£100m Boost or PR Move? Spurs’ Ownership Cash Injection Explained

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1:57hello everybody welcome back to rule the roost podcast obviously i just finished up a podcast yesterday with windy dusted barely settled and then i see enic have injected 100 million pounds back into the club and as somebody that has no idea how money matters work i thought i'd get somebody on who can help me make sense of it all. So welcome Connor, aka Levynomics from Twitter, if you've followed his threads on there. How are you doing, mate? Yeah, I'm very, very well, mate. Thank you. And yeah, delighted to make my debut on Rule the Roost. And yeah, looking forward to jumping into this. It seems, I mean, I set up my account on Twitter back in April, which seems the perfect timing because Tottenham's been a bit crazy since then and spent a lot of time speaking about men in suits rather than football players but uh yeah delighted to be on me yeah i i was gonna say like you you set this up before levy went so i mean it must have been a pretty it must have been a pretty busy time for you sort of making sense of everything that was going on i mean what i guess let's let's sort of go into first like where you're coming at this from um you're you're a chartered accountant right and you've you've basically for anyone that hasn't seen you do put out these threads where you dive into the the financial side of of Tottenham so as opposed to people like me that are just saying Ailic aren't spending enough Levy isn't buying enough players that I like you're coming at this from a more should we say academic position right yeah I think that's probably fair yeah yeah it's just a chart of account and I think you know my my driver behind setting up the account really was when Tottenham announced their last financial results, Levy was basically talking about how we had to continue to spend in a smart and sustainable way, which sort of contradicted how much of a financial behemoth the football club actually is.

3:53And, you know, I'm someone that's been pretty critical, I think, of Enoch and Levy over the last few years in particular. And so I felt compelled to fill what felt like a bit of a gap in the market on Twitter of someone that sort of analysed the financials of Tottenham, but did it through quite a critical lens of the ownership. And so, you know, some of the stuff you were just saying there, Jack, around being critical of how much we spend and the way that we spend it and being too risk averse is certainly the way that I come at it as well. But I just do that with the sort of analysing the financials to support that.

4:28So, yeah, lots of threads to that sort of way. And, yeah, I mean, to be honest, I set the account up with a name Levynomics because that was just quite a common phrase that was used to describe our approach. But, you know, historically, I've probably been more critical of the Enoch model overall rather than just Daniel Levy himself. But obviously, it does look like that may be starting to change. So it's good to chat today about what that might all mean. Well, yeah, that's interesting because I do want to touch on that. We will dive into that. But let's, I guess, first and foremost, so in plain English, I guess, for the layman such as me, what's actually happened here, Connor?

5:08Because the clubs say there's been a£100 million equity injection. What does that actually mean in plain terms, I guess? Sure. So generally, football club owners have two ways of putting money into football clubs. The first one, which is probably easier to understand, is a shareholder loan. So basically what they'll say is, you know, we as the owners will loan the football club some money. It's normally done at either zero interest or a very low interest rate. And that will then sit as a liability in the books for the future. And, you know, when the club, the club will have to repay that at some point to the owner.

5:48And normally in reality, that would not be until the very end when they look to sell the club. So that's sort of option one. Option two, which is the way that Tottenham typically do it, and to be honest, is probably the more preferable way of doing it because it then isn't a liability for the football club and is viewed more favourably for things like financial fair play and PSR, is to do what we call an equity injection, exactly as you just described. And what that actually means in practice is basically Tottenham issue, in this case, 13 and a half million shares roughly. And what Enoch will do is they will buy those 13 and a half million shares and they bought them at a price of£7.41 a share, which then equates to 100 million overall.

