Racing Post – Overdue on filing accounts

[wit]

As of tonight, Companies House is showing that CenturyComm Ltd is overdue by 6 weeks in filing its first financial statements under the new ownership regime.

This despite having secured itself an extra 3 months filing time in late October 2008 by shortening its accounting reference period from 31-12-07 to 30-09-07 (and thereby also ending that accounting period the day before the financial assistance declarations were made on the acquisition).

Is everything OK at Canary Wharf ?

best regards

wit

[Anonymous]

Let’s hope not, Wit, as the current shower have yet to show capable of running a whelk stall.
5 months (and 3 customer surveys) on, and still can’t produce a simple and intelligible racecard.

[wit]

In general terms its rarely good news when an accounts filing date is missed, and even less so if it happens after a three-month extension.

Generally in such circumstances thoughts can cross the mind whether issues might have arisen with auditor sign-off in some way, or whether of itself missing such a filing deadline might have breached some covenant given to a lender.

Or it could just be that the filings were sent on time and got lost in the post.

These are some of the many generic possibilities.

Let me make clear that I have no idea what may or may not be going on specifically as regards the RP and make no speculation much less any allegation in relation to it.

I’m just noting and asking, since it seems unusual for a company in the business of publishing information to appear to have missed its own information publication date by such a margin – which if in fact was the case would expose it to late filing penalties and its directors to criminal fines.

best regards

wit

[wit]

hi reet

There seems to have been an interesting incident around the financing of the acquisition.

Not unusually, the buyers appear to have borrowed to fund their purchase of the RP.

Also not unusually, they appear to have given to their lender (Anglo Irish Bank) security over the assets of the RP.

Included among the assets listed in October 2007 as charged by the buyers to the lender was an item “the EC registered trademark “Racing Post” (no 000236737)“.

Then in a filing of January 2008, this item is described as released from the charge.

So the trademark of the RP name apparently was mortgaged by Centurycomm to the bank and then quite quickly released by the bank from that mortgage.

The thing is that Trademark Registry show that trademark as always having been owned by a company named Wayhazel Nominees Ltd, whose shareholders also own for example the Darley Stud company.

Given that its hardly a secret that Sh Mo retained the rights to the RP name – and indeed ensured that various charities benefited to the tune of several millions as part of the transfer of the publishing business – one does wonder about those filings. Hopefully nobody was confused about what they were getting for what they were handing over.

best regards

wit

[Drone]

It seems unlikely that the health of the RP balance sheet would be wholly dependent on the revenue generated from the proposed ‘Members Club’ subscription to the new website. But if they had put a large proportion of their eggs into that basket then given that Cheltenham’s Paddy Power meeting in November was rumoured to be the original planned date for charging, and then following the teething troubles with the site, New Year, and we’re now approaching April with a still-free site, then there

may be

cashflow problems. Perhaps compounded by a fall-off in hard copy sales of the RP during this recession.

[sberry]

I would guess their circulation figures are showing steady decline due to the increasing take up of broadband across the country, the reducing cost of broadband and the fact one does not have to spend £40 or so each month on the paper when you can get it online for nothing if you have an internet connection.

I hadn’t thought of it but effect of the economic downturn on racing may not be seen impacting first on racecourse(s) closing, it could be the RP?

[Glenn]

Failing to file accounts on time is a mildly worrying sign.

Much more disturbing are reports that the editor can no longer get what he wants on with the bookies!

What do they know?

[Author]

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