DETAILED: Portsmouth owners outline where £9m has been spent after equity investment
Pompey’s owners have detailed where their £9m cash injection has been spent.
And director Andy Redman has rubbished suggestions news of their latest Blues financial commitment was released to coincide with their recent visit to England.
News last week emerged via Companies House that Tornante had sunk new shares into the club - in the shape of equity rather than loans. The £9m commitment takes the total from chairman Michael Eisner to £28m, since buying Pompey for £5.67m in 2017.
Tornante president Redman explained that was to cover work being carried out at the club, such as the current Milton End redevelopment. Redman was adamant there was no ulterior motives to the news emerging, as they made a whistlestop visit to England last weekend.
He said: ‘We’re not making those filings because we want to get a statement out in Portsmouth, we’re making those filings because they are required steps by your regulators. From a Tornante perspective, we’d probably be more private were it allowed, but that’s not allowed here - so that’s why your saw that file. As a technical matter it was news last week, as a real fact it’s not news last week. It has no timing element to it or is something we’re doing, it’s a recognition of money which has been and is going in.
‘The way your Companies House works, there are filings, so I don’t want people to read something bigger into it than there is. If you’ve been seeing the development of the Milton End, you’ve in fact been seeing some of that money spent. There’s not some of other shoe to drop which is news related, it just happened to be when it went in.'
Pompey are set to release their latest accounts in the coming days, with the expectation that will cover losses accrued through the Covid pandemic. Redman explained the latest equity commitment is also made with that period in mind.
He added: ‘The club are trying to operate on a long-term basis sustainably, but when you think about the Covid period it was massively unsustainable. You had all those payments going out from the club, no ticket or merchandise revenue coming in or anything like that.
‘That said, as your’re investing, you have to recognise it appropriately at Companies House. If you’re financially minded and interested, you’ll see those happen over the years at Companies House. But, from an ownership standpoint, we’re not timing them to send a message, we’re sending filings in at the appropriate time.’