Figures continue upward trend

Kent cricket

Kent Cricket chief executive Jamie Clifford said 2015 was a memorable year for the club on and off the field after revealing a sixth consecutive year of improvement in their financial performance.

Figures for the year ending October 31, 2015, came out last week and revealed the club’s EBITDA – earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation – showed a profit of £ 345,784, the sixth straight year of EBITDA growth.

Mr Clifford said: “It is pleasing to report, once again, continued improvement in our trading results. We target EBITDA as a measure by which you can can compare year-onyear where the business is at. (It is) a key performance indicator (and) our main strategic objective.

“We’ve seen just short of £1m improvement in that line since 2009 and that is what has driven an improved picture year-on-year for those six years.”

He added: “It is pleasing that 2015 was the best year we’ve had over that period. It was a memorable year for all involved in the club – for excitement and drama on the field and for the progress made off it.

“It was a good year in that we had the Australia tourist game and a home T20 quarter-final which made a significant contribution to ticket sales but even without those things, it would have been a solid year.

“It’s certainly a much more comfortable place for us to to be now than all those years ago when life was pretty tough.” Mr Clifford revealed attendance across the season was the highest since 2009.

He said: “In terms of ticketing revenues – the target was £1m and we did that. We aimed for 80,000 visitors to make up that number and we had 82,000.”

Once interest, depreciation and the net impact of other items were taken into account, the historical deficit for the year after taxation was £142,659 but the value of Kent’s net assets rise by almost £1.4m to £7.7m.

Members will receive the accounts and report ahead of the club’s annual meeting at The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence on Monday, April 4.