'West Ham's Move Has Left The Club £12m Better Off Per Season'

The Hammers’ board have slashed the interest rate on loans after fan protests

- Sean Whetstone

Since my last piece on West Ham’s finances, there have been a number of developments and updates about our club. 

Arguably one of the biggest saw David Gold and David Sullivan cut the amount of interest they charge on shareholder loans from an average of between six and seven per cent to four per cent.

There is an outstanding balance of £45m of shareholder loans which date back to 2011.

A senior source me: ‘At the new rate of four per cent, the shareholders charge the lowest amount they thought HMRC would accept as a commercial rate. They felt, due to drop in base rate that four per cent was acceptable. Our third party overdraft loan is a much higher rate of six and a half per cent plus a 0.5 per cent annual facility fee.’

The shareholder loans of £45m plus interest are due to be paid back in January 2020 while the £50m credit facility from Media rights and Funding is due to be paid back at the end of this season.

West Ham have drawn down £25m of the credit facility so far attracting the six and a half per cent interest from the time it was received while 0.5 per cent is charged on the full £50m available to them.

Board critics will point to previous statements that the owners said they would never draw a salary from the club and to be fair to them technically they haven’t.

The owners would probably say themselves that they could have earned far more in nine years if they had invested their money in property and again they would probably be right about that too.