6:32So they've injected 100 million pound of cash into the club in return for getting another 13 and a half million shares. So what that then means is basically their share of the club has increased slightly from sort of 86.91 % to 87.62%. The minority shareholders, and I think it will also be for Daniel Levy, and we'll come back to this in a second, they will dilute a little bit accordingly. And so basically in return for the Lewis family putting in an extra bit of money, they get a slightly bigger stake of the football club. I mean were you surprised that the the Lewis family that the club communicated this in the way that they did you know there's a big announcement on the on the club website and everything like that I'm assuming with a lot of this stuff there's a is there like a legal obligation for the for the club to disclose when so I know it has to be disclosed to like the markets and things like that obviously but they're making a new story out of this right and that that to me signals there's there's intent there to to show that Spurs are doing things differently yeah I I think I think it's twofold I think there's and we saw this you may remember back in May 2022 when they spoke about injecting up to 150 million into the football club at that point it ended up only being 97 million but it was up you know they worded it to say up to 150 um they made a big song and dance of that as well and i think it's twofold i think one is they have to do a company's house filing whenever they um make one of these equity injections because they're changing the capital structure of the the club um so people would see it there anyway in due course and then so this is a way of them i suppose getting on the front foot to communicate it in the way that they want to and get the good PR as a result of having to communicate and obviously to the minority shareholders, they need to tell them in due course anyway.

8:36So I think to me, it's completely normal for them to go out and actually make this statement. And I think, I mean, you've probably picked this up as well. There is a real drive at the moment to really rebrand Enoch to the Lewis family and almost in everything that they do, They talk about, you know, the Lewis family being committed for the future, talking about long term sporting success, trying to distance themselves from the Enoch brand, which probably had a bit of bad press about it. And also, obviously, with Levy going, you know, I think they're trying to make it very clear this is the Lewis family show going forward.

9:13So I think this was another opportunity to reinforce that. and obviously off the back of refusing those expressions of interest for a takeover, it shows a level of commitment that they are at least in it for the medium term, I would say. So I guess this leads me to the point where I ask, where is this money actually coming from? Like who's actually put this£100 million in? Is this straight out of the Lewis family's own personal accounts? Is it money that's wrapped up within Inic or Tavistock? I mean who's actually buying this and how does this mean that they actually own more of the club if that makes sense again you've got to appreciate I'm coming at this from a complete layman's perspective of course yeah yeah sure I mean everything that we can see right now and look Tottenham is quite difficult to get sort of complete information about because one obviously Tottenham Hotspur itself is private so some of the disclosures are not quite as detailed as they would be for a listed company but then you have this extra complication with Tottenham that above the Tottenham level the Enoch entities are based in the Bahamas right so you've got Enoch Sports Inc and Enoch Sports and Development Holdings Limited two entities above Tottenham Hotspur whereby the Lewis Family Trust and Daniel Levy and his trusts are invested are all based in the Bahamas so in terms of like bottom of what's going on.

10:44But nevertheless, I think what we can imply from everything that has sort of been communicated that this is money that has come from the Lewis family, right? So there is no indication that this is some sort of external investment that's coming to Tavistock that they've then pushed through. I think it's quite, you know, and obviously the Lewis family is particularly wealthy as well, right? So I think every indication in terms of the way that this is communicated, the way that they've done things in the past is that this has come from the Lewis family directly and I think back to my sort of earlier point as to you know in the past like in May 2022 when they did the injection the Lewis family's stake slightly increased in Tottenham but so did Daniel Levy's right because it was Enick that was investing and their stake accordingly increased so both the Lewis family and the Levy bit did now I think obviously now a lot has changed and I'm not sure.

11:39I think it's very clear that this is just the Lewis family that has put in this money. Obviously, we've had Daniel Levy's exit. So I think there will have been a restructure in the Bahamas somewhere, which has basically changed the shareholding of Enoch as well. And so when we see this filter through, I suspect it will be the case that it's only the Lewis family that have benefited now from this shareholding increase and Levy will be diluted as per any of the other sort of 30 ,000 or so minority shareholders that we have. but we'll see that flow through in due course when they make the disclosures that they have to make.

12:13See, because this is what I wanted to touch on. In terms of the talk of diluting Levy's share of Enick's share of the club, do you see this as an outwardly aggressive move in that respect? I mean, we've had a lot of talk about takeovers. We've had this Brooklyn Enric, who's apparently been talking to various people. I mean, some people, I think, jokingly have speculated that Levy's probably behind that, trying to buy the club and all that type of thing. But I guess it's more a question of why now? Why have they done this? There's no transfer window right now. The summer's over. Everything seems to be quite calm.

