Skip to main content

Rangers improve their finances

Rangers’ pre-tax loss in 2022/23 slightly increased from £2.2m to £3.1m, as revenue fell £3m (4%) from club record £87m to £84m and other operating income dropped £4m (82%) from £5m to £1m.

Rangers’ revenue decrease was largely driven by having no European football after the group stage, which led to reductions in gate receipts & hospitality, down £2m (5%) from £42m to £40m, and commercial, down £1m (6%) from club record £20m to £19m. Broadcasting rose very slightly to £25m.

Despite the lower revenue, Rangers still invested more money in the squad, as the wage bill increased £9m (17%) from £55m to a new club record of £64m.  This was partly due to bonuses for Champions League qualification. This means that wages have now grown seven years in a row, nearly quadrupling since promotion in 2016.

Rangers’ results were boosted by their best ever profit from player sales of £23.6m, which was more than twice as much as prior year’s £11.2m, mainly due to the club record sale of Calvin Bassey to Ajax and the big money move of Joe Aribo to Southampton.  The importance of player trading to Rangers’ business model cannot be over-stated, so the club record £24m profit last season was a big step in the right direction, cementing the progress already demonstrated by the prior year’s £11m gain.

Rangers’ have obviously improved their finances in the past few years, but they still made a (small) loss, even with the benefit of Champions League football and very good player sales.

Rangers’ £84m revenue has still grown £25m (42%) in three years from £59m in 2019/20. This means that revenue has nearly tripled from the £29m they generated in their first year back in the Premiership in 2017.

Rangers earned €20.9m from the Champions League in 2022/23, which was £9.0m less than Celtic’s €29.9m. The largest slice by far was the €15.6m participation fee, but this also included €3.0m from the TV pool and a €2.3m UEFA coefficient payment.

Rangers’ gross debt increased by £1.4m from £16.9m to £18.3m, comprising investor loans £13.4m, other commercial loans £3.1m and lease agreements £1.8m. Net debt grew by even more from £3.9m to £13.0m, as the cash balance dropped from £13.1m to £5.3m.  The vast majority of this debt is of a “soft” nature with almost all of it provided by club directors and investors.

Rangers’ business model in recent years has been highly dependent on money from their investors. This adds up to £124m since 2013 with £63m provided in the last four years alone.

Rangers have clearly made a lot of progress on the pitch since the current board took control, albeit supported by significant investment from the directors.    That said, the club still posted a loss last season, even when they competed in the Champions League and made record player sales, so it’s too early to declare victory.

 

 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

It's no deal say Spurs insiders over Taiwanese takeover

Senior figures at Tottenham Hotspur insisted on Friday that they had not been informed of any deal to sell Daniel Levy’s stake in the club. A business group, Eight Sports Capital — which is said to include a billionaire Taiwanese financier — claimed that it had an agreement in place to buy a 24.99 per cent stake in ENIC, the club’s majority owners, from Levy, who owns 29.88 per cent. The Times has been told Ng Wing Fai and Brooklyn Earick form part of the group, having both been linked previously to potential takeovers of the Premier League club. The Taiwanese businessman, Richard Tsai, is also said to be part of the consortium. He is reportedly worth £7 billion.  Last year Earick, the former DJ and tech entrepreneur, was part of an attempted £4.5 billion takeover, which was “unequivocally rejected” by Spurs.  An ENIC spokesperson said: “We can confirm that neither ENIC nor THFC are aware of any sale by Daniel Levy’s Family Trust of its minority stake in ENIC, THFC’...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reports about Charlton sale exaggerated

Reports have appeared in The Guardian and elsewhere that Charlton has been put up for sale. Richard Cawley is an authoritative local journalist who runs a South London Sport substack site.  He reached out to the club yesterday evening to ask for comment on The Guardian’s article. Early indications from the club have been that nothing has changed since the story about them seeking investment, except that it is now a different company doing it. Charlton have since managed to consolidate their place in the Championship, avoiding an instant return to League One, with their women’s side promoted to the WSL, returning to the top flight for the first time since 2007, although staying there is likely to be costly. It would be counter-intuitive for owners Global Football Partners not to progress the club when looking for investment, that the focus remains on driving it forward, that their spend this summer is in line with long-term planning and will see an increase in wages spent on players...
Post a Comment
Read more

Levy's anomalous status at Spurs

It is now nearly a year since Daniel Levy was dismissed as Tottenham Hotspur chairman by the Lewis family.  It has been 12 months of dramatic twists and turns, with Spurs avoiding relegation on the final day of the Premier League season, and then spending unprecedented sums this summer to try to make sure such a scare never happens again. But while most fans focus on the football — and a dubbing by Brentford   — another set of issues have been bubbling away separately. These relate to Levy’s continued position as a minority shareholder in the club. This has been in the news for much of this summer, even as we approach the first anniversary of Levy’s dismissal, and specifically this month, after he missed the opportunity last week to participate in the Lewis family’s latest equity injection into the club. On Thursday morning the club confirmed that his shareholding has been diluted, down by roughly two per cent, after the creation of new ENIC shares. Levy’s dism...
Post a Comment
Read more