Matt Ramsay - Review of Cambridge United AGM

Matt Ramsay has written a superb article featuring the main points from the clubs AGM on Monday 

If you could not make the evening then read below his informative piece

Finances
The key financial headline: Operating profit was £1.30m before tax, having been a loss of just under £125k the year before. 
Turnover for the year to 30 June 15 was £5.73m, up from £2.41m the year before.

The £1.3m pretty much equates to the FA Cup money from last season. Without this the club would have virtually been at an operational break-even for the year. 

Of this, a third is being put towards correcting the historic cash flow deficit, namely the fact that there's no income during the summer. A third is for capital investment, ie the changing rooms, Dublin Suite, training ground, dugouts, floodlights, pitch drainage, catering. A third has been locked away for doing up the Habbin when the time comes.

Board members
Post 14-15 all existing director loans was converted to shares. This pretty much means they won't be taking back their loans, as could have been as easy thing to do with a rare profit. This reduces the liability on the balance sheet by £372,500. 

Terry Baker is stepping down from the board. Colin Proctor has served the maximum 6 years as FED so is also. The election for the FED is currently on-going, I believe the winner of the vote will be announced at the CFU AGM next Thursday. Eddie Clark was re-elected as director. Two new people have been invited to join the board. They are Steve Chamberlain as new Finance Director, who has previously been Finance Director and latterly Director of Integration at Sepura, and Christoph Loch, director of the Judge Business School in town. 

Trumpington / ground developments
With a Sporting Village and redeveloped ground the club's turnover could double again. 

The third of the profit being put towards the Habbin won't earn much in the meantime because of interest / inflation, but there's nothing that can be done to speed up its development as it will only happen after permission has been granted at Trumpington, that has been built alongside a redeveloped north end of the ground, and permission then sought for the new Habbin. The north end development would be funded by Grosvenor and is proposed to be 3000 capacity with terracing (I don't think it was stated if it was solely or part terracing) as well as new frontage etc. 

Planning application for Trumpington is supposedly going in during March. The expected date has been put back a few times but there's a key date in April so the application will be in before then. Grosvenor are having a public meeting in the Supporters Club next Tuesday night.

The City Council are said to be behind it but South Cambs are not. They both need to be as it's a joint planning committee. A "Plan B" was alluded to if permission isn't granted. 

Company structure
Jez took the wheel and spoke about the structure of the club and the position moving forward. 

Turnover is expected to be £4.5-£5m this year. 
Income is 45% from the first team, 20% from business operations, 5% from the academy and 30% from the Youth and Community Trust.

The youth development and Community Trust now turns over more in a year than the entire football club did only 4 years ago. 

Last season's average attendance was 5108. Adjusted to take out the half season tickets from the Cup game it was 4548. The average for this season to date is 5331. There are 2503 season ticket holders this season. 

The club has sold 3500 replica shirts this season and there's a new partnership where the club has a presence in Hobbs in town. Turnover for retail affairs have gone up to six times what it was two years ago. 

Payments from the Premier League will be contracted from next season so are proportionately linked to TV deals. The Premier League solidarity payment is £240k this year, with central funding £474k. This will therefore increase next season. As a category 3 club in EPPP the club also received £270 per year for the academy, as well as protection for players getting pinched etc. 

Academy, community work
There are 7 U16 players who have agreed scholarships for next season as well as 3 U15s and 4 U14s further down the line. The club gets more rights if someone has agreed to a scholarship deal, which can be signed after their 14th birthday. If the haven't agreed to a scholarship then the club gets compensation dictated by the terms of EPPP, if they have signed up to a scholarship then the two teams have to agree a fee if a player is to be sold to a bigger club.

The club spent 51,000 coaching hours in community football schemes and has 35 partner clubs in Colt leagues etc and has has nearly 70,000 pupil hours with 2499 different kids in schools. Football is the smallest sport in terms of hours, so the need for community facilities etc in the city have been demonstrated. 

Football bits
The Q+A focused on football as much as business. Someone raised the point about the large amount that was spent on agents fees, the second highest in League Two. Jez said that this was largely down to the fact that after the Cup money came in they paid off a large number of fees while they could, including some that would have been spread over two years, as some kind of explanation for why the figure was so high. As such it won't be that high moving forward. 

Young loan players like Ledson, Page, Furlong have no agent fees attached at all.

Alluding to the fact that there are three goalkeepers on the books, Jez said the club did everything they could to resolve the situations of "overstaffed" areas. The fact that Will Norris has 2.5 years left on his contract and that Chris Dunn and Sam Beasant are out of contract in the summer tells a story. 

From next season the loan system is changing so that England falls in line with everywhere else, namely that loans can only occur window to window, so summer to January, January to summer. There are no emergency loans of 28-93 days. This means that recruitment will need to be spot on and that young players at clubs could be given more of an opportunity

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