Saints Announce 2013-14 Profit


Percy Johnston
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Analysis of the 2013-14 accounts here (thanks to the two shareholders who forwarded them to me)

 

http://saintinasia.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/st-johnstone-fc-accounts-analysis-2014/

 

I will make the full accounts available as soon as they are available on companies house so as to protect the shareholders who passed these on.

 

There is still a large cost base, so the lack of signings and the reduction in the playing squad is understandable to try and reduce that base.  While it would be great to continue spending, a season where we fail to make the top 6 with last seasons cost basis, would make a serious dent in our savings account.

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Our current standing in Scottish football is above our station...? In historical terms that may be true but not sure why it should be the same going forward. Plenty questions for the board to answer imo. The contract situations of the manager and our best player have been spectacularly mishandled to the clubs detriment. Why spend such a sum on the astoturf with the amount of new 4g pitches being opened across the community? Surely it is a mature and declining market? Also, their has been nothing said about finding new revenue streams or employing the people with the experience to properly manage and develop the youth dream. I understand and welcome the cost-cutting but their has been a short-sighted small-minded attitude since the cup win.

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Analysis of the 2013-14 accounts here (thanks to the two shareholders who forwarded them to me)

http://saintinasia.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/st-johnstone-fc-accounts-analysis-2014/

I will make the full accounts available as soon as they are available on companies house so as to protect the shareholders who passed these on.

There is still a large cost base, so the lack of signings and the reduction in the playing squad is understandable to try and reduce that base. While it would be great to continue spending, a season where we fail to make the top 6 with last seasons cost basis, would make a serious dent in our savings account.

Thanks for posting this. Hopefully every fan on here reads the statement from Steve Brown and stop giving him such a hard time.

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Our current standing in Scottish football is above our station...? In historical terms that may be true but not sure why it should be the same going forward. Plenty questions for the board to answer imo. The contract situations of the manager and our best player have been spectacularly mishandled to the clubs detriment. Why spend such a sum on the astoturf with the amount of new 4g pitches being opened across the community? Surely it is a mature and declining market? Also, their has been nothing said about finding new revenue streams or employing the people with the experience to properly manage and develop the youth dream. I understand and welcome the cost-cutting but their has been a short-sighted small-minded attitude since the cup win.

Because like it or not modern football follows money. The richest clubs will do better over extended periods. Saints, even with turnover of $5 million will still be near the bottom of the wealth table for the SPL. We have benefited more than most in the post rangers era purely because our cash reserves have allowed slightly loser spending than others carrying large debts.

Let's enjoy it, but in 3/5/10 years time when we are back in div 1 we'll be much better off maintaining full time football to get back to the top league instead of buying a journeyman striker or three this year.

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Our current standing in Scottish football is above our station...? In historical terms that may be true but not sure why it should be the same going forward. Plenty questions for the board to answer imo. The contract situations of the manager and our best player have been spectacularly mishandled to the clubs detriment. Why spend such a sum on the astoturf with the amount of new 4g pitches being opened across the community? Surely it is a mature and declining market? Also, their has been nothing said about finding new revenue streams or employing the people with the experience to properly manage and develop the youth dream. I understand and welcome the cost-cutting but their has been a short-sighted small-minded attitude since the cup win.

 

This is the chairman's statement issued to St Johnstone shareholders recently, Hopefully this answers some or all of the above!

 

To say that season 2013/2014 was a memorable one for the club would be something of an understatement. When I wrote to you last year we had qualified for our second successive European campaign and of course that Europa League competition brought fantastic away wins in Norway and Belarus – remarkable achievements for a squad with little European experience.

Buoyed by that success, the players went on to comfortably secure a third successive top six finish in the SPFL Premiership – no mean feat. However, it was the domestic cup competitions which set last season aside from others. A League Cup semi final was creditworthy but of course it was our achievement in winning the Scottish Cup which will etch season 2013/2014 firmly into the record books.

The whole experience of that day and the parade which followed on the Sunday will live long in the memory of everyone who was there or who witnessed it in some way.

I was always confident that Tommy Wright’s promotion to the role of manager in June 2013 was the right one to make and while that has proved to be the case, I could not have envisaged the level of success we would have achieved under his management. It is a great credit to not only Tommy but also his staff and players.

It is that domestic cup success, particularly in the Scottish Cup, that has allowed us to report a profit for the year ended of £258,861.

Shareholders will be aware that to post a profit has proved an elusive aim in recent years and I undertake to ensure that this unexpected windfall is used wisely for the future benefit of the club – necessary upgrading to the floodlighting to meet the increasing requirements of live television broadcasting and a new surface for our much used fourteen year old all-weather pitch will be key investments. This undertaking will cost in the region of £200,000.

The amalgamation of the SPL and SFL which brought about a redistribution of league fees from the Premiership to the other three divisions, coupled with another season without a league sponsor makes for further challenging times ahead.

