My brief comments are
Good to see the finances looking better however it is entirely based on significant transfer sale money. Can that be achieved every year ?
2019/20 will show significant transfer income so those results should be reasonable too except for a likely downturn in turnover
However look behind the transfer income and it shows a significant increase in the operating costs. Which means the club is not self financing without those transfer fees. That is despite an increase in turnover.
Apparently much of the increase in operating costs is due to promotion to L1, so just how much can we expect those costs to increase with promotion to the Championship?
The directors report and audit report both refer to the ground situation. Personally i cant help thinking that it is preparing for being at St Andrews next year. (and yes they have to do what is necessary to keep the club alive i realise that)
The most interesting pages of the Otium accounts are the last two pages - management information. I cant help thinking those pages were never meant to be published. Tells all and sundry how the cost of operating is arrived at and is never usually published. It has got to be a big error by someone
They have changed auditors from BDO.
To get a break down of the amounts owed to ARVO etc you need to look at the SBS&L accounts. ARVO have had £260k of one of their loans back
All the loans still incur interest, no reason why they shouldnt if the owners choose to, but it has not been paid but has been added to the liabilities
Otium has assets of £1.7m but liabilities of £21.4m, without support from the owners or player sales the club is insolvent, (same could be said for a lot of clubs)
Wages costs for the whole business show an increase of £450k to £5.3m despite saving £220k in pensions costs
Interest costs have increased from 1.87m to 2.095m
No new loans from the owners in this year
Cash flow shows a decrease in funds available in the bank of 625k year on year. Which further backs up that CCFC have to sell big to survive
Club spent £1m on new players in the year financed by the Maddison & McNulty sales. The rest of the money went on running costs except for £260k (see above). They also spent £114k of equipment
What this basically says is that in L1 CCFC has to sell players to the tune of £4m to simply break even in terms of profit. That even with those profits cash flow has been squeezed
thats my take on it
