D-Levy wants to D-List

Morning.

You'll have seen the financial results and club announcement from Spurs. We plan to 'de-list' the club from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) and cease to be a public limited company, mainly for the reason that this (remaining a PLC) restricts us from gaining private investment in order to aid the NDP financially. A private company is the long and winding road we choose to skip down.

"It is clear to us that increasing the capacity of the Club's stadium is a key factor in the continued development and success of the Club and will involve the Company in considerable additional capital expenditure. Given this requirement, we believe that the AIM listing restricts our ability to secure funding for its future development. We are ambitious for the Club and have always taken the steps that we believe to be in its best interests." - Levy

The AGM is on December 13th, so the majority owners of ENIC will propose then that we are de-listed. Won't be an issue, ENIC own 82% of the shares (the remaining small shareholders will be able to sell their shares if they wish).

Long term, ENIC and Levy are positioning themselves for the money shot. Build a new stadium. Maximise potential profits. Sell the club.

No shocking revelation there. ENIC are an investment company with shareholders and as long as the club is left in a healthy state nobody is going to complain when the time comes for Levy to move on (other than myself as I'll have to register a new domain name and writing letters to Daniel will hardly be relevant if he's no longer at the helm). Although hopefully the caveat will stress 'do not sell to anyone with oil money and playboy traits'.

Point is, ENIC are custodians and there is little argument against the fact that we have (in terms of business) been run supremely well in recent years considering we are not a seasoned CL club and still play in a below 40k stadium. That's mainly down to Levy and the fact he has the Tottenham brand to play with and a massively loyaly fanbase to lean on. But that next step is imperative to the ethos of being unequivocally competitive with other clubs that are richer thanks to ticket revenue and over-priced Coca-Cola.

The following quote below doesn't quite inspire, although again this might simply be Levy's siege mentality on gaining the necessary monies the club needs to push the NDP into its phase of reality:

A financing package will need to include bank finance, enabling development and sponsorship. Quite clearly any significant, further investment by the Club would need to be in the context of a commitment by the public sector to undertake public infrastructure works in order to create the environment and confidence to commit further.These would include public sector improvements such as public space upgrades, improved public transport and public realm works, to be delivered in the surrounding area and to contribute to the general uplift of the borough, thereby creating an area in which the Club can justify an investment of hundreds of millions of pounds, secure funding and be a catalyst for further regenerative investment. We are continuing to hold positive and constructive discussions with local, regional and national government as we seek to move this scheme forward.

The rumoured £7.5M Boris has promised is hardly game-changing and we still await to see if a new tube station is forthcoming. A game of Thrones.

Fact is, the club (ENIC) need to push on. We need that new 55+ ground and I have no doubts that's what we'll achieve. Otherwise, there is no progression for Spurs or Levy and therefore nothing for ENIC's shareholders to feast on in the years ahead.

As for the financial results:

Champions League football revenue rose almost £44m to £163.5m

Operating profits up 42% to £32.3m

Costs of maintaining the squad up 35% to £131.2M (compared to 2010 £97.1M)

Club recorded a pre-tax profit of £400,000

More money made thanks to CL, more money spent on general costs and outgoings (new training ground, NDP, debt reduction, player bonuses etc), less tax wastage. It's all good. We're a slick machine in business operating terms, almost as slick as the manner of our football.

CL football will keep us happy and the chairman focused. For now, progress for the NDP is still lost in politics and posturing.

In amongst all the figures, worth also citing the obvious fact that the OS bid is dead. Dodo dead.

Levy takes a pay-cut

Anyone read the Annual financial report Spurs released the other week (it's on the official site)? Go on, one of you must have printed it out and sat yourselves on the bog, reading glasses perched on nose and read through countless pages of number-crunching. No? You prefer the more rounded figures of Front magazine like me? Good on you. Thankfully there are people out there who don't bother with glossy soft-porn publications and prefer to study and then dig out the type of information that makes us lazy ones ooh when we hear it.

Our turnover made all the headlines along with confirmation of our spending, but we missed the bit about pay-cuts (at least I did) taken by Levy and the directors. A 32.5% cut. Millionaires with less millions and no big shout out about it. No shareholder dividend pay-out either this year. It's all on page 34 of the report (if your copy of Front is in too much of an abused state to turn the pages).

From £1M per year down to £650,000 in the space of three years.

The club make profit and our man at the helm takes a cut. How refreshing. Taking one for the team. Not that taking home 650K isn't too shabby wage. It would seem there's no room for ego's here. Greater good and all that jazz, ENIC are firmly putting their money where their mouth is - although the less bites taken into rotten apples (Bentley, Bent, Pav) the more of that turn-over we're left with. Hard times, bit future plans - the priority is the club and therefore the fans.

