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Management ENIC

Latest Spurs videos from Sky Sports

ENIC In or ENIC Out

  • Total voters
    209
Shadydan said:
Dunno mate, never been in it!
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After yesterdays show of strength at the taxpayers stadium by the Lewis family , well two of them, maybe they are going nowhere for the time being. That Viv must has seen more games in person in a month than her father has in the last 25 years.
 
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Did anyone see when the SkyTV cameras pointed to our top brass, who were all looking stylish and respectful. Then the cameral panned to David Sullivan with his ridiculous dark brown dyed hair and trophy wife 40 years his junior that looked like she has more miles on the clock than Katie Price. Hilarious.
 
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Spursidol said:
Goodwill is, as you say, an intangible, and in reality impossible to value.

When you see it stated in the accounts its the difference between the price someone was prepared to pay for the company and the tangible assets.

Spurs profitability is actually really low by comparison with the gross capital employed which would almost imply negative goodwill - the only thing making it attractive in financial terms is the bonds with an interest rate of under 3% and average repayment of over 20 years. As part of the price a bidder is prepared to pay, they might well put a value on that of say [2%] x the gross bond value for the 20 years remaining life of the bonds - its not a conventional thing to value, but its rare to find such funding..

However it all comes back to what is the price an external bidder is prepared to pay, and what is the minimum price the Lewis Family is prepared to accept - which in theory might be what is the future price if Spurs has sufficient funds to improve its squad to be a genuine PL winner contender and are the Lewis family prepared to make that funding available.

The valuation of football clubs at present is not dissimilar to the valuation of some tech companies in the tech boom of 20 years ago which, I think it was George Soros, described as irrational - the valuations are multiple of gross revenues not ebitda or profits unlike other industries !
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We could go further and say that football clubs are not like any other kind of business. Traditional measures don't work. Operating profit (possibly EBIT rather than EBITDA) is important for underlying health but not for the purpose of extracting dividends. The 'ideal' wages/turnover ratio is much higher for football. In what businesses are the 'workers' (footballers) who produce what is bought and sold, paid far more than the managerial class at the club, and valued as a depreciating intangible asset? Etc.

Investing in football will in principle be for the purpose of buying and selling an asset rather than making an income for the investor. But, even here, selling the asset may not be the point if a sovereign wealth fund is involved, or if a business like the Tavistock Group considers a successful football club as a prestige asset. This complicates fund raising by share issue. Even if sale of the asset is considered further down the line, the value of the football club must also take account of brand value, which determines not so much profitability but commercial and, to some extent, media rights income, which, in turn contributes to paying higher wages. And talking of brand, loyalty in football is an entirely different thing.

Much of this turns traditional business principles upside-down. Is this like the dot.com boom, a speculative bubble? It doesn't seem so. The commercial expansion of football has been going on for well over a century, though it accelerated in the 1990s. It's not so much 'irrational' as a radically different kind of business rationality.
 
Play Up Spurs!!!! said:
We could go further and say that football clubs are not like any other kind of business. Traditional measures don't work. Operating profit (possibly EBIT rather than EBITDA) is important for underlying health but not for the purpose of extracting dividends. The 'ideal' wages/turnover ratio is much higher for football. In what businesses are the 'workers' (footballers) who produce what is bought and sold, paid far more than the managerial class at the club, and valued as a depreciating intangible asset? Etc.

Investing in football will in principle be for the purpose of buying and selling an asset rather than making an income for the investor. But, even here, selling the asset may not be the point if a sovereign wealth fund is involved, or if a business like the Tavistock Group considers a successful football club as a prestige asset. This complicates fund raising by share issue. Even if sale of the asset is considered further down the line, the value of the football club must also take account of brand value, which determines not so much profitability but commercial and, to some extent, media rights income, which, in turn contributes to paying higher wages. And talking of brand, loyalty in football is an entirely different thing.

Much of this turns traditional business principles upside-down. Is this like the dot.com boom, a speculative bubble? It doesn't seem so. The commercial expansion of football has been going on for well over a century, though it accelerated in the 1990s. It's not so much 'irrational' as a radically different kind of business rationality.
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Investors put money into a business (including football clubs) to get a return - usually dividends (which rely upon upon the club generating cash) and hence one way to get to a value of the club is to discount the cash flows it generates - in OP I estimated annual cash generation at circa £150m pa and hence a capital value of £1.5 bn. Spurs do not pay dividends and re-invest cash into squad etc.

The other investment return is to sell all or part of the shareholding in the club - buying the club from Sugar cost circa £80m if I remember right and t date about £150mm cash has been put in so circa £230m in total and club worth circa £2 bn or so meaning a 10 fold increase but over circa 20 years.

The reason I compared it to valuations in the tech era (or even the Dutch tulip fiasco 300 odd years ago) is the valuations are purely dependent upon someone wanting to buy the club - and as its seen as a trophy asset there are a few people who want to buy (whether its countries wanting good PR) despite the price not being justified by cash flow, precisely the issue with tech companies in the dot com era. Its irrational investing as the club doesn't generate cash to pay dividends and valuing the club at about 4 or 5 times its revenues where 'margins' are not spectacularly high suggests the club will never generate cash to pay dividends at any high level.

In the long term businesses go in and out of fashion. At some stage investors will find better trophy assets to buy, and irrationally valued businesses will decline in value (in the tech crash the decline in value happened over about 2-5 years, but few predicted it). ATM nobody is predicting investing in clubs will go out of fashion .... but it will happen, but that might be 10 years or 30 years away, nobody knows.
 
