http://www.thevisitor.co.uk/morecambe-news/30m-profit-made-from-leisure.3567182.jp

Interesting to see that somebody made £30 million profit in just 17 months.

To quote Graham Hodgson - "it is a credit to the hard work of our staff and the board that this company has gone from strength to strength since June 2006. It just shows what progress can be made with the right people and the right investment."

Well I just hope the staff are just as delighted as Graham and the other directors of SLP. Now I may be wrong on this, but my understanding is that Graham and the other directors completed a Management Buy Out (MBO) from John Morphitt, and this MBO was financed by Legal and General Ventures. 17 months and £30 million later, these directors "exchange contracts" with the new owners. Now I assume Legal and General Ventures will have got their return on the investment, but I also would guess that the directors have also made a tidy sum from all of this. Exactly how much I doubt we will ever know.

Now call me cynical, but it seems more than coincidence that we have had 17 months of declining service, excessive increases in fees, rates and other charges, reducing staff numbers (and therefore salary costs), rock bottom wages for the staff that remain and virtually no investment in the infrastructure (except for the new fence at Fallbarrow and the new pool at Regent which has resulted in a 17% increase in fees).

Hey presto, somebody has made £30 million on the backs of the SLP staff and us mug owners.

And finally, there was a £20 million special dividend reported in the last set of published accounts. Now I wonder where that has gone, the accounts don't say. Any guesses?

Kevin