Blues company back in the red with £3.8m loss
BIRMINGHAM Sports Holdings Ltd have announced their interim accounts, which show the company is once again making large losses.
BSHL, the parent company for Birmingham City, have released their numbers for the six month period to December 31, 2021 revealing a pretax loss of around £3.8 million.
However, this would be much higher had Vong Pech, a major shareholder in Blues and sole owner of BSHL shareholder Oriental Rainbow, not ‘compensated’ BSHL to the tune of £8.5 million, as per an agreement signed in October 2020.
Whilst the parent company figures and the club’s numbers are not exactly the same, the news does point to a concerning financial position at Blues – with the debt owed to Chinese-Cambodian businessman Vong Pech up by £2.2 million to more than £22 million. As the umbrella organisation, BSHL includes the football club, a healthcare enterprise in Japan and a property company in Cambodia – but it is Blues that makes up £9.2 million of the overall £10.85 million group revenue.
Overall those revenues were up 52 per cent, with Blues’ revenues up by 68.3 per cent, thanks in large part to the return of paying supporters on match days. But what could not be hidden was the fact that BSHL went from making a £7.2 million profit in the six months to December 31, 2020 - thanks almost entirely to the sale of
The Directors... are of the opinion that the group will have sufficient working capital to meet its financial obligations... for the next 12 months
Jude Bellingham to Borussia Dortmund, and that without that kind of sale the company is very much back in the red.
BSHL’s operating expenses are up by 24.8 per cent, with the company’s staff costs, including directors’ remuneration, also up by £2.16 million to £18.3 million.
A statement in the accounts said: “The Directors of the Company (BSHL) are of the opinion that the group will have sufficient working capital to meet its financial obligations .... for the next 12 months given that the Company has a loan facility from a substantial shareholder, TTA... the Company [also] has a loan facility from Oriental Rainbow Investments.”
These figures come at a time when the hashtag #BSHLOUT has become very visible on social media and against a backdrop of supporter protests in the last month, with fans demanding more transparency in and the sale of the club.