Latest Accounts To May 2015

[Stu]

If David Longwell can claim Kenny McLean, Hamilton can claim Scott Agnew - Not that they'd want to of course.

Exactly the example that I knew you'd come up with - however he was released then came into our youth set-up. Agnew went into Hamilton's first team squad and was let go after a year.

Away from that, the accounts look a bit worrying to me - although if you've seen my expense claims you'll realise financial matters aren't my strong point. We cut £200k from the wage budget, sold our best player and yet still struggled to break even? And while nowhere near justifying what we were served up last season, the £200k drop from the wage budget explains in part the dross Craig and Teale signed - especially if that figure includes pay-offs to players in January.

Edited December 3, 2015 by Stu

[Stuart Dickson]

Aberdeen and Hibs fans are very happy indeed with Kenny McLean and John McGinn. They are both worth considerably more than we got for them.

No they aren't cause quite simply no-one offered more for them. St Mirren sold to the highest bidder no matter what your opinion of the two players is.

[div]

Again look to the short-sightedness of the board regards the piffling fee received for McLean, and the insult to injury compensation money they speared for McGinn. I think the McLean money went straight into TC's Farahs back pocket?

This is where clubs like Hamilton, Falkirk and Dundee Utd make money on transfers, and we don't. The board will not negotiate long term contracts with promising youngsters. If they had the likes of McGinn and McLean on five year rolling deals till age 25, that are reviewed in the players favour each year, and improved taking into account appearances, goals, and performance review. With a club option to give one years notice on the fifth anniversary and each year therafter...

Perhaps we might have seen a much bigger fee for McLean, and. Proper one for McMoby-ginn?

Again it wasnt the fans or indeed the manager at the time that let them walk for peanuts!

Giving players 5 year rolling contracts

Nurse !!!!

[Lord Pityme]

Giving players 5 year rolling contracts :lol:lol

Nurse !!!!

To quote your own words "I know you know" that isnt what I said, but hey when have you ever let the facts get in the way when defending a board who are dragging the club, support and themsrlves deeper and deeper?

Noticed you havent responded to the quote below! But that wouldnt go down well with the board if you "liked" it.

I have read with some interest the varying views as regards the effectiveness, or otherwise of the current board in relation to these accounts, and those of previous years. There is a divide in the fan base between those who feel the current board are under performing, and failing to meet any of the targets they have set themselves, and those who believe they are continuing to do a good job in difficult circumstances, whilst continuing to lend the club money.

I put it to you and the board the difficult circumstances are all of their own making, and are a direct consequence of five shareholders shutting out all other shareholders in their single-minded objective of selling THEIR and only THEIR shareholdings in the club as part of a 52% majority.

Have they issued statements recognising the time, money and effort put in by other shareholders in 'rescuing' and continuing to support the club financially until it became debt free?

No, they haven't, they have created a consortium and limited company to ensure they, and only they profit from their failed attempts to sell the majority shareholding.

Lets look at the loan question, have they sought assistance with funding from the other 48% of shareholders to bridge these cashflow gaps?

No...

For their own reasons they have kept that within their consortium, or have allowed others to provide funding in exchange for positions on the board. In essence their own people, but not major shareholders. Why? Because they don't want to dilute their shareholding, even if it puts the club at risk which the accounts clearly show is increasingly the case.

Should we be lauding them for providing these loans? Last year it was £100k this years accounts state an additional £145k, and as much as can be ascertained these loans are always paid back. Again only to consortium members, or people they have brought in. So why are people singing the praises of the consortium chipping in £100k, which they get back, when the fanbase ponies up MILLIONs each year, without even a thought of ever seeing it reimbursed...!

Who should we be lauding, who is really keeping the club afloat, who. Has contributed seveal times more EVERY season than the consortium ever do, but unlike the consortium... They don't expect it back, and don't expect to be patted on the back each time they renew a season ticket, pass through the turnstiles or by an over priced and under filled pie..!

That will be the support...without whom the club would vanish overnight. Can the same be said of the five consortium members?

