Charlton announce five-year partnership with RSK

I don't wana get all terminator 2 about this, but the world is going mad and maybe RSK could produce an environmentally friendly giant sustainable uber robot that provides league one with eco friendly VAR 

AFKABartram said:

5 year partnership but doesn’t say shirt sponsor beyond next season. 

Expecting beers to be drunk from paper cups and toilet traps to be replaced with compost buckets.

anyhow, sounds a good deal

Something to be proud of and all a part of the Charlton journey *

Dave Rudd said:

Of course, RSK could be estate agents

Robertson Smith & Kempson | Estate Agents in Acton, Ealing, Hanwell, Northfields | Robertson Smith and Kempson

... or a crypto blockchain

RSK - Home

That was my first reaction when I saw the news earlier on today - "Why is a West London estate agents sponsoring a South East London football club?" I get something in the post from them every few months claiming they have corporate clients who'd want to rent out my flat.

Do they have a vegan staff kitchen?

MrOneLung said:

Henry Irving said:

seth plum said:

Never heard of them, no idea what they do to get money.

If only there was someway find out

@Henry Irving can you give us a quick breakdown as I have not got access to the internet at the moment 

I would @MrOneLung but I don't use social media 

Jesus wept, what have we become.

Pre internet when a sponsor was announced we used to give it a nano second to digest, then the main question was what would the new shirt look like.

Fast forward and now a full investigation is carried out on said sponsor including financials, board of directors and strategy. 

eaststandmike said:

Jesus wept, what have we become.

Pre internet when a sponsor was announced we used to give it a nano second to digest, then the main question was what would the new shirt look like.

Fast forward and now a full investigation is carried out on said sponsor including financials, board of directors and strategy. 

I'd guess something vaguely like this. 

Charlton do seem to have a track record of sponsors going out of business.. I can think of 2 or 3

cafcfan1990 said:

Based in Cheshire. I’m presuming we’ve got Southall to thank for this one? 

*blushes*

Lordflashheart said:

12 month accounts to April 2021 (consolidated)

Turnover £350m
Operating profit £3.7m
Net loss £22m (prior year loss £17m)
Fixed assets £158m
Current assets £396m (incl cash of £69m)
Liabilities £476m
Net worth negative £79m (prior year negative £55m)

On the face of it, awful

BUT during the year the group acquired 15 other businesses, raised £1bn in debt from one lender and a new £40m revolving credit line from NatWest - it’s EBITDA has grown from £17m in 2017 to £40m in 2021, and turnover has grown from £111m in 2017 to £350m in 2021

Clearly a business that is on a huge growth and acquisition strategy 

My only reservation - and this is me being the boring risk averse banker - it’s growth is all funded by debt - sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t - but we are now in a world of rising interest rates and inflation …….

Interesting to see it broken down like that, so thank you. This is (hopefully) where WM will have earned his money and done his job in analysing the risk vs reward so I suppose we have to trust that he's done it right. 

Henry Irving said:

Lordflashheart said:

12 month accounts to April 2021 (consolidated)

Turnover £350m
Operating profit £3.7m
Net loss £22m (prior year loss £17m)
Fixed assets £158m
Current assets £396m (incl cash of £69m)
Liabilities £476m
Net worth negative £79m (prior year negative £55m)

On the face of it, awful

BUT during the year the group acquired 15 other businesses, raised £1bn in debt from one lender and a new £40m revolving credit line from NatWest - it’s EBITDA has grown from £17m in 2017 to £40m in 2021, and turnover has grown from £111m in 2017 to £350m in 2021

Clearly a business that is on a huge growth and acquisition strategy 

My only reservation - and this is me being the boring risk averse banker - it’s growth is all funded by debt - sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t - but we are now in a world of rising interest rates and inflation …….

Useful analysis.

The positive view, from this semi-financially literate poster, on that is that £1bn loan/debt is approx three years turnover and it has been spent, it appears, on growth and income generating acquisitions.