If Levy needs to make up some extra cash for Christmas shopping, I suggest he loads up a white van with the left over copies of The Opus (that's the ones left over from the batch used during the half-time raffle ticket give-aways from last season) and hits the high road on match-days. Get Harry in the back and he'll have the lot cleared out by 3pm kick-off.

"Opus, mint condition, £500. And this one, signed by Robbie Keane, you can have that one for £250"

Money, money, money...

Financial results are out. And by the looks of it the caviar and champagne will continue to be digested by our commander and chief while the people of the land happily feast on the footballing steak dished out by head chef Harry. Well done.

The figures?

• Revenue remains high at £113.0M
• Player trading profit of £56.5M
• £119.3M spent on player acquisitions in financial year
• Group net assets increased to £62.1M from £42.6M at prior year end
• Planning application submitted for the Northumberland Development Project, our new stadium and related scheme
• £61.0M committed on property transactions in and around current stadium over the past six years
• Works started on new Training Centre for the First Team and Academy at Bulls Cross in Enfield

Pdf here: http://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/uploads/assets/docstore/financial_results_nov09.pdf

We are also the second highest spenders (cue more 'spend money, never win anything' taunts) but at least we are turning profit, even if it's not as hefty as suggested about. I doubt we have much in the way to spend come Jan and will need to rely on selling-off unwanted assets (Pav, Bentley…) to raise the cash for a DM (Sandro) and a brand spanking new centre-back (£10M on Upson? No thanks).

I'm not going to pretend to understand the accountancy involved. It's way above my head (number-crunching was never my strong point) but plagiarising some of the more savvy members of GG, it appears that the profit cited above (that's the money made from the club selling players) is not as clear cut as you would assume simply by accepting that the £56.5M is straight-forward cash in the bank monies.

The profit - depending on the length of the contract tied to the amortisation costs - is largely accounting profit which means it attracts taxation. By selling our best players (Berbatov, Keane - stop laughing) the taxation bill simply bloats out further (this year reaching £10.2M). The taxman is the only winner here.

We seemed to have profited only because the players sold (most of them) wanted out - rather than us looking to remain in the black by selling our best assets. Also, to further prove the complexities of the financial side of football transfers, if you took the figures released by Spurs and attempted to work out what we paid for players signed and what we got for players sold you'd probably find they don't quite add up. In other words, don't take what you read in the press for granted. Sometimes the total fee is reported. Sometimes the realised profit is reported. I'll quote the following example to further explain this (and confuse):

If Darren Bent was bought for £16 million on a 4 year contract - the club would amortise his contract at a rate of £4 million per year.  Bent moved to Sunderland after being at Spurs for two years 2 years.  If he was sold for £16 million then this would represent a profit of £8 million on his current asset value.

Where it gets further muddy for me is the fact that most modern day transfers are deals paid over instalments, which will no doubt journey through one tax year into the next which means this can also account for discrepancies between the reported official figures and the account work.

If any readers know your stuff where this is concerned, I'd appreciate a break-down of the figures for us simpletons.

More dizzying figures? We made an operating profit (before football trading) of £24.1M. This taking into account the various payments/settlements to the likes of Ramos/Poyet and the money forked out to Pompey.

Conclusion?

We are healthy. But in no way a threat to the likes of Chelsea or City cometh the next transfer window.

We are not a selling club - a suggestion often mouthed off. We sell if the player strops and wants to leave. That's a bit different to buying players to sell on for profit (although once upon a time, Levy believed in a 'buy young, buy British' policy). We make money as a 'business' before any player outgoings are taken into account. If loyalty existed and the lure of building a side was more attractive than jumping ship to an alread-made CL club, then we would probably only sell players we did not consider good enough. Fantasy football.

We are (apparently) the richest club never to have played in the Champions League (if we gatecrashed it, we'd be positively choking on sterling). You get nothing for a profit margin. Not in this game.

We are profitable club, financial year in, financial year out.

All this with a 36,000 capacity ground. Although I expect we might be negative come next report thanks to the money spent on the new players. Time to cash in on England stars, JJ and Hudd?

Roll on White Hart Lane II. In the mean time, the only real profit we want to see is the kind that swaggers around on the pitch, achieving things that the fans find tangible and relevant (although one aids the other more than we can to mention).

Also, new sponsors for next season. Let's hope the colour red does not figure once again. Although don't be surprised to hear that old chestnut about how the colour red is part of our tradition because on a past club badge there was a red...

(thanks to the geeks over at GG for their math skills)