12:59Spurs are doing well on the pitch. Why right now on the mid-October, early October really, would the Lewis family choose to do this? Yeah, it's a good question on timing. I think on your initial point around the sort of Levy piece and whether this is outwardly aggressive, I think it probably actually more so just reflects the reality of what should have actually happened probably in the past. You know, my sense was always, and I can't say this is definitely the case, For example, when we put in the up to$150 million that ended up being$97 million, I expect that was Joe Lewis that fronted that cash.

13:36I would be surprised if Daniel Levy actually put in any himself. And I think that was probably the case all throughout Enix ownership. Whenever, you know, if you look at the original acquisition or you look at any money that's been injected, which hasn't been a lot, I think Joe Lewis has fronted that cash on behalf of Daniel Levy because they were so intrinsically linked. And obviously Levy was benefiting from running the club. Right. And that was another way of sort of rewarding him for doing that. And so what this now does, if my sort of theory is correct, that Levy is being diluted as well.

14:10Why should Levy's stake go up if he's not actually fronting any cash himself? And I think that's probably where maybe some of the frustration has come with the Lewis family, the Lewis kids, as we call them, even though they're in their 60s versus Joe Lewis. is, you know, like, why should we front some cash and Daniel Levy gets the benefit from it as well without fronting cash himself. So I think it more now actually reflects what's going on in practice. And I suppose, you know, I think in terms of the timing, it's probably a bit of, right, getting things into gear ahead of the January window. I think, you know, I think it's probably also, So this is a good way to show our commitment to the football club post those takeover approaches, because I think, you know, this quite clearly signals, yes, we absolutely are not for Sal and we're in it for the medium term.

15:08I think there's also the point, you know, and I've been asked this question a lot about, what do you think they're actually going to use this cash for, right? What is it? And I think to me, it's sort of, it's going to be a combination of a few things. I think it's probably, you know, some money that's there available to help with new signings, hopefully, which I think is what all of your listeners will want to hear. I think it's probably, you know, partly for some of the property investments and acquisitions. And we'll come back to that. And then finally, I think, you know, old transfer debt as well and the payment of old transfers that happened in the past.

15:48because Tottenham, as at the last set of accounts, we owed gross£337 million out on transfers that happened in the past. We were owed£58 million, so our net transfer debt was about£279 million. So there's a lot of cash that needs to go out of the club for various things. And so I suspect it's a combination of all three that this was probably going to be used for. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when Levy went, wasn't there some talk that some of the the building plans and stuff had been scaled back a bit that that was kind of more levy's love child if you like brain child that's probably the more appropriate term um and that there were maybe some voices within the lewis family that weren't as keen on spurs pursuing this i'm i'm talking namely about the sort of the towers that it looked like they were going to erect beside the beside the stadium do you know anything about that So the world's biggest soccer tournament has arrived and you can trade the entire tournament on Cal sheet on Cal sheet.

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17:56All 48 countries in every matchup. And if you rep your side before the round of 16 on prize picks, you can win a trip to the finals in New York. It's the biggest tournament ever, which means there's even more opportunities to cash in while you root for your favorite national sides and global soccer stars. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5. Download the app today and use code CUP26 to get$50 instantly in lineups when you play your first$5. PrizePix, America's number one sports picks app. Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of rumors about that and also the hotel, wasn't there, that the hotel might have been put on pause.

18:30I was always skeptical of that because, to be honest, you know, they've already spent a lot of money getting them to the stage where they're at at the moment, right? a lot of the money in terms of planning permission and starting the work. I think with the hotel specifically, I think that was also tied in with our Euros 2028 bid for the stadium. So it would surprise me if they were to pause that. And then similarly with the residential towers that you referenced, I'm pretty sure that that was part of the wider agreement with Haringey Council for the sort of Northumberland Development Project. So again, it would surprise me if they stopped that work.

19:08and ultimately I mean you know there's going to be a clear economic benefit to them eventually in the future once that work is done so it wouldn't surprise me if they want to carry on with that and you know although Levy was in charge you know Lewis was always the majority shareholder so you would have thought there was a level of sign off and it would be a surprise for them to suddenly change their mind on all of that stuff I would say I mean do you I sort of wanted to say this to the end but I feel like this is an appropriate time to talk about it. I guess the sort of hesitancy I have behind getting too excited about the sort of the Enoch and Lewis, Tavistock, whatever we're calling it, taking more of an active control over things right now is that for the past 20 plus years, they have still been like Levy's boss, essentially, right?

