Thetownend.com

Below is a commentary of what I have summarised from information filed at Companies House. Bear in mind a lot has probably changed in terms of amounts owed to investors, ownership etc. All monetary amounts are given to the nearest £1000.

Holding company – Swindon Football Holdings Limited

The following ownership shares are as at 8th November 2011:

2.57% - Andrew Fitton
2.02% - Sir Martyn Arbib
94.55% - Andrew Black
0.86% - Jeremy Wray

The holding company owns the majority stake of the football club, Swindon Town Football Company Limited. As at 31st May 2011 this equated to an ownership share of 96.7% of the voting rights.  

As at 31st May 2011 the holding company was owed £7.026m. This balance is unsecured (not secured against assets) and interest free with no fixed terms for repayment i.e. there is no specified date to which the amount loaned to the football club needs to be repaid.

Additionally, as at 31st May 2011, £19k was owed by J P Wray and £5k A W Black to the Holding Company (in the form of director loans).

As at 31st May 2011 the holding company had loans (debt) of £9.0m which were unsecured, interest free and repayable in 2013. There is no specific information to indicate which parties are owed any of this balance.


Football club – Swindon Town Football Company Limited

As at 31st May 2011, 96.7% of voting rights owned by the holding company, Swindon Football Holdings Limited.

The club owed £7.776m to the holding company as at 31st May 2011. These amounts are unsecured, interest free and fall for repayment in 2015.

NB: Some may notice that there seems to be a slight discrepancy between the two accounts for the holding company and the football club in terms of what the club owes to the holding company. It is probably a timing difference where the two company accounts were drawn up at different times (this is merely a hypothesis, I can’t comment on why the balances do not agree).

As at 31st May 2011, other loans total £900k owed to Sir M Arbib and £500k owed to A Black. Of these advances to the club, £1.2m are secured against the leasehold of the County Ground. All amounts advanced from Sir M Arbib and A Black are interest free and fall due for repayment in 2013.

Summary of related party creditors as at 31st May 2011:

Unsecured debt to holding co = £7.776m

Unsecured debt to Sir M Arbib and A Black = £200k
Secured debt to Sir M Arbib and A Black = £1.2m
Total owed to Sir M Arbib and A Black = £1.4m (£900k and £500k respectively)


Disclaimer

The above commentary is my own analysis of publically available information. I do not claim to have any inside or additional information further to those publically available documents and have written this post on this basis. Documents obtained only provide a snapshot in history and matters of ownership, company structure and financial position may well have changed following the dates of each document filed at Companies House.

Any assumptions have been made on a reasonable basis, based on technical accounting knowledge and UK GAAP principles. None of the information contained within the above commentary has been given to advise the companies mentioned in the commentary, any parties related to those companies or any other third party, nor should it be provided or used for such purpose.

The commentary is owned solely by the originating member “Simon Pieman” who has posted it on thetownend.com and not by the website itself. The commentary, or parts of, should not be directly quoted or linked outside of this website without prior consent from this member of the website.

I do not accept any responsibility for inaccurate information or opinions expressed by other parties as a result of reading the above.

thanks for this, its really helpful because i've ben struggling to get to sleep so tonight...  Sorry just joking, this is very detailed and helpful, nice disclaimer as well

Nice one -- thanks.

Cheers Si, that's well handy.

Haha the disclaimer took just as long to write! Just don't want some journalist printing stuff and attributing his or her version of the facts based on what I've written.

That and I'm paranoid anything negative like that will stop a deal going through.

Good stuff Sie.

Thanks Si, I thought there was a Russell Backhouse involved as well, no mention?

He's the football club's Finance Director, don't believe he's involved in the Holding Co.

Nice one Si, you might want to edit this though


To... "I do not accept" You can't be too careful...

This is all a bit long winded and confusing for me, can someone explain this to me in simpler terms...say maybe some kind of property market analogy?

cheers, a bit rushed at the end I think!