Supporters don't loan the club millions each season, they invest it in the hope their team will perform, do them proud, entertain them or just give them somewhere to meet up with friends and family. Supporters don't look for the money back. But I tell you this if the support was asked to stump up £100k to see the club through I have no doubt at all it would be found in double quick time... But then we might; like Smisa suggest the club keep the money, and issue us the equivalent value in shares that are locked down, and cannot be simply sold like the five consortium members have tried to do with theirs.

Do You think the cinsortium would entertain us???

We don't want to sell our interests so only 52% gain from it, we don't want those millions back each season. So why aren't we lauded?

Why does the board sit by and let the manager whose wages we pay insult us? When We chip into the playing and coaching budget, we dont get or expect to ever see the cash again. But somehow we are wrong, in the view of a few to question this board's performance, and where it has dragged our club to, and how far that drop may yet be.

The five consortium members have made their own bed, they reap what they have sown. It's about time the major investors got recognised for keeping this club going and expecting little in return.

[nosferatu]

Aberdeen and Hibs fans are very happy indeed with Kenny McLean and John McGinn. They are both worth considerably more than we got for them.

If they were worth 'considerably more' then more clubs would have been in for them!

McGinn went to another Championship club!

[TsuMirren]

No they aren't cause quite simply no-one offered more for them. St Mirren sold to the highest bidder no matter what your opinion of the two players is.

I'm almost certain clubs found out they didn't need to offer more. Agents can be used for many things, putting word out is one of them and that to me explained Fleetwood really trying it on. There was a handshake fee, sacking Craig meant we had to sell, certain directors assumed the club sale was done and the word was put out about Kenny. I'm not 100% sure that was the chain of events, but I can see it being the case.

[TopCat]

If they were worth 'considerably more' then more clubs would have been in for them!

McGinn went to another Championship club!

Indeed.

There's a reason why we didn't get more for McLean and McGinn.

They aren't that good. McLean was hawking himself all over the UK in the summer when his first contract expired. He re-signed with us cause no one was interested. McGinn ended up in the Scottish second tier.... Because no one else was interested.

The seeming acceptance that we got ripped off for these players is baffling. I think we got a fair market value given how good they are.

Edited December 3, 2015 by TopCat

[shull]

Just average players.

[Stuart Dickson]

I'm almost certain clubs found out they didn't need to offer more. Agents can be used for many things, putting word out is one of them and that to me explained Fleetwood really trying it on. There was a handshake fee, sacking Craig meant we had to sell, certain directors assumed the club sale was done and the word was put out about Kenny. I'm not 100% sure that was the chain of events, but I can see it being the case.

Ultimately if the directors felt they could get more they could always say no - and if there was enough strong interest from any clubs they would have continued to bid forcing the price up. We saw Hibs doing pretty much that with Scott Allen just a few months ago. The simple fact was there was no-one willing to pay more for either McGinn or McLean.

For what it's worth I think McGinn will go on to be a very decent player but last season showed he wasn't going to develop any further at St Mirren.

[Stuart Dickson]

Am I correct in saying that McLean and McGinn are the first players we have sold for money since Stephen McGinn was sold in January 2010 for circa £75K?

Considering the investment in Ralston this is a pretty poor return. I'm sure the BoD would have hoped that the Academy would be returning at least £100K on average per season.

Was there not talk of McGinn going to USA at one stage where we would not have received any recompense?

Personally I think we did really well to get what we did for both of them.

Only a few years ago we had a midfield of McGowan, McLean, McGinn, Newton.......now look at us?

Shame that Gowser had his off the field problems as he was sorely missed last season.

Not just Ralston, but in the inflatable balloon in the car park as well.

St Mirren have spent a great deal on their youth development programme and it continues to cost quite a bit of money. I'm also told from a source fairly advanced at the SFA that the grant structure for grass roots and elite development is certain to be changed in the near future.

