By Richard Watts
April 20 2007

The tremendous work done by Stewart Regan and his team on the playing side this Winter has been well documented, but probably even more momentous is the transformation in Yorkshire’s Financial performance. To turn round a 2005 deficit of £1.1 million into a £276,000 profit in 2006, is some achievement, in fact any Chairman of a FTSE company would be delighted with that transformation.

A quick glance at the figures will inevitably draw the comment “well that was bound to happen there was a Test Match in 2006 and not in 2005”. While the Test Match Revenue is a massive help there is much more to the improved Financial Performance than just that.

Increased subscriptions and a 39% increase in Ground Admission have helped to improve the years results but another major factor is the vast improvement showed by the Commercial side which generated additional revenue of £1.1 million.

Considering that a few years ago the club must have been on the brink of bankruptcy, for me the major achievement is the relative strength of the Balance Sheet (the club’s asset base). The ground acquisition is key to this, it also has the spin offs that development can only enhance Test status and it allows further Commercial opportunities. The way the borrowing has been structured also gives the club a strong element of stability, the interest rates that were negotiated are also very competitive and means that the debt is relatively cheap. Any business needs this to be able to move forward and ultimately the re-structuring that was put in place should ensure that the club cannot return to the dark financial days of a few years ago.

You need cash to run a successful club and Yorkshire are generating cash.

Things are going well on and off the field.