Background
Bray Wanderers are set up like most clubs and are run by a limited company rather than a co-op. The club joined the league in 1985 and have used the same trading company in all that time, "Bray Wanderers Limited" number 108824. Bray Wanderers play at the Carlisle grounds which they lease from Bray Urban District Council on a 35 year lease starting in 2001. https://www.independent.ie/regionals/braypeople/news/grounds-subject-to-35year-sports-lease-31377014.html In these 3 seasons Bray Wanderers finished 10th/8th and 6th respectively in the premier division with another 6th place finish in 2017.
Ownership
I am including a special section here as unlike most clubs it is less obvious as to the ownership of the club. Bray have issued share capital of €817,431 with 817,431 €1 ordinary shares having being issued. Most of these shares were issued between 2004 and 2006 when the club raised circa €760k in issuing shares to owners. Most of these went to fund losses in those years with the club losing circa (€450k) in 3 years between 2004 and 2006.
Even before recent difficulties the club has always relied on the support of benefactors and over 2012/13 circa (€600k) of loans to shareholders were written off by these shareholders which significantly improved the balance sheet position at that time.
There have been lots of share transfers since then but at August'17 circa 757k of the shares were owned by Milway Dawn Limited (561046) a company controlled by Gerry Mulvey with 80% ownership and Denis O'Connor with 20% ownership. The remaining shares were owned by Pat Devlin 40k, John Deering 18.5K and John O'Brien 1.5k. So in reality and as noted in the 2016 Bray Wanderers accounts, Milway Dawn were the parent company of the club and ultimate owner.
Another company set up at a similar time was Unknowns football club limited (554661) which was set up in December'14 by Denis O'Connor but was dissolved in Oct'17 and it never filed accounts over the years it was active.
Milway Dawn were only set up in April'15 and have not filed any accounts or returns with the CRO except for the period to April'16. As a result it is very hard to discuss this entity and the CRO has them listed for strike off due to being overdue by 12 months and more with their submissions.
I would caveat all the above with that the recent acquisition of the club in recent months, the ownership will again have changed but I don't yet have visibility of this but should in due course. https://www.rte.ie/sport/soccer/2018/0726/981290-bray-wanderers-unveil-new-chairman/
Profit & Loss
The P&L for 2017 will be due in the coming weeks and I will update this then. The auditors/directors for the company release very little detail in the accounts with no related party notes included in the 2016 accounts. This note is usually where you would note exceptional investment from an owner as in the case at Limerick/Derry or Pats.
In the 3 years under review, Bray appear to have only lost circa (€78k) with a big profit of +€142k in the 2016 year. This is the year that Milway Dawn came about but as they haven't filed accounts its hard to understand how much they put into Bray in that year and thus how much they may have lost as a result. I would be surprised that Bray would make such a profit in that season from "normal" trading given their league position and losses in the previous 2 seasons but I doubt I will ever be able to confirm same.
In the 2015 accounts there is a note that "Unknowns Football club limited" paid Bray circa €54k for shirt sponsorship and a concession to operate a mobile food stand in the ground. This would have helped the 2015 accounts from a profit point of view.
The one thing of note in the accounts was that payroll increased from (€184k) in 2015 to (€356k) in 2016 an almost doubling of this cost and the club started making big profits.
This was the start of Bray Wanderers increasing the playing budget which they did further in 2017 but as most reading this know it did not end well with the club having difficulties paying players in 2017 https://www.irishexaminer.com/sport/soccer/bray-chairman-not-confident-as-players-told-they-can-go-453953.html although it was reported that all wages for 2017 were ultimately paid.
Balance Sheet
The Balance sheet of the club at Nov'16 is in a reasonably healthy position with net debts of circa (€176k). They also have a fixed asset of circa €257k which relates to the carrying value of the improvements the club made to the grounds over the years mainly between 2006 and 2008.
Summary
There were 2 difficulties looking at Bray, firstly even by LOI standards they disclose very little information and I think some important notes to accounts like related parties are missing. That makes it very hard to discuss either the true P&L or what monies are owed to who. Secondly the change in shareholders and number of companies involved also make it hard to follow, especially given that 2 of the companies are not submitting returns over those years.
Overall we all know that the club has had significant financial difficulties in 2017 and 2018 and ultimately the club have new owners in the form of Niall O'Driscoll. Hopefully under his tenure the club will stabilise as looking at the accounts for the last 3 years and also make to the 2000's the club has been surviving off the generosity of various shareholders in taking up new shares and writing off debts for a long time now. Bray Wanderers as a club have been trading on an unsustainable basis for a long time.
Bray Wanderers are a good example of when a benefactor runs out of cash for whatever reason. It is very hard to be sustainable and competitive in the league and harder to bridge the gap between the teams in Europe and the teams out of Europe. Bray tried this in 2017 and on the pitch were doing well unless funds became an issue. Limerick are another example where the chairman has invested a lot but funds are again drying up. The result in 2018 is that both of these teams are in the bottom 2.
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