Jockey Club Racecourses Limited
Strategic report (continued)
Approach to engagement with stakeholders
• Jockey Club Racecourses Limited is able to take a long term view and this approach is reflected also in the engagement with the various stakeholders expected to be impacted by the Board's decisions. As part of this, the Board maintains an ethos ofbeing held to the highest possible standards of corporate conduct. • The Board is in regular communication with all key racing stakeholders (e.g. RCA, BHA, The Horsemen's Group) to gauge potential views and reactions to important decisions made that impact across the industry. The company also engages with a range of stakeholders, including, but not limited to, employees, sponsors, residents in areas where our racecourses operate, suppliers, media and commercial partners.
Approach to engagement with stakeholders (continued)
• The Board engages with all of the above stakeholders either directly or through the company's various management teams, at formal industry and other events, on racedays at our racecourses and elsewhere and through various industry forums. • There are Employee Days, Town Hall' sessions and team meetings across the company which inform, celebrate success and allow employees to voice any suggestions or challenges they may have. In addition, we have entered into a partnership with Culture Amp, the market leading Engagement Platform, enabling us to regularly measure our colleague engagement and take action on the results. We have also set up a Business Involvement Group, with representatives from all areas of the business, focusing on two way communication and collaboration. The Board and management also engage regularly with suppliers, media partners and sponsors, as well as taking feedback from customers. In addition, the Board and management foster strong relationships across all our locations with both Local Authorities, including individual councillors, and the local community in general via trade bodies, community groups and other relevant forums. We do this with a passionate commitment to ensure that racing is truly a sport for everyone.
Key Board Decisions
During the year, the Board made a number of key decisions which are considered to be in the interests of the overall success of the company and the wider sport. These decisions have impacts on certain stakeholder groups that have, to the extent considered appropriate by the Board, been reflected in the decision making process.
Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS)facility
To help mitigate the uncertainty of our short to medium term cash flows which were impacted by the COVID-19 global pandemic, in May 2021, the company obtained a £20m Coronavirus Large Business Interruption Loan Scheme (CLBILS) facility from its existing banking syndicate. This facility is available until 28 May 2024 at which point it will need to be fully repaid. Although our base-case forecast net debt levels indicated that this facility was not required and it put an additional interest cost onto the business, it was decided that it was the prudent action to take in order to mitigate the cash flow risks resulting from the significant uncertainty created by the potential impact of the pandemic on our ability to stage horseracing and other events.
Media rights contract extension
In June 2021, the company extended its contract to licence its media rights to Racecourse Media Group (RMG) until 2028. RMG is owned by The Jockey Club and 20 other racecourses. This enables us to benefit from the scale yielded by the aggregation of our rights without a 3rd party broadcaster taking a margin, and therefore 100% of the profits generated by RMG goes directly to the racecourses. RMG has delivered consistently strong growth in media rights income over a sustained period, taking advantage of and adapting to ongoing changes in the marketplace since its inception in 2004. The long-term nature of the contract reflects the requirement for RMG to have long-term stability to be able to negotiate with key betting customers and terrestrial broadcasters for significant multi-year contracts, and to give the RMG business longer term certainty for key production, hiring and other long term investment decisions.
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