit because of donations.  If we were in the black before we receive donations and spend up to that amount we are still in the black

I'm not sure what point this illustrates.

My point is that you could take any item of revenue and say if it wasn't for this we would have made a loss. 

 

 

We are living within our means over the 12 month period. The £3.7M is part of our means.

 

Good - so what's the problem?  It doesn't matter if we get 10p or £10m in donations so long as we don't go irresponsibly mad with the money we'll be alright.

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17 minutes ago, JamboAl said:

Good - so what's the problem?  It doesn't matter if we get 10p or £10m in donations so long as we don't go irresponsibly mad with the money we'll be alright.

I’ve never found donations to be a problem. 

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