2014 marks for the 25th anniversary of our time at McDiarmid Park but the realisation that our home ground is no longer a new stadium brings with it the inevitable fact that significant amount of finance is having to be invested into ongoing maintenance of the stadium and surrounding grounds and such investment will have to continue to be made as we endeavour to ensure that the stadium meets the safety and comfort requirements of supporters and other visitors using our facilities.

Any revenue generated from our non football income stream continues to be absolutely vital to the financial well being of the club – around 25% of the clubs turnover relates to such activity. Again, times are challenging in this respect and much hard work has to be done to retain existing conference & social event business whilst gaining new customers in these fields.

Changes to how we provide our customers with such business have been and will continue to be made to drive up the efficiency and profitability in this vital area. The success in bringing national silverware to Perth has given us a unique opportunity to promote the Club and encourage a new generation of supporters and the extensive programme of visits around Perth & Kinross Schools and local businesses proved highly beneficial in that respect. That work will continue in the months ahead.

Our ‘12s and unders go free’ initiative continues to be a cornerstone of my determination to get local children supporting their local team – we had 1,400 kids at the Europa League game against Minsk, which I’m sure was a fantastic experience for them. I also hope that the decision to keep season tickets and match day admission prices unchanged this season coupled with a change to our pricing policy in the Ormond Family Stand will encourage as many people as possible to come along and support the team.

Hopefully, also of assistance in getting more kids supporting Saints, is the sharp increase in the number of boys from Perth & Kinross being identified as good enough to be part of our Youth Academy structure under Alistair Stevenson.

The on-going development of the Academy pleases me greatly and the inaugural Youth Academy Presentation Night at Perth Concert Hall in April was a personal highlight of last season. There is no doubt that this is the way forward for the club and to that end, as indicated above, I have committed to replacing the existing all-weather pitch with a top quality surface in the coming autumn and this will provide the first team, the Youth Academy and the community of Perth with a fantastic facility.

These are great times to be a St Johnstone Supporter. I and my fellow directors will continue to provide Tommy with all the available funding we can reasonably afford to give Tommy and his staff the best chance of maintaining these good days. S Brown.

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Analysis of the 2013-14 accounts here (thanks to the two shareholders who forwarded them to me)

 

http://saintinasia.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/st-johnstone-fc-accounts-analysis-2014/

 

I will make the full accounts available as soon as they are available on companies house so as to protect the shareholders who passed these on.

 

There is still a large cost base, so the lack of signings and the reduction in the playing squad is understandable to try and reduce that base.  While it would be great to continue spending, a season where we fail to make the top 6 with last seasons cost basis, would make a serious dent in our savings account.

Thanks for these. Interesting and informative, not that I completely understand them.

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Although it would not make a huge difference I wonder how much additional income we would have made if the league had a sponsor and a properly funded TV, even at the rates before we started paying part of it to another division. While not completely relevant to the thread, the management of the SPFL and the statement of the present Chief Executive, that the league doesn't need a sponsor, even though we know we will get one next season if the Championship finishes the way they wish it to.

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Analysis of the 2013-14 accounts here (thanks to the two shareholders who forwarded them to me)

http://saintinasia.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/st-johnstone-fc-accounts-analysis-2014/

I will make the full accounts available as soon as they are available on companies house so as to protect the shareholders who passed these on.

There is still a large cost base, so the lack of signings and the reduction in the playing squad is understandable to try and reduce that base. While it would be great to continue spending, a season where we fail to make the top 6 with last seasons cost basis, would make a serious dent in our savings account.

Thanks for your good work here.

The things you have said will come as no surprise to anyone, especially those with a trained eye, who has looked around McDiarmid during home matches.

So much so that accounts simply confirm what some of us suspected and the board would already have known. In such situations action is necessary to prevent future difficulties. No different to any other business.

Let's get behind the club.

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Analysis of the 2013-14 accounts here (thanks to the two shareholders who forwarded them to me)

 

http://saintinasia.wordpress.com/2014/08/10/st-johnstone-fc-accounts-analysis-2014/

 

I will make the full accounts available as soon as they are available on companies house so as to protect the shareholders who passed these on.

 

There is still a large cost base, so the lack of signings and the reduction in the playing squad is understandable to try and reduce that base.  While it would be great to continue spending, a season where we fail to make the top 6 with last seasons cost basis, would make a serious dent in our savings account.

 

This is great thanks for doing this for those fans' that don't have access.

 

I was wondering though, is there any chance of getting to look at the notes attached to the accounts? Just out of sheer nosey-ness, so if not fair enough. :-)

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This is great thanks for doing this for those fans' that don't have access.

 

I was wondering though, is there any chance of getting to look at the notes attached to the accounts? Just out of sheer nosey-ness, so if not fair enough. :-)

 

As soon as they appear on companies house I will upload the full accounts.  The set I have are the shareholders copy which were passed onto me in confidence so I don't want to publish the whole document yet until it is publicly available.

 

That said, there is little in the notes of any interest... I would have published them if there was :)

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