Fears Grow As Liverpool Owners Reveal £42.6m Debt
Fresh doubts have been raised over the future ownership of Liverpool after the parent company of the Premier League club’s two US owners, Tom Hicks and George Gillett, was revealed to have lost £42.6m in the last financial year.
The loss, in the year running to August 2008, was mainly due to the £36m of interest payments that Kop Football Holdings had to make to service the debt taken on to buy the club.
The parent company’s loss came despite the £10.2m pre-tax profit reported by the football club in the same period. The results for the parent company showed net debt on 31st July 2008 of £300m.
Its auditors warned that the need to refinance loans by 24th July casts ‘significant doubt’ on the future of the group as a going concern. However they added the club’s owners were confident they would secure the funds.
Hicks and Gillett bought Liverpool in February 2007, promising to build a new stadium.
In their accounts, they say they are ‘committed to building a new stadium and actively seeking funding to complete the project’ but they admit that ‘the opening of the new stadium will be delayed until 2012’.
A number of investors have been linked with a takeover bid for the club but with Hicks and Gillett unable to agree on their collective future, an all-out sale have proved difficult to approve.
