A blue chip investment firm from the City of London has increased its stake in Celtic to 18.45% and the Westminster based firm Lindsell Train has emerged as the second biggest shareholder in the club, behind only the Irish billionaire Dermot Desmond.
The new investment was made on 27 February and was confirmed this morning by the London Stock Exchange – see HERE
And while you are looking at that link have a look at the Key Fundamentals chart. For Revenues in the two years prior to Rodgers arriving at Celtic the club’s revenues were £51.08million to 30 June 2015 followed by £52.01 in the year to 30 June 2016.
The next two years saw a dramatic increase in Celtic’s revenue with the figures to 30 June 2017 reaching £90.64million and in the following year to 30 June 2018 that increased to £101.57million.
So in Ronny Deila’s two years in charge Celtic turned over £103.09million
Covering the two full seasons that Rodgers completed, Celtic’s turnover increased to £192.21million.
That’s an increase of £89.12million and what happens next in terms of selecting the manager and backing him will determine whether Celtic will remain on this upward path or return to the lower levels that were all we could muster when Deila was the manager.
So what are Lindsell Train doing building up their stake in Celtic? It wa founded by and is run by Nick Train and Michael Lindsell in 2000 and they been investing in the Hoops for almost 12 years, continually building up their stake. They also have shares in Juventus and see Celtic as being attractive because the Scottish Champions could dramatically increase its revenues if key structural media events happen and/of there is movement on new league structures throughout European football.
The Lindsell Train website outlines their goals.
“Running client capital as we would our own. Our primary aim is to protect the real value of our clients’ capital over the long term. In so doing, we expect to outperform market benchmarks.”
Note that they are interested in long term investments.So why Celtic? Well when speaking to trust net.com last year Lindsell outlined his vision and the reason why Celtic is attractive to his firm.
“There is a diaspora of potential Celtic supporters from Scottish Catholics around the world that follow the club vicariously,” Lindsell said.
“If ever Celtic were to tap into that supporter base more, or could morph their media rights from just the Scottish Premiership into something bigger, then the revenues of the company could double or triple very quickly.
“So nothing much is going to change with Celtic in terms of the revenues it earns today if it doesn’t change its league structure – and there are no prospects of it doing so as far as I can see.
“But I wouldn’t be surprised if the agenda from the owners over the very long term is to get things changed.
“If that was ever a likely event the value of the franchise would be enormous.”
