Collapsed Belle Vue Aces owner blasted for lack of transparency

A damning report on the collapse of the Belle Vue Speedway club – former owner of the Belle Vue Aces – will be presented to Manchester City Council’s executive meeting today (Wednesday, March 8).

Owner, the Belle Vue Speedway Group of Companies, including BV Arena Ltd and Belle Vue Speedway Ltd which occupied the council-owned £8m National Speedway Arena at Gorton following 10 years of strategic management, suffered an “absence of any commercial management competencies” leading to voluntary liquidation in October, 2016, councillors will be told.

“Their performance in managing the speedway business means that any reliable analysis of business performance has been rendered impossible,” the internal city council report says.

In particular, the company comes under fire for “not being open and transparent” in its failure to inform the city council of the withdrawal of £500,000 of private equity funding and the simultaneous replacement of cash with an investment of £600,000 from another source.

The report says: “In addition to not informing the city council about the loss of the original investment the failure of the owners of the Belle Vue Group of Companies to replace the loss of the commercial expertise which the original investors added at the outset magnified the challenges which the owners faced to deliver the original business plan outcomes in their first season in the new stadium.”

However, as a result of the British Speedway Promoters Association’s commitment to work closely with the council, a new franchise has now been granted to new owners which offers a realistic prospect of a successful future for Belle Vue Aces Speedway team.

The report says that over the next 12 months the intention will be to work with new franchise owners and produce a business plan which, subject to satisfying the council, will determine its “most productive operational management arrangements”.

“The work that will be undertaken with Belle Vue Speedway 2017 Ltd will be determine a reliable financial and operating base not only for the stadium but Belle Vue Aces Speedway team too,” it says.

“This work is required to create a stable financial base from which future plans can be determined with confidence. As part of this review the previous agreed £350,000 per annum rent will be tested.”

The report recommends the city treasurer write off bad debts of £224,000 in the event they are not recoverable from the liquidator, UHY Hacker Young.

It also suggests the approval of capital expenditure of £438,000 form the capital fund – £209,000 for the acquisition of plant, machinery and IT equipment previously acquired by the Belle Vue Group of Companies and held by the liquidator and finance companies, and £229,000 to deliver investment into the South Stand of theSpeedway Stadium.

It goes on: “It should be noted that a proportion of the £209,000 asset acquisition costs will be recoverable from Belle Vue Speedway 2017 Ltd should the parties enter into a long term lease arrangement for the stadium.”