Spursidol said:
Investors put money into a business (including football clubs) to get a return - usually dividends (which rely upon upon the club generating cash) and hence one way to get to a value of the club is to discount the cash flows it generates - in OP I estimated annual cash generation at circa £150m pa and hence a capital value of £1.5 bn. Spurs do not pay dividends and re-invest cash into squad etc.

The other investment return is to sell all or part of the shareholding in the club - buying the club from Sugar cost circa £80m if I remember right and t date about £150mm cash has been put in so circa £230m in total and club worth circa £2 bn or so meaning a 10 fold increase but over circa 20 years.

The reason I compared it to valuations in the tech era (or even the Dutch tulip fiasco 300 odd years ago) is the valuations are purely dependent upon someone wanting to buy the club - and as its seen as a trophy asset there are a few people who want to buy (whether its countries wanting good PR) despite the price not being justified by cash flow, precisely the issue with tech companies in the dot com era. Its irrational investing as the club doesn't generate cash to pay dividends and valuing the club at about 4 or 5 times its revenues where 'margins' are not spectacularly high suggests the club will never generate cash to pay dividends at any high level.

In the long term businesses go in and out of fashion. At some stage investors will find better trophy assets to buy, and irrationally valued businesses will decline in value (in the tech crash the decline in value happened over about 2-5 years, but few predicted it). ATM nobody is predicting investing in clubs will go out of fashion .... but it will happen, but that might be 10 years or 30 years away, nobody knows.
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Football is a highly atypical business. People don't invest to make year-on-year profits and pay dividends to shareholders. They're either investing in an appreciating asset or in a prestige brand (or both). Asset prices are not, however, swept up in a speculative bubble. Apart from anything else, we're talking about a small market where opportunities to buy don't come around very often, and when they do, negotiations for a sale are protracted. These are not frenzied impulse buys. Yes, asset prices are steadily increasing, but relatively slowly and broadly in line with the revenues of the business. I don't think the comparison with the dot.com bubble or tulip mania works very well.

As you say, businesses can go in and out of fashion. But football is no ordinary business. As a business, it's been in fashion ever since entry was charged to spectators and football was professionalised – well over a century – and buying football clubs as trophy assets has lasted as long. And there's no reason not to believe it will carry on as this kind of business for another century or more.
 
www.nytimes.com

Tottenham Hotspur has ‘firm backing’ from co-owners, says chief executive Vinai Venkatesham

The north London club's CEO clarified the future of the side after the departure of former chairman Daniel Levy last Thursday
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Tottenham Hotspur has ‘firm backing’ from co-owners, says chief executive Vinai Venkatesham​


Summarise

Elias BurkeSep 15, 2025
Tottenham Hotspur chief executive Vinai Venkatesham has said there is “firm backing” from co-owners, the Lewis family, but the club must be “cognizant of and aware of the financial fair play rules”.

In a video released on the club’s YouTube channel, Venkatesham reiterated that the Lewis family has no intention of selling the club amid speculation following the removal of Daniel Levy as club chairman last Thursday, and will invest to help the men’s and women’s teams achieve their ambitions to be “successful on the pitch”.

“(The Lewis family) are very, very passionate about Tottenham Hotspur and are ambitious for the club,” Venkatesham said. “When I talk about their ambition, their focus is on ensuring that everything we do across the complete breadth of the club really centres back and is focused on giving our men’s team and women’s team the best chance to be successful on the pitch over the long term.”

“I think it is very fair to say that we have firm backing from the Lewis family against our ambitions to be successful on the pitch, both on the men’s side and women’s side. They know that’s going to require investment, and we have their firm backing.”

Tottenham had a busy summer transfer window. They spent heavily on Mohammed Kudus from West Ham United for £55million and Xavi Simons for €60million (£51.8m; $70m) from RB Leipzig. They also signed Kota Takai from Japanese side Kawasaki Frontale for £5million ($6.8m), and Mathys Tel joined permanently for an initial €35m (£30m), after spending the second half of last season on loan from Bayern Munich.

Spurs went back to the German champions to sign Joao Palhinha on a season-long loan with an option to buy. While the club are not presently in danger of violating profit and sustainability regulations, Venkatesham outlined the club’s desire to stay clear of any sanctions by developing young players and “selling players at the right time”.

“I would also say, like all other 20 Premier League clubs, we also need to make sure that we are cognizant and aware of the FFP rules and that means we need to continue to grow our revenues,” he explained.

“We need to continue to develop players both from the academy and young players that we buy, we need to make sure that we’re selling players at the right time and we also need to make sure that every time we’re recruiting a player we’re making smart decisions both from a sporting and financial perspective.

“If you don’t do that, because of how the financial regulations work, you can find yourself in a position where you’ve got money to spend, but the regulations don’t allow you to spend it.”

Further to that, Venkatesham outlined that there is a focus on the club from the “next generation” of the Lewis family, including Joe Lewis’ children Vivienne and Charlie Lewis, as well as Vivienne’s son-in-law, Nick Beucher, the co-CEO of Tavistock Group, the investment company based in the Bahamas founded by Joe Lewis.

He also clarified the role of former banker Peter Charrington who has stepped into the role of “non-executive chairman” following Levy’s departure after being appointed as a non-executive director in March.

“It’s probably important to say that he’s going to be doing a different role to the one Daniel did,” Venkatesham said. “Daniel was executive chairman, that meant Daniel was full-time and involved in the club on a day-to-day basis. Peter’s role is non-executive chairman, and that means he won’t be involved with the club on a full-time basis and he won’t be involved on a day-to-day basis.

“His model is all around empowerment. He’ll be empowering us on the ground to get on with things but of course he will be leading the board and will be a very important part of the club going forward.”
 
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