Empowering people to report crimes and improve public safety… THE HORROR

They have historically acquired contracts at a far higher rate than selling any. It is a net cash outflow every year for the past 5 years.

No, the last 3 years in a row have all been loss making

It does account for that because their sale of contracts is netted against acquired contract costs in that amort figure

The way this is accounted for in the profit and loss statements (which this maps out) smoothes our those year to year fluctuations. Acquiring contracts / transfers are treated as asset acquisitions and so the full cost is not booked to the P&L but to the balance sheet as an asset. Then that cost is booked as expense in the P&L statements over the life of the contract. So if you buy a 5 year contract for 100m, then you don’t book 100m immediately as expense but you amortize 20m per year over 5 years. That is the bulk of that depreciation and amortization line in this mapping of expenses. They buy players year over year consistently so it isn’t a one-time event but a recurring cost of operating a top tier football club.

They have it in their financial statements. They have 115m of player acquisitions netted against 30m of player sales this year for a net outflow of 85m in FY22. 138m netted against 46m for a new outflow of 113m in FY21. They do this every year, it’s effectively an operating expense which is what that amort line is meant to represent. But people with amateur understanding of accounting think that amort is a tax aberration - it isn’t, it represents the expensing methodology for real material cash outflows the business has very recently spent cash on.

It’s not doing that, it’s a football club. They don’t have any capital equipment of note to invest in, they are not a manufacturing business. Their only property is their stadium, which is a fraction of their spending (8m in FY2022) compared to their acquisition of contracts and intangibles spend (115m in FY2022). The amort is real business expense that gets consumed once the player’s contract expires. The team is a money pit.

You have a very loose understanding of the accounting concepts here. They are cash flow negative, this isn’t just amortization coming off some long held or stepped up intangible. Their amort is the expensing of acquired player contracts, which they have to pay actual cash for, so it isn’t just a tax shield they’ve fabricated. If you look on a cash basis (eg swap out D&A for Capex and acquisition of intangibles) the business is still CF negative.

They are not cash flow positive, they’ve needed to take out debt to fund the business nearly every year.

The other years look like this.

No they’re not. If you swap D&A (which is an accounting concept and non-cash expense) for their Capex and acquisition of intangible assets (which is the annual cash outflow) they’re still running at a loss. That D&A line primarily consists of the amortized value of acquired contracts, which is to say there were recent cash outflows tied to that and it isn’t just an accounting / tax avoidance concept.

Lol some people in this city will find a reason to complain about anything

This must have been made by someone completely oblivious to the concept of correlation vs causation or multiple regression analysis.

Yep. You can’t afford to live in New York and pay down law school debt if you are making $85k working for legal aid. What you’re left with is people who truly feel a compelling draw to the job (which many do!) and the financial means to take it on (usually financial support from family or spouse), and the dumbest attorneys incapable of getting a job paying any better.

Well I’m glad there’s still at least come accountability left in our city