The £65m loan to buy Burnley – and what it means if they go down
Welcome to another post on the Clarets blog. Find out the latest news from Mike Garlick and the club here. ALK Capital’s takeover of Burnley took place in December 2020 yet we had to wait until the club’s June 2021 accounts were published late on Wednesday night to ascertain the full picture of what is happening at Turf Moor.
Why? Well, ALK purchased the club through a leveraged buyout, taking out a substantial loan from MSD Holdings and also using the club’s own money in the bank to fund the £170 million deal.
One of the most notable figures confirmed is the size of the loan taken out by ALK, which is £65 million. It is the implications of how and when that must be paid back that need our attention.
The loan was secured to be paid back in December 2025, with ALK only paying interest on it until then. However, that agreement is only in place if Burnley remain in the Premier League. If they are relegated in the next three weeks, they will be required to pay a “significant proportion” of the £65 million shortly after the end of this season, with the repayment schedule brought forward.
Due to a quarter of the Premier League’s central distribution of media income being made up of merit payments, where Burnley finish in the league table plays a big part in how much they bring in.
In 2017-18, when they achieved seventh place, media income was £121.5 million. In 2018-19, when they came 15th, Burnley earned £115 million, a figure boosted by UEFA money from their Europa League campaign. In 2019-20, a 10th-place finish brought in £113.5 million and last season’s 17th place was worth £103.9 million. These two payments were slightly reduced by Burnley’s share of the rebate the league gave to broadcasters after the 2019-20 season was suspended for three months.
Match-day income (£4.6 million to £355,000) and catering sales (£2.1 million to £115,000) naturally saw significant drops as fans were unable to attend games until the final home game of last season, and only then in a reduced capacity.
There was also a drop in commercial activities from £11.8 million to £9.2 million. This is an area ALK targeted to improve when it arrived. It is perhaps unfair to criticise their efforts after just seven months, particularly as they came during a pandemic, but it shows the challenge of making Burnley everybody’s favourite underdog.
Much will depend on what ALK learned from the commercial review it undertook last year.
The first move after the review was to terminate the shirt and sleeve partnership with Asian betting company LoveBet. ALK says it has lots of ideas for growing Burnley’s commercial income. Only time will tell how successful they can be at that.
Retail sales dropped slightly from £1.8 million to £1.6 million but £1.8 million was also the figure in the 2018 and 2019 accounts, which suggests there might be a finite number of people in the world willing to buy Burnley merchandise.
Their total wage bill has gradually increased during their ongoing six-year stay in the Premier League. It hit £100 million in 2019-20, although this was due to the club extending their financial year to 13 months to better reflect the pandemic-stretched campaign. A fairer 12-month comparison, with 2018-19, put the figure at £94 million.
Last year, Burnley’s wage bill fell to £86 million — the first time it has decreased since 2016, when the club returned to the Premier League with a payroll of £61 million. Investment over several years in the recruitment department and academy, which has risen to category one status, were key reasons behind the increase in costs.
However, despite the drop in wages, the total number of staff actually increased from 251 to 267. This increase in staff was seen away from the field with the number of players, managerial and training staff decreasing from 156 to 133.
Due to the reduced turnover, Burnley’s wage-to-turnover ratio increased from a respectable 70 per cent to 75 per cent, which is more of a concern but not unsustainable if they manage to remain in the Premier League.
Former chairman Mike Garlick got the club ready for a takeover boosted the bank balance but meant signings were rare. Burnley signed Collins, Dale Stephens and Will Norris during the accounting year, with those arrivals largely offset by the departures of Jimmy Dunne, Josh Benson and Ben Gibson.
This relative inactivity can be seen in the falls in the club’s amortisation bill from £32.3M to £21.4M and the profit made from player trading, which was down to £5.1M. According to a recent post, amortisation is the accounting method for writing off the cost of new players over the course of their contracts.
These numbers do not include the signings of Cornet last summer or the winter-window sale of Chris Wood to Newcastle, but a note tells us the net expenditure on transfers since June 2021 is £1.3M.
What these accounts highlight is just how crucial Premier League survival is for Burnley. If they do not succeed in their quest to stay up, alarm bells will do their thing.
Alan Pace has maintained the ALK takeover is sustainable from day one and that plans are in place for relegation. Those plans may be put to the test far sooner than he would have hoped. Keep up-to-date with the latest Mike Garlick Burnley news here.
