The wait for a buyer to emerge for Hearts is likely to be a long and drawn-out process.
Vladimir Romanov may claim that the club is worth £50m and that his investment has reached £200m in the seven years since he bought the Edinburgh side, but an expert in football finance believes that Hearts do not represent an attractive business proposition and warned that administration is a possibility.
Neil Patey, an Edinburgh-based partner in Ernst & Young who helped broker Roman Abramovich’s purchase of Chelsea and worked on the deals that resulted in buyouts at Liverpool and Manchester City, discounts the prospect of any investor meeting Romanov’s valuation and warns that the Edinburgh club faces a painful transition as the Russian businessman attempts to sell either part or all of his majority stake.
“Scottish football as an overall proposition to foreign investors, certainly the ones I speak to, is not interesting,” Patey says. “If they’ve got lots of money, they’re interested in the English Premiership, if they don’t have quite so much money then they would drop down into the lower English divisions. They don’t see any appeal in the SPL, it doesn’t have a global brand outside of Celtic and Rangers, the general perception of the quality of the football, for better or worse, is that it’s not held in high regard. I don’t see any real interest from overseas, except someone who has Hearts or Edinburgh in their blood.
“If you’re a Hearts fan, what would you want to pay? It’s not a fantastic business proposition, in their last published accounts was an £8m operating loss, their wages-to-turnover is up to 115%, so major surgery is needed to the squad, it’s going to incur losses, at least in the short-term until you significantly restructure the squad.”
Patey’s experience is that the kind of major transactions involved in buying football clubs tend to be complicated and drawn-out, but even reaching that stage will be difficult for Hearts. The debt to Romanov is estimated to be around £30m while restructuring Tynecastle is too expensive to be financially viable, even if the corporate facilities are so restricted that Hearts do not generate enough income at home matches. Romanov eventually began to look at the feasibility of building a new stadium, but has been frustrated by Edinburgh City Council’s planning requirements.
Even if Hearts were in a healthier financial position, any takeover would be at a relatively low price since there is little scope for increasing revenue or achieving success in a domestic environment that is dominated by the Old Firm. Under Romanov, Hearts finished second in the Clydesdale Bank Premier League on one occasion, and won the Scottish Cup, but otherwise have remained behind Celtic and Rangers.
“It took Rangers a long time [to find a buyer],” Patey says. “In the current economic climate, there are very few people who are prepared to put loads of millions into this as a hobby on the side, unless you’re a very rich Arab or a Russian oligarch. It could be very difficult to find a buyer for Hearts and realistically it will be a small purchase price, with Romanov having to say goodbye to his £30m-plus debt, that will have to be written off.”
There are few UK investors with the kind of capital to significantly invest in football who are not already involved in the sport. Other potential options for Hearts are a buyer taking control of the team and renting Tynecastle back from Romanov, or buying out part of his shareholding and working alongside him, but these remain unlikely.
“If you could secure a long-term agreement, 50 or 25 years, for the rent so you’re not going to have to pay escalating amounts, that’s one way of making a deal happen,” Patey says. “It’s not the norm, and it’s not particularly attractive because you want to own your assets. And working alongside any other partner is difficult at a football club.
“I don’t think Romanov’s reputation does him any favours. If you’re a true Hearts fan then you want to save the club, and if you want to do that then I presume you don’t want Romanov to continue there.”
INTERVIEW Financial expert warns selling Tynecastle club will prove difficult, writes Richard Wilson
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