Always a Wasp

Perhaps unsurprisingly it's not 100% clear, but a few comments - excuse me if I lapse into accounting speak:

• Corporate structure is Prem Rugby Holdings LLP owns Prem Rugby Holdings Limited, which owns Prem Rugby Limited (all 100% owners)
  The most meaningful numbers are probably the LLP ones as they are consolidated (include the assets and liabilities of all the above)
  Partners in LLP are PRL Investor Limited (owned by clubs) and Cobalto (a CVC entity I thinkk but a bit opaque in terms of owners IMO). I can't tell their respective interest - 27% was the interest quoted at the time but I am not sure how that was calculated and whether it included the debt (see below)
  CVC put £200m into the Prem - 100 in equity into the LLP and 100 into the the holding company in the form of a loan (12% interest!) - not sure of the reasons for this - suspect a mix of tax and security on underlying assets
  The bank loan of 17m is at LIBOR plus 2.25%. That cost will up with recent base rate increases
  The accounting for in LLP for the investment is quite unusual in my experience. What they have effectively done is said that the assets acquired were worth lots but were acquired for peanuts (£100) and deferred the 'gain' on sale. That makes the balance sheet smaller (less assets) and will give profits a boost over the next 10 years - albeit not in cash. I have seem similar transactions accounted for quite differently but admittedly am not an expert on the accounting framework being used here
  The valuation of the Prem brand at 850m is interesting. I await the 2022 accounts with interest given that it's lost money hand over fist since acquisition (abeit COVID) *and* Cobalto has written its investment down in 2022
  Preparing accounts on a going concern basis given that it has pretty marginal assets and a thumping loss is also interesting without some more explanation why
  There is some comment in the trading company's accounts about the losses it started to incur beginning in 2019 being just down to accounting trickery. It's hard to tell tbh and that sort of comment is usually frowned on (at least by accountants...) An operating cash outflow is rarely a good sign

Overall, a moderately complex structure and IMO not the most transparent accounts I have seen, albeit I usually deal with public companies. COVID will have hit results badly but there looks to be a significant debt burden to service with a shrinking club base! 2022 accounts aren't due until March but I'll read them with interest when they get filed.

I didn't do any digging on the directors but was interested to see that Jason Whittingham (he of Wuss (in)fame) was a director of PRL.

And lastly, I hate the list formatting on this site

Short term thinking in the extreme - large areas of the country without any Prem (and hence England) representation or hope thereof. Not a recipe for encouraging a new generation of players.

Can more than one club be relegated from the Prem? Either that expands the Championship or they end up relegating more, which I can’t see happening.

Classy. I’d love to see closer links between the two clubs. Partly as Butts Park is 10 minutes walk for me

Premiership clubs rack up more than £500MILLION in debt https://mol.im/a/11177209 via https://dailym.ai/android

Not looking good across the board.

Another article has the LI owner offering to give away the club for free.

Total debt without total assets is pretty meaningless - I’d be interested to see a complete table. But anyone that describes deferred tax as a ‘tax debt’ (it’s not) isn’t that savvy in that department.

Just trialled her with a mini sponge oval ball. Unfortunately bit of a Mike Brown- catches ok but won’t pass and scowls a lot.

First genuine laugh of the weekend - thank you

Maybe hasks should have answered in a better way, but can understand his frustration at a pretty pathetic point scoring question.
   After all no one mentions Ellen White for goals scored in lists or Fara Williams for most caps when talking about football.

I imagine the asker was similarly frustrated. Maybe it was intended as a genuine question.