[davidg]

I'm almost certain clubs found out they didn't need to offer more. Agents can be used for many things, putting word out is one of them and that to me explained Fleetwood really trying it on. There was a handshake fee, sacking Craig meant we had to sell, certain directors assumed the club sale was done and the word was put out about Kenny. I'm not 100% sure that was the chain of events, but I can see it being the case.

If that were the case there would have been loads of offers.

They're decent players but nowhere in the class some are suggesting.

[kevo_smfc]

Was it not stated that the club had a gentlemans agreement in place with mclean so that if an offer came in of a certain value(not far off value of dev fee), then he could leave?

It also seems a lot of clubs down south are reluctant to pay a development fee for a player out of contract up here. Hibs had more visibility to Mcginn since he broke into the first team and seen he was worth paying something for as an investment.

[The Original 59er]

What these accounts tell us is that running St Mirren on a pretty tight budget is difficult and very unlikely to generate much of a profit unless the team has some real success on the field in some shape or form. With Saints, this is a transient position at best.

As said by a few before, the fans buy out option is highly unlikely, as funds needed when difficult decisions need to be taken both on and off the field, may necessitate for a call for finances and unless the fans Council have a sinking fund established and can agree to release it, then where does the cash come from? The Company has to be run on a continually solvent basis for a Council system to work.

As much as I'd like to see the club in theoretical public / fans ownership without any one person having a controlling interest, I believe that when it comes to the hard decisions, the conglomerate of fans would not be able to make them.

The present BoD's are fans, they appear at present to be inserting Director's loans into the company which they will be entitled to take out if the company has the money to pay them (at a point when someone comes along and puts money on the table, or the club is profitable through trading).

What I don't get is that many think that someone coming in is going to invest money in the club and bring in new players and that they will 'invest' money and that they will do this willingly !!!!!!!!???????

Wake up and smell the coffee, no-one will put money into St Mirren unless they see a way of getting the money back out or get an annual return out of the profits of the company.

To achieve that they may have to gamble significant amounts on new players (+ maybe Manager) then hope / dream / pray that the money spent will succeed on the park. It's a big gamble and as Shull has argued for a long time the players are overpaid so if you bring in new (arguably better) players, in theory the wage bill will rise further.

In times gone by we traded players to make the books balance. These days are gone and we now depend on home grown talent coming through the U20's set up, holding onto them long enough to see the potential grow and hopefully someone paying us a figure which represents a return for the investment spent on that player that came through the ranks.

We are stuck with the present Board, which doesn't please me, but unless a fan wins the Euro lottery and can afford to play Football Chairman with say £10m as a pastime, we are stuck with what we have got and any fan's dreams of a Council run club is highly unlikely.

Sorry to be so negative, but I don't live on

[Lord Pityme]

What these accounts tell us is that running St Mirren on a pretty tight budget is difficult and very unlikely to generate much of a profit unless the team has some real success on the field in some shape or form. With Saints, this is a transient position at best.

As said by a few before, the fans buy out option is highly unlikely, as funds needed when difficult decisions need to be taken both on and off the field, may necessitate for a call for finances and unless the fans Council have a sinking fund established and can agree to release it, then where does the cash come from? The Company has to be run on a continually solvent basis for a Council system to work.

As much as I'd like to see the club in theoretical public / fans ownership without any one person having a controlling interest, I believe that when it comes to the hard decisions, the conglomerate of fans would not be able to make them.

The present BoD's are fans, they appear at present to be inserting Director's loans into the company which they will be entitled to take out if the company has the money to pay them (at a point when someone comes along and puts money on the table, or the club is profitable through trading).

What I don't get is that many think that someone coming in is going to invest money in the club and bring in new players and that they will 'invest' money and that they will do this willingly !!!!!!!!???????

Wake up and smell the coffee, no-one will put money into St Mirren unless they see a way of getting the money back out or get an annual return out of the profits of the company.

To achieve that they may have to gamble significant amounts on new players (+ maybe Manager) then hope / dream / pray that the money spent will succeed on the park. It's a big gamble and as Shull has argued for a long time the players are overpaid so if you bring in new (arguably better) players, in theory the wage bill will rise further.