20:01And it feels like to a degree, it's weird. Like it's weird for a figure who has been at the front and center of the club for so long and who has borne a lot of the vitriol really when things haven't gone well. And that's not just from fans. That's from the press. That's from former players. That's from, you know, Alex Ferguson, everyone having a say about Daniel Levy and the way he operates. So Joe Lewis, the Lewis family have managed to keep a level of like relative anonymity with all of this. even though they are the people that hold the money essentially so why is it that do you think that they are throwing him under the bus now and they're sort of i saw somebody somebody and i apologize but somebody on twitter sort of told it perfectly they were saying it's like you know they're like they're sort of the absent father who shows up once every couple of years with 50 quid and says yeah go on go down the shops and get yourself whatever you want and then disappears again kind of thing yeah I think I agree with all of that and Daniel Levy for all of his flaws I don't think anyone and as I say I'm someone who's critical of him I don't think anyone can say that he didn't you know show up I mean the football club was everything to him I get the sense you know he works exceptionally hard we can talk about decisions being wrong and it being self-interest as well because obviously he was going to make a lot of money out of it as well but he was certainly present in a way that the Lewis family and Joe Lewis were never right and and and you know you're right it was his show and they were obviously very happy with the way that he was performing for all of that 24 years because he's grown you know the actions that he has taken and some of it's obviously because of the boom in sort of Premier League money and all of that type of stuff but the football club has grown from 90 million to a three and a half billion, four billion pound entity.

21:59So yeah I think it's it is interesting that they've thrown him under the bus. I think it implies that something has gone on behind the scenes. I think there's I think, back to my earlier point I think maybe the Lewis kids are not willing to front money for Daniel Levy to benefit in the same way that Joe Lewis perhaps was and maybe they've got a different stance on it. I think what I would say and again this is as someone who's very critical of Enick is the one positive I would take is maybe the Lewis family have realised in a way that Joe Lewis hadn't today that sometimes you've got to speculate to accumulate a little bit now we've almost reached a cap on what we can achieve in terms of revenues through because now the stadium's fully operational you've got the non footballing events are 30 a year you know you've you've done all of that type of stuff obviously you've got stadium naming rights to sell but but generally our revenue is sort of getting capped unless we can become a sort of very consistent champions league participant who is successful on the football pitch nothing grows revenues like becoming a successful football team that wins trophies and is in the champions league every year you know you look at i don't know Liverpool, for example, my season ticket is twice the cost probably of the average Liverpool season ticket.

23:25But their revenue is higher than ours because they're in the Champions League every year and they're able to negotiate huge commercial deals. Same with Chelsea and the same, although their revenue is lower. But the reason why it's not as low as it should be is because of that. and Man City. So perhaps they realise, right, this is now the time that we need to invest some money to make sure that we can actually compete on all four fronts. And that's almost the next step of getting us from three and a half, four billion pound company to a five billion plus company is by doing that. So I don't think they've suddenly decided, oh, do you know what?

24:01The winning Bilbao was so magical and we want more of that. And we're huge Spurs fans. I think I'm a bit more cynical. I think it's probably they've realised, okay this is the time we need to put in a bit more money to make some more money at some point it's it's just it's all interesting it is one of those situations isn't it where i would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see just how a lot of these things because it really does feel like to be honest it really does feel like levy's been done over in all of this um to me at least from the outside and maybe that's because my you know i'm a big fan of like films and TV and stuff.

24:37So you want to think that real life is as exciting as that, but half the time it's not. It's just people signing bits of paper and handshakes and people leaving rooms and stuff. I guess one of the important things is there is going to be a lot of talk. We've already touched on it about transfers, about the way the club is going to operate. I'm already seeing Adam Wharton in a Spurs shirt and all that type of stuff, right? But with this, like, what's the relationship with this£100 million equity that's coming into the club? So let's say£197 million now, if we're sort of talking accumulatively. And FFP, does this give us additional freedom with FFP?

