Yeovil Town Holdings

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It’s that time of year where we all scratch our heads, go cross-eyed looking at a bunch of numbers and try to figure out what the fairly limited set of accounts for Yeovil Football & Athletic Club, the trading business of Yeovil Town F.C., actually mean.

The financial statements for the year ending June 30 2022 were published on Companies House on Friday (what do you mean you missed them?!) along with those of Yeovil Town Holdings Limited, the company which holds the exclusive buy-back rights to land at and surrounding Huish Park.

The obvious big change from previous accounts for both companies is the name they are filed under, chairman and owner Martin Hellier rather than……..that other guy – you know the one.

The other thing to say up front is these are historical and cover a period exactly a year ago, therefore they don’t necessarily the financial health of the club today. However, some interesting things did happen in that same period, notably the sale of Huish Park and surrounding land to South Somerset District Council (SSDC).

So what’s worth knowing from these accounts? Well, according to what we can see:

  • The amount SSDC paid for Huish Park was £1.71m – or to be exact £1,719,226.
  • The amount which the club has to pay SSDC each year to continue to operate at Huish Park is £195,000 – thanks very much…..the other guy.
    The statement says: “During the year the company sold its freehold and buildings. On the same day the company entered in to a leaseback arrangement with an annual rental charge of £195,000 per annum, with a rent free period for the first year.“
  • The buy-back option on the land and buildings from SSDC runs until 17th May 2026.
    The statement says: “The company has retained the option to repurchase the land and buildings from the existing owners, with that option lapsing on 17th May 2026.“
  • In the period ending June 30th 2022, the club owed Sport England just over £1m (£1,014,484 to be precise) for the loan it took out to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It has 20 years to pay this back.
    The statement says: “…. £1,014,484 represents a loan issued by the English Sports Council which is repayable over a 20-year term and is secured by way of a floating charge over all assets of the company.”

As with most football clubs, not least those operating at non-League level, YF&AC is technically an insolvent company, but – as football finance expert Kieran Maguire has told us on previous editions of the Gloverscast – that is not a huge issue as long as the owner has the money to pay suppliers.

The accounts of YTFC Holdings tell even less of a story. Again filed by Hellier, they basically show the land held by the company – everything on the Huish Park footprint except the stadium itself – was sold during the period covered by the accounts, the year up until June 30th 2022.

Apart from that it is basically an empty company aside from some debt owed YF&AC, which it owns.

One other interesting nugget which watchers of Companies House records may have spotted is the discontinuation of a strike-off of Max Mae Limited, a company which describes the nature of its business as “development of building projects.”

This company has its registered office at Huish Park and has two directors, one is Jed McCrory, the businessman and owner of Stratford Town, and the other is……that other guy whose name we don’t mention. You know the one, he used to own Yeovil Town before Hellier.

At end of May, its Companies House records showed that a notice had been served against it for a compulsory strike-off due to not filing its accounts on time. But, on Thursday of this week it filed “accounts for a dormant company” meaning the strike-off has been lifted and it continues to trade.

What does that mean? Probably very little, but we’ll keep an eye on it.

For those that are interested, the full account document can be read below.

[pdf-embedder url=”https://gloverscast.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/YTFAC-Accounts.pdf” title=”YTFAC Accounts”]

 

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Last week the financial accounts for Yeovil Town Holdings, the company which owned the land around Huish Park (before we flogged it to the council), were published.

However, the accounts relate to the 12 months up to the end of June 2021 which is almost two months before the club registered that it had loaned £689,538 from Sport England at the end of August.

Huish Park, owned by South Somerset District Council.

For this reason, the accounts do not feature any of the almost £1m in loans from Sport England or the sale of the club’s stadium and surrounding land to South Somerset District Council for £2.8m.

YTFC Holdings, which lists chairman Scott Priestnall as its only director following the resignation of Glenn Collis at the end of May, owns shares in Yeovil Football & Athletic Club (YF&AC), the company which (until the sale to the council) ran the football operations and owned the Huish Park stadium site. Still with us?

As we know, YF&AC was heavily loss-making in the same period – the year up to June 2021 – due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic keeping fans out of the stadium and therefore the shares YTFC Holdings held in it were worth considerably less.

How much less? I hear you cry. Okay, you probably didn’t think that, but in case you did it were interested, it appears they went down £707,214 in value to just £1m. As ever with the club’s accounts, the details are very scant and (even with a little assistance from those who understand balance sheets) there’s not a lot of insight we can draw from them.

So, in terms of what new we can tell from these latest accounts – very little. We already knew that the ongoing viability of the club as at June 2021 was a serious concern, so whether the company owning the club decided it was worth £1, £1m or £100m it doesn’t impact on the club itself.

Add to that the fact we’ve piled on nearly a million in debt and sold Huish Park and surrounding land in a deal worth £2.8m, we won’t know the impact of this on the balance sheet of YTFC Holdings until around this time next year.

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There are 302 shareholders in Yeovil Town Holdings Limited, the company which owns land around Huish Park, according to recently filed paperwork.

However , the Confirmation Statement filed on Companies House shows that CV Leisure, the company chairman Scott Priestnall used to purchase the club, holds the vast majority of shares.

The filing shows the company holds more than 1.5 million shares each valued at £1 – 1,575,379 to be precise.

Land owned by Yeovil Town Holdings Limited is bordered in red – except the bit in mint green which is owned by Yeovil Athletic & Football Club Limited.

Other shareholders include Mrs Lock, the proud owner of 38,072 shares, A. Skirton the holder of 15,000 shares, and a raft other smaller shareholders.

Many shareholdings were bought by fans in the early 1990s when the club was on the brink of financial collapse and some notable names on the list include S.Rutter, presumably Steve Rutter, manager of the club at that time.

If you want to learn more about that time, listen to our podcast from July talking to players from that time, Mickey Spencer and Neil Coates – here.

A number of companies are also included among the list of shareholders including Westland Aircraft and the Western Gazette.

We assume the shareholding bought from former owners Norman Hayward and John Fry by CV Leisure makes up around 92% of the overall shareholding, the figure which was made public when Rob Couhig was seeking to buy the club in 2019.

This would give CV Leisure, of which Priestnall is the only director following the resignation of former director Errol Pope last September, full control over any decisions about the company.

Yeovil Town Holdings is the owner of land around the stadium at Huish Park with the exception of a strip of land alongside Western Avenue which is owned by South Somerset District Council.

Its directors include Priestnall and fellow director Glenn Collis.