As I confirmed yesterday, Eleonora Sport Limited (ESL) has chosen to present its accounts as Group accounts this year rather than as accounts for just the Company on its own: this means the accounts of Leeds United Football Club (LUFC) are merged into the ESL accounts making most of the accounts difficult reading when trying to report on ESL’s operating activities.
The accounts for Leeds United have been analysed by others in detail and my report is HERE.
For the rest of this analysis I’m going to try to pick out data that is relevant only to ESL rather than repeat LUFC’s analysis and hopefully increase understanding.
Profit/Loss
ESL reported the company alone achieved a profit of £589k during the year. There is no indication as to how the company made this profit.
The “£43m Injected” Saga
In February 2016, the Club claimed that EI had injected £43m into the group and this was subsequently shown to be correct in ESL’s June 2015 accounts. However, those accounts showed that only £36m of this money had actually reached the club and £7m was still in ESL’s bank account. Many observers and media writers interpreted the Club’s statement to mean this £7m had been given to the Club between June 2015 and Feb 2016 and the story as told by many was that £43m had been invested in the Club.
The new accounts to June 2016 show that this £7m cash did not go to the Club and stayed in ESL’s bank account.
It makes me wonder why the Club had to use invoice factoring for a loan of £1.6m at an interest rate of 9.5% if all this cash was available in ESL’s bank account.
Capital Contribution
At first sight it looks like new money was injected into ESL during the year to June 2016 since Capital Contribution increased from £35.9m to £38.3m: this however is merely the 2014 loan made directly to the Club by EI of £2.5m being transferred on paper from EI to ESL and was reported on (see my cash flow HERE) last year.
ESL Financing
These accounts confirm that EI did not provide all the cash needed to set up ESL and the company had to borrow £4.6m at an interest rate of 5%.
Acquisition of GFH’s shares
As was well publicised at the time, these accounts confirm that ESL acquired title of the remaining GFH-owned shares in September 2016. Since this event was after the reporting date of the accounts no purchase price, if any, is given and no allowance for increased value is allowed for in the accounts.
Significant events after the reporting period
As required by law, ESL reports as a significant event that the company sold 50% of the shares it owns to Greenfield Investment Pte, Mr Radrizzani’s investment company. It is my belief that were the transfer of the remaining 50% of the shares also agreed that would have to be reported as a significant event as well and so, by its omission, I can only conclude there is no such finalised agreement.
ENDS