25:22We always hear about Chelsea, the way they kind of inject money into the club in a sort of, you know, I don't know, they cook the books, isn't it? That's what people always say of Chelsea, by having some company that they part own injecting money into the club and that type of thing. How is that working with Spurs? And is this going to give us any FFP freedom? How are Spurs looking on that front right now, I guess? Yeah, I mean, in terms of FFP, Tottenham couldn't be in a stronger position. So particularly for the Premier League PSR rules, we've got huge amounts of headroom. and for even the UEFA rules, which is slightly more stringent around sort of UEFA squad cost ratios, where basically you can spend 70 % of your revenue and player sales on wages and amortization.

26:14We couldn't be in a stronger position, to be honest, comparatively. Now, the problem for Tottenham has always been of having owners that have the ambition to match that and having the cash available to match that. So on the face of it, if what the Lewis family are trying to imply to people through this recent PR exercise and obviously with this£100 million cash injection being talked about as being the initial injection, which was one of the other positives I actually saw from it, you know, the headline was initial injection of£100 million, which implies to me, hopefully there's more to come. um i think those two things hopefully will put us in really good stead because actually we have got absolutely no concerns from a financial fair play perspective what this does allow us and now gives us a bit of extra cash to play with um and hopefully shows a bit more ambition so um i think i think that's definitely positive for for listeners to think about um i see a lot of people talking online about okay 100 million um does that now mean we can spend £500 million on transfers because of the fact that you have to amortise the sort of transfer spend over the length of someone's contract.

27:29So, for example, when we signed Kudus, say£55 million, he's on a five-year contract. In our accounts, we would recognise a profit and loss charge of£11 million a year, right? But I think what listeners have to be aware of, there's two different things at stake here so that's amortization which is about the way that you recognize costs in your profit and loss and then separately you have payment terms as to how much cash you pay at a certain time now those two things don't typically match so for example on the Cuda still I think it was reported that we would pay them in free installments so you know 20 million 20 million 15 million that's more what you typically see so but what that does mean is although they haven't quite got the argument right on Twitter this 100 million say we were going to go after Semenyo in January and the price was 100 million just for argument's sake we wouldn't likely be giving them 100 million pound in cash in January it would be structured over a number of years and so you know back to my earlier point that's the reason why I say that this 100 million really is just to create sort of flexible capital that can be used for a number of things including paying those new cash amounts on new sign-ins as well as paying off some of the old signings of paying off you know the likes of Kudus and Simmons and probably even further back to Solanke and some of those players and then obviously property as well so you know we can't say right now what it's going to be used for but what I would say to listeners the reason to be positive it's a hundred million pound we've now got in the club that we didn't have you know two days ago so that's definitely positive the one other thing I would mention Jack just in addition to this and some of your listeners will have seen this, at the end of August we did take out a loan facility with Macquarie Bank which was basically to lend from Macquarie Bank against future Premier League revenues.

29:26So again this was a way of basically getting some more cash up front so you basically say Macquarie you give us some cash now and when our Premier League revenues come in at the end of the season we'll pay you back. Really standard practice for football clubs and is sort of to help manage short-term cash flow. So those two things together, that which is probably worth something like 90 to 100 million, maybe a little bit more, depending on how much they decide to draw down, plus this 100 million has given us a lot more flexibility in terms of our cash flow. I mean, if we look at sort of like two of the clubs that we are perhaps in direct competition with now, whether people like it or not, Villa and Newcastle, for example, two teams that have sort of crept up on us, have got owners that are willing to chuck a lot of money into the mix.

30:14I mean, Newcastle's a pretty outlandish example unto itself, really, considering their owners got unlimited money, really. But the way in which Spurs are... This situation, right, the way we're managing it as a business, where does that put us in relation to, say, clubs like Villa and Newcastle? Does this give us a footing, some sort of superiority, a foothold for us to push on for the club, say, that we're competing above against them? I'm probably not making my point very clearly, but I'm really trying to understand how this gets things moving for Spurs, how this separates us from, say, the teams that are around us.

