Annual Report published and AGM Announced

21 October 1999

The long-awaited AGM of West Bromwich Albion plc has been announced - it will be held on the 11th November at the Gala Leisure Centre in West Bromwich at 7pm. The announcement shows the resolutions to be voted on by shareholders as being the normal ones related to acceptance of accounts, appointment and payment of auditors and so on, and the re-election of Sir Bert Millichip as President, John Silk as Vice-President and Tony Hale, Don Colston and Jim Driscoll as Directors. The last two, of course, can't strictly be "re-elected" as they were never elected by the shareholders in the first place, but that's just nit-picking...

What is noticeably lacking in the list of resolutions, and in the accompanying reports and accounts, is any mention of any sort of proposed fund-raising activities. There is no mention of any rights issues, loans or any other investment. The impresion had been given that the EGM had been delayed as long as possible in order for the details of some such activity to be finalised, but this now looks not to have been the case. What is perhaps far more worrying is the fact that the pre-tax profit of £508,162 made in the previous financial year has been replaced by a loss of £2,256,611 for the current one. Turnover dropped from £7.46 million to £6.76 million while operating costs rose from £6.58 million to £7.27 million.

The bulk of this years losses are attributable to a "write-off" on players contracts to the tune of £1.8 million. The same figure for last year was £1.54 million, but this was offset by a profit on transfer activities of £1.2 million (presumably the sale of Peschisolido accounted for most of this). The profit on transfer activities for the current year of £193 thousand has, obviously, made only the tiniest dent in the contract write-off and explains the swing from modest profit to huge loss. It may also be worth noting that the practice of writing off players contracts in this way has only recently been adopted, so the figures declared last year have been restated in this years accounts to use the new practice and hence provide a true comparison.

One other item caught my (admittedly untrained) eye in the accounts. While the number of employees in the category "Players, Managers and Coaches" rose from 35 to 39 from the previous year, the number of "Administration and Commercial" staff rose from 32 to 47. Given the continued complaints I've heard about ticket office phones not being answered, goods mail ordered from the shop not being delivered, emails to the club going unanswered and so on, it begs the question "what on earth do all those people do???".

Previous Stories:

  29 December 1995:  Taylor future in question

  23 November 1995:  Two signings!

  27 October 1995:  Two changes for Millwall

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