Football finance expert Kieran Maguire believes Bolton Wanderers' latest accounts look an 'okay set' but believes the club will need to continue to need funding from its owners and shareholders for the meantime before it can become sustainable in the future.
The accounts for the year ending June 30 2021 for Football Ventures (Whites) Ltd, the club's parent company, were published earlier this week. It shows an operating loss for the period of £517,393, a big reduction compared to nearly £3.5m reported for the previous 12 months at Wanderers.
In terms of the financial year for the 12 months, a pre-tax loss of £1.468m was reported. However, this is a fall from the loss reported in the same set of figures for the 12 months up until the end of June 2020 which was £3.85m.
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Creditors' amounts come to some £31m and loans of £2.5m and more than £7.1m are due to be repaid on or before August 1 of this year. Interest of nearly £1.7m on the second amount will be waived if this is paid by this date.
However, some of these loans have been converted into shares. An allotment of shares appeared on Companies House yesterday worth approaching £5m.
Financial developments taking place after the end of June 2021 were also mentioned in the accounts. Shares worth £4m were issued to a Swiss consortium called BMLL Limited in January of this year.
Loans worth a total of £12.5m have also been converted into shares in the business. This occured towards the end of October 2021.
Turnover for the financial year was more than £6.1m, a drop from almost £9.4m for the 12 months up until June 2020. It meant a fall in gross profit from more than £2.8m to approaching £1.3m.
In terms of the Government's Job Retention Scheme, also known as furlough, the business received a total of £905,495 in the year ending in June 2021. This is a slight reduction in the more than £1m received though this method in the prior 12 months.
In terms of wages paid to staff in both sides of the business, the football club and the Bolton Whites Hotel, this total fell to just over £6.9m in the year ending in June 2021. It had been more than £7.4m in the previous 12 months.
Football finance expert Maguire, a lecturer at the University of Liverpool, has spoken on the latest accounts released by under Wanderers' owners Football Ventures. The consortium has been in charge of the club since August 2019 and in that time seen been the club relegated to League Two following a points deduction for being in administration, won promotion back to League One and are aiming to be in the mix for the race for the Championship this campaign.
Maguire believes spending more money on wages than the money brought in as income over the period is a 'cause for concern' but acknowledged the impact that Covid-19 had upon that campaign. The season took place behind closed doors without supporters in attendance.
Overall, Maguire believes the accounts are 'okay' and pointed to the positives of the loans at the club being converted to shares and not needing to be repaid. But the football finance expert believes Wanderers will continue to need funding for the meantime to become sustainable in the future.
Speaking on the Price of Football Podcast, Maguire said: "First of all, fair play to Bolton, these accounts are comprehensive with 41 pages.
"The club lost money in the year and that was partly due to the fact that for every £100 worth of income, they were paying out £112 in wages in League One so that is a cause for concern.
"At the same time, you've got to acknowledge that as a lower league club, they are more dependent upon matchday income than clubs in higher divisions and the impact of Covid has certainly hit them in 2020/21. It's difficult to draw too many conclusions as to where the new owners are, but the good thing is that we do have new owners.
"950 grand on loan interest in the year, that's a sizeable proportion of your wage budget so hopefully that can be dealt with. The club does have liabilities of over £30m, which have been run up in a very short period of time in respect of the change of ownership.
"But the good news with regards to that is some of those loans are being converted into shares and the advantage of having shares over loans is that they don't have to be repaid.
"I think they're an okay set of accounts. I think Bolton is going to continue to need funding from the owners for a while. Ultimately they're looking to become a sustainable club and stand on their own two feet, but they're not there yet."
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