So if the 15 other business do well, and I presume there is some synergy between them and RSK as a group, then those top line figures will improve over the next 5 to 10 years.

My guess is that the annual payments to Charlton are, at best, six figures so not hugely significant on the P & L.   

The doom and glom view (and so the most popular on CL) is that they are loaded with debt and so must be a bunch of crooks. (this is not my view BTW).

Thank you - I merely quickly went through the latest set of accounts, and read the Directors report - if I had the time, I could do the sort of analysis I have to do in my job i.e. last 5 years financial performance etc

I am not in the ‘doom and gloom’ club, as I have seen these strategies many times over the years - some work, some don’t - at the end of the day, in my experience, whilst there are outside forces that a business cannot control (interest rates, inflation, a mad Russian who starts a war etc), it’s really about the people who run the business and their skills and abilities 

The company is long established (1999), so no ‘new kid on the block’

As for those criticising those of us who have delved into the background of a new sponsor, if you are not interested, fair enough, but there are others who are - the modern world gives us access to huge amounts of information, why not take advantage of that

To put it another way, remember ITV Digital - many football league clubs went on a spending spree when the deal was signed with them to televise matches (Gillingham were a notable victim) and when ITV Digital collapsed, it created serious financial problems for those clubs who had already spent the future contracted revenues, which of course never arrived - for me it’s the same as signing a major new sponsor i.e. are they financially sound / what if they went bust ?

Henry Irving said:

Lordflashheart said:

12 month accounts to April 2021 (consolidated)

Turnover £350m
Operating profit £3.7m
Net loss £22m (prior year loss £17m)
Fixed assets £158m
Current assets £396m (incl cash of £69m)
Liabilities £476m
Net worth negative £79m (prior year negative £55m)

On the face of it, awful

BUT during the year the group acquired 15 other businesses, raised £1bn in debt from one lender and a new £40m revolving credit line from NatWest - it’s EBITDA has grown from £17m in 2017 to £40m in 2021, and turnover has grown from £111m in 2017 to £350m in 2021

Clearly a business that is on a huge growth and acquisition strategy 

My only reservation - and this is me being the boring risk averse banker - it’s growth is all funded by debt - sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn’t - but we are now in a world of rising interest rates and inflation …….

Useful analysis.

The positive view, from this semi-financially literate poster, on that is that £1bn loan/debt is approx three years turnover and it has been spent, it appears, on growth and income generating acquisitions.

So if the 15 other business do well, and I presume there is some synergy between them and RSK as a group, then those top line figures will improve over the next 5 to 10 years.

My guess is that the annual payments to Charlton are, at best, six figures so not hugely significant on the P & L.   

The doom and glom view (and so the most popular on CL) is that they are loaded with debt and so must be a bunch of crooks. (this is not my view BTW).

High praise

Is this fair?
20% yes
78 % no
5% unsure

After all these years, finally working in civil engineering consultancy comes in handy.

RSK are a fairly big name in our industry, and well respected. "Consultant" doesn't mean the same thing for us as in most industries - in engineering the standard arrangement is that the consultants design things, then contractors build it. Yes, they will be providing advice about environmental or planning matters, but a lot of their work will be designing the solution to the problem, not just writing reports with advice. There's a lot of overlap between civil engineering and environmental work, due to the big environmental impacts that engineering projects can have, meaning lots of work for environmentalists to try to design out the problems. RSK have specialised more in the planning and environment side of things, while the names you may have heard of as designers of bridges or roads, like Arup or Atkins, specialise more in the engineering, but all basically do both.

This is going to put me in an interesting situation at company sports events, as they're technically commercial rivals to my employers, albeit different specialisations mean we don't often bid against each other. Not going to be a great career move to wear a Charlton shirt with their logo on.

bobmunro said:

cafcfan1990 said:

Based in Cheshire. I’m presuming we’ve got Southall to thank for this one? 

*blushes*

Oh ffs Bob. What you done now?


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