In times gone by we traded players to make the books balance. These days are gone and we now depend on home grown talent coming through the U20's set up, holding onto them long enough to see the potential grow and hopefully someone paying us a figure which represents a return for the investment spent on that player that came through the ranks.

We are stuck with the present Board, which doesn't please me, but unless a fan wins the Euro lottery and can afford to play Football Chairman with say £10m as a pastime, we are stuck with what we have got and any fan's dreams of a Council run club is highly unlikely.

Sorry to be so negative, but I don't live on

The only thing I Would add is I think a fan supported (in conjunction with A.n Other) buy-out can work, but not with the accounts as stated, incorporating debt, creditors and ever shrinking revenue streams, as well as the fee the sellers are looking for.

[RickMcD]

What these accounts tell us is that running St Mirren on a pretty tight budget is difficult and very unlikely to generate much of a profit unless the team has some real success on the field in some shape or form. With Saints, this is a transient position at best.

As said by a few before, the fans buy out option is highly unlikely, as funds needed when difficult decisions need to be taken both on and off the field, may necessitate for a call for finances and unless the fans Council have a sinking fund established and can agree to release it, then where does the cash come from? The Company has to be run on a continually solvent basis for a Council system to work.

As much as I'd like to see the club in theoretical public / fans ownership without any one person having a controlling interest, I believe that when it comes to the hard decisions, the conglomerate of fans would not be able to make them.

The present BoD's are fans, they appear at present to be inserting Director's loans into the company which they will be entitled to take out if the company has the money to pay them (at a point when someone comes along and puts money on the table, or the club is profitable through trading).

What I don't get is that many think that someone coming in is going to invest money in the club and bring in new players and that they will 'invest' money and that they will do this willingly !!!!!!!!???????

Wake up and smell the coffee, no-one will put money into St Mirren unless they see a way of getting the money back out or get an annual return out of the profits of the company.

To achieve that they may have to gamble significant amounts on new players (+ maybe Manager) then hope / dream / pray that the money spent will succeed on the park. It's a big gamble and as Shull has argued for a long time the players are overpaid so if you bring in new (arguably better) players, in theory the wage bill will rise further.

In times gone by we traded players to make the books balance. These days are gone and we now depend on home grown talent coming through the U20's set up, holding onto them long enough to see the potential grow and hopefully someone paying us a figure which represents a return for the investment spent on that player that came through the ranks.

We are stuck with the present Board, which doesn't please me, but unless a fan wins the Euro lottery and can afford to play Football Chairman with say £10m as a pastime, we are stuck with what we have got and any fan's dreams of a Council run club is highly unlikely.

Sorry to be so negative, but I don't live on

I agree with virtually everything you have said but disagree with the figure of £10m. that you quote. If we had the hypothetical sugar daddy who paid cc £1-5m. for the club and could start off with no debt and let's say £1m in the bank, he/she/they should be able to make a good fist of it providing there was a fairly good manager and a go ahead board willing to work hard and shake the club up. If there was £10m. in the bank, it would take an imbecile of the highest order and totally clueless to fail to radically improve our club's fortunes.

[porks]

Glad to see more people finally realising that the performance of our academy is sub-standard to say the least. I'd go further and say that given our investment and facilities our return is pathetic.

I've made the point before that bringing players through who are only good enough for our first team isn't really winning - we'd be cheaper just signing players on frees. We only see a return if we actually bring money in for a player. When is the last time we actually brought through a genuinely top-drawer player that had interest from a number of clubs? Even McLean and McGinn we struggled to sell. In the last 25 years there are few clubs in our range who have done that poorly.

Yet Longwell seems untouchable for his performance. I don't know the detail of the academy but Longwell is supposed to be head so he's the first person I'd hold responsible yet all we ever hear is what a good job he's doing. And as for the quotes he's accredited for saying elsewhere on this thread - I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he never actually said all that about the Hamilton set up. There must be some mistake - he can't be that deluded and blind surely? "Hamilton's set up is actually much worse than ours and people have only paid all these fees because of the hype??" He can't have said that - can he?

