It's likely to re-shape the company somehow isnt it. Not sure how i'd feel though as an existing shareholder if your shares are ultimately watered down by this move. I'm guessing the major shareholder must have had to agree with it.

Interesting point. I assume that there has to be some fair way of valuing the debt relative to the value of the company, or that the share issue would have to be open to the public/all existing shareholders. Otherwise an unscrupulous board or major shareholder could turn a £5 loan into 80% share holding or some such. None of which pertains to Hull KR, of course.

The figures are more encouraging, especially given the general economic climate. With Sportingbet coming on board hopefully we'll see further improvement in the figures for this year. Still a distance to go, but easier to imagine Hull KR surviving in SL (if not quite ready to thrive yet) beyond the tenure of this board.

Once the value is established could it turn into further financial good news if new or existing shareholders are permitted to purchase further shares?

I mentioned on a thread on the VT, if Widnes can turn in a £1M profit then SL clubs should be able to achieve even more than that (why they don't, or what Widnes did to achieve such a good result I don't know, but it is clearly doable) which, I guess, would make them very interesting to investors.

Blimey, the selectivity of information in Mullan's report is staggering even by his (and my ) standards.

Is it better that Rovers' loss is £298k rather than £450k? Of course.

One question that Mullan seems to have missed, is how, with 14 days of the financial year to go, and no further uncertainty over fixtures, gate receipts etc with it being off season, Neil Hudgell's declared loss of £450,000 in his online interview on 16th November improved to £298,000. To miss one's forecasted outturn by an amount this material so close to the year end is bizarre.

The other piece of context that is completely absent is the performance of the rest of Super League in this financial year. Mullan chooses to reference only St Helens whose position has deteriorated year on year due to failure to reach the CC final in 2009. Why is that, I wonder? There are other more noteworthy performances that he doesn't seem to have clocked. He doesn't mention Leeds, who stepped up from a loss of £300k to a profit of £700k, an improvement of £1m. He doesn't mention Salford who went from a loss of £800k to a loss of £19k. He doesn't mention that Warrington went from a loss of £200k to a profit of £200k. These are the biggest swings in performance. Why would an independent newspaper pick out only Saints, who buck the trend with a deterioration, as the only other club to compare Rovers results against. How odd.

He also fails to reference that in terms of profitability, Rovers are 9th out of 12 clubs to file for 2009, compared to 7th out of 12 for the previous year. Everyone has to raise their game now that licenses are up for review, particularly with Widnes posting £1m profit in a SL standard stadium. Many clubs have stepped up, and some have done more than others in this respect.

And finally Mullan fails to mention that, for the first time, the notes to the accounts include a "going concern" comment as follows:
"These accounts are prepared on a going concern basis. The Directors believe this to be appropriate following ongoing cost-cutting measures which have taken place since the year end together with the continued support of the Company's Bankers and Directors".
This is certainly not unusual amongst SL clubs, in fact most clubs supported by benefactors rather than a self-sustaining economic model have this note, but it is the first time Rovers have disclosed it in their accounts. Maybe it's a change in reporting standards, I'll ask Adeybull.

Would be just my luck that id be on the train and stuck for 2 hours mind !

Raising cash through share options is always a decent way to make money, providing again that existing shareholders are happy to have a smaller % of the club in doing so.

Where one sees these big swings, how much is 'real' as a layman would understand it and how much is down to accounting practices/client choice and the way dates fall? As a layman I find some of them hard to, ahem, account for.

The selection of just one club, the one with the worst deterioration in a league with overall improving results, as a comparator for Rovers performance is frankly a journalistic embarrassment. Why would you just pick Saints when 8 clubs improved (2 of which by £1m and £800k) and only 4 went backwards? Do you think someone has just told him this anecdotally and he's printed it without being @rsed to see what anyone else has done?

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Not a bad result when put against the average of the 13 clubs who have thus far declared (-£272,592)

Both Rovers and the league average are headed in the right direction.

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