Luton Outlaws - Independent Message Board for Luton Town FC

Some notes as a layman...

-Why does the "Fair Review of the Business" read like a sports bulletin? (I know this happens every year, but doesn't really seem relevant?)

INCOME
-Total turnover of £66.8M, note that VAT is never included in this. Adding on the PL revenue, it equates to £199.145M over 2 seasons.
-In the Championship season, £56.2M was from central distributions, detailing how significant TV money is in the scheme of things (I know that sounds obvious).
-Matchday income was virtually identical at £6.1M to the PL season - we actually had slightly higher attendances overall. Dare I say it, it is probably our ceiling at Kenilworth Road.
-Commercial income more than halved to £4.5M. Again, proves how much of a pull the PL is.
-There was a donation of £9,775 made and there was a £58K insurance claim made.

P&L
-Operating loss before trading: £71,000 down from £47.7M in the PL season.
-Profit on player trading: £17.2M.
-Means an operating profit of: £17.1M.
-£3.6M was sent to HMRC in corporation tax.
-Post tax profit: £14.3M meaning a smidge under £56M over the 2 seasons.
-The club is always run fairly lean and never has more than £2M in the bank at year end.

EXPENDITURE
-59% wages to turnover ratio is laudable.
-Staffing levels were actually up ~8% YOY. That is a little surprising.
-The total wage bill was £39.5M including social security and wages. Over the two seasons, this equates to £96.4M spent on wages.
-At the end of the Championship season, Luton owed £7.8M in transfer fees. At the same point, clubs owed Luton £20.4M. The club also expects a net £180K positive based on future contigent based achievements due.
-Luton spent £27.65M on transfer fees last season. £12.8M was amortisation charged.
-This L1 season, Luton had spent £4.8M on players and sold £11M worth.

OWNERSHIP
-No new shares were issued which has been the same for many years now - 18,145,003 historically made. Note that the orighinal equity has been made back more than 2x over.
-Directors took out £609K including pension contributions.
-The highest paid Director was £390K including pension contributions. Over both relegation seasons this comes to close to £1.25M of remuneration.
-In May 2023, £120K of shares were transferred to officers to the company. These are excisable upon the sale of the company or by Nov 2032.
-The club sent £8.9M presumably to 2020 Developments (Luton) Limited. The prior year it was £26.6M.

My own view is that the club on a financial basis is being run relatively well in a normal business setting. But football is not a normal business. The club will be regretting being too conservative in terms of transfer spending as it is clear the headroom was there.