31:01I mean, I often see kind of in my sort of, again, my understanding of things that we are very similar financially to a club like Arsenal, yet they seem to always spend a hell of a lot more money than us on both transfers and on wages. I guess I'm just trying to sort of see how this changes things to Spurs how this changes our position against like those teams I've mentioned who are around us who we're sort of competing with directly right now Yeah, yeah, no I get your question so I think if you start with Arsenal I think that's right and that's the example I often use when I have been critical of um enoch and levy in the past because one it's a nice it's a nice reference point to use because it's emotional for all of us because obviously we we we hate them um but also actually you know they don't have that sort of chelsea man city thing of you know having owners that have pumped in unsold money and cheated you know they've built fairly sustainably in a similar way to us they're also based in north london ticket prices and you know there's a lot of similarities as you say revenue has been broadly similar over the last five to ten years um and and they've they've operated in a different way particularly on wages which is um you know really drove that difference that you speak about uh and and you know what i would say as well is the cronkeys actually since arteta was appointed they've put in 337 million pounds of their own money uh into arsenal to get them to compete again so you know this is what i've always been crying out for and hopefully this 100 million is to start now i think with with so i think the reason why we did that in a similar way to arsenal to be honest was because of relative ambition of the owners i think um the cronkeys realized once they appointed arteta and i think particularly once josh cronkey came onto the board that they needed to operate a different way perhaps to how they had in the past and their owners decided to pump some money in and obviously have had a clear strategy and as you say spend significant amounts of money to get them competing again um whereas i think in the past topnum's ownership has not had that same ambition um so hopefully this is a sign that things are changing and then on newcastle and villa newcastle and villa have ambitious owners but unfortunately for them um you know their ambitious owners have taken those clubs over in a world where we have proper financial fair play rules unlike when abramovich did it or shake man's or did it in man city and so you know they're pumping in money but they are limited as to what they can spend on transfers and wages because those rules are now in place we don't have those same limits because our revenues are already at a level that allows us to spend huge amounts you know if you um if you compare our revenue to say an aston villa don't have the numbers in front of me but it would be you know many you know multiple of so it's much much more significant and so um i would guess it would be something like double right so you know um until newcastle villa can get to the stage where they sustainably built revenues to that sort of level they are they are going to be restricting in terms of what they can they can do unfortunately so that so this is why i've always made the argument you know unfortunately it doesn't look like it's going to happen but i wanted that full takeover by those those sort of ambitious owners that have that unfettered ambition to win because we've got everything else in place now we've got the infrastructure we've got the huge headroom uh we just needed someone that wanted to put in some cash and actually win um so we'll see if that ends up being the lewis family but uh i think uh we're all a little bit cynical still i recently got back from a holiday in bleck in turquia it was brilliant, but I did spend it looking longingly at the golf courses in the area.

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36:24Take Messi, the most decorated player ever. Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracell. Is there any other battery with power boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracell. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different and Messi only trusts Duracell. Yeah, that's interesting. I guess that's kind of where I wanted to take this is looking forwards. As somebody that has obviously been very critical of the Enoch model of Levy, um i guess like what what your sort of look to the future was is this something we should be excited about or really is it just a kind of bit of housekeeping because that's that's kind of what it sounds like like you know it's obviously the big headline is 100 million pounds and as i say you're already spending it you're in a football manager fifa way but But it sounds like you say more like we're kind of just going through processes as opposed to doing something that is that significant or exciting, dare I say?

37:37Or maybe I've got a wrong read on it. No, no. I think fans are well within their rights to be sceptical because we've had 24 years of this. I think if this was a brand new owner and then on day one they went, we're going to inject£100 million straight away and this is the initial one most fans would be pretty excited about that but I think because we've had that sort of 24-25 years of experience obviously we've all lived through that and we're rightly sceptical but you know I would say I'm cautiously optimistic because and I say that with you know why would you go through the bother of out in Daniel Levy rejecting expressions of interest reinvigorating all of the sort of corporate structure of the football club if you weren't finally going to have a go in a different way to perhaps you have in the past.

38:35Now that might end up being naive but certainly all of those things imply that they are going to perhaps operate in a slightly different way as they have in the past. I mean I put a tweet up I don't know if you saw it but I said, you know, Enoch have injected more since December 2024, so in the last 10 months, than they did in the preceding 24 years. And so... I mean, that is mental. That is mental. It is. It is. So that does signal there is a little bit of a fee change. Now, it's worth, you know, bringing that back a little bit because, you know, the total they've injected in that 25 years is only 257 million, which compared to, you know, Fulham's owners have put in 860 million in the last 11 years.