Regardless, consistent poor performance should lead to change. Why is our academy any different?

[buddiecat]

What these accounts tell us is that running St Mirren on a pretty tight budget is difficult and very unlikely to generate much of a profit unless the team has some real success on the field in some shape or form. With Saints, this is a transient position at best.

As said by a few before, the fans buy out option is highly unlikely, as funds needed when difficult decisions need to be taken both on and off the field, may necessitate for a call for finances and unless the fans Council have a sinking fund established and can agree to release it, then where does the cash come from? The Company has to be run on a continually solvent basis for a Council system to work.

As much as I'd like to see the club in theoretical public / fans ownership without any one person having a controlling interest, I believe that when it comes to the hard decisions, the conglomerate of fans would not be able to make them.

The present BoD's are fans, they appear at present to be inserting Director's loans into the company which they will be entitled to take out if the company has the money to pay them (at a point when someone comes along and puts money on the table, or the club is profitable through trading).

What I don't get is that many think that someone coming in is going to invest money in the club and bring in new players and that they will 'invest' money and that they will do this willingly !!!!!!!!???????

Wake up and smell the coffee, no-one will put money into St Mirren unless they see a way of getting the money back out or get an annual return out of the profits of the company.

To achieve that they may have to gamble significant amounts on new players (+ maybe Manager) then hope / dream / pray that the money spent will succeed on the park. It's a big gamble and as Shull has argued for a long time the players are overpaid so if you bring in new (arguably better) players, in theory the wage bill will rise further.

In times gone by we traded players to make the books balance. These days are gone and we now depend on home grown talent coming through the U20's set up, holding onto them long enough to see the potential grow and hopefully someone paying us a figure which represents a return for the investment spent on that player that came through the ranks.

We are stuck with the present Board, which doesn't please me, but unless a fan wins the Euro lottery and can afford to play Football Chairman with say £10m as a pastime, we are stuck with what we have got and any fan's dreams of a Council run club is highly unlikely.

Sorry to be so negative, but I don't live on

I want to see fan ownership, but having to pay back £245k of loans is a killer IMO. I also wonder if the lenders can ask for interest on the loans when/if it came to a point that the deal to sell actually happened.

[stlucifer]

I want to see fan ownership, but having to pay back £245k of loans is a killer IMO. I also wonder if the lenders can ask for interest on the loans when/if it came to a point that the deal to sell actually happened.

In reality the finances of the club actually could force the incumbents to sell at a much lower figure which could negate the loans.

[buddiecat]

In reality the finances of the club actually could force the incumbents to sell at a much lower figure which could negate the loans.

Without knowing the small print of the loans i know i personally would do everything i could to ensure any loan i had made to the club would be sitting top of the pile for repayment in any circumstances.

[HSS]

In reality the finances of the club actually could force the incumbents to sell at a much lower figure which could negate the loans.

So could our league position.

[mad saint 2]

what the accounts dont show is how poor our

squad is

and that investment is req to bring us up too scratch ,to compete ,

more money needed ,so price of club has to go down for anyone too buy,,

[oaksoft]

what the accounts dont show is how poor our

squad is

and that investment is req to bring us up too scratch ,to compete ,

more money needed ,so price of club has to go down for anyone too buy,,

and based on the accounts, where do you suggest that money (sorry but i cant bring myself to call it an investment) should come from?

[Buddymarvellous]

I've got a lucky dip for Tuesday night's lotto.....

[div]

I still reckon that the interest free loans have been provided to smooth over cash flow bumps and will be repaid by delayed "prize money" or "parachute payments".

I can't believe the board would have lent the club close on quarter of a million quid without being rest assured that they would get it back !

[Thorizaar]

I still reckon that the interest free loans have been provided to smooth over cash flow bumps and will be repaid by delayed "prize money" or "parachute payments".

I can't believe the board would have lent the club close on quarter of a million quid without being rest assured that they would get it back !

I can't see this being the reason. They haven't got the previous year's loan back and added to it in these accounts.