ACC LIVERPOOL, the operator of the Echo Arena and BT Convention Centre, lost £106,000 during the city’s Capital of Culture year.
Accounts just filed at Companies House show the company’s pre-tax loss in the year to March 2009 was a marked change from the unaudited £16,000 pre-tax profit it trumpeted last August.
ACC Liverpool chief executive Bob Prattey put the net £122,000 negative swing down to “a series of small adjustments” by the auditors, which he said was small compared with ACC’s £12.3m turnover.
Mr Prattey said: “The additional accruals of expenditure were things we found ourselves during the period between producing unaudited and audited accounts.
“It’s quite normal to get some minor adjustments.” Speaking when the unaudited figures showed a small profit, Mr Prattey said: “Our original business plan showed a profit in the first year, because of the effect of Capital of Culture, and then a deficit in year two, reflecting a normal business pattern for a new enterprise of this kind.”
However, yesterday he said: “The business plan that [the report] referred to goes way back prior to opening. What we do, we have a five-year rolling business plan, from that we convert it into each individual year.
“We were looking at an overall profit for that year. We didn’t make that, largely because although Capital of Culture year came through as well as we thought, we hadn’t anticipated the effect of the recession, which hit other parts of our business, especially the convention centre.”
The recession resulted in ACC putting a greater focus on conferences for associations rather than companies.
Mr Prattey said that association conferences, such as British Council of Shopping Centres and the British Orthopaedic Association, have more of an impact on the city because they tend to be longer, and so have a bigger effect on spending in hotels and restaurants. The annual impact of ACC Liverpool on the city’s economy is estimated at £200m.
He added that they are starting to see “green shoots” from the corporate sector.
“Cumulatively, even with the small loss for 2008-09, we are still ahead of the five-year plan.
“We are looking at a marginal increase in turnover – we will be north of the £12m figure. We are forecasting a small profit figure.”
ACC Liverpool is owned by Liverpool City Council, which fills four of the five directors’ positions alongside Mr Prattey. The directors are Liverpool city council chief executive Colin Hilton, council leader Cllr Warren Bradley, Lord Mayor Cllr Mike Storey and city treasurer Robert Corbett.
