Rowe targets new investment as Exeter post £10.3m loss

Exeter chief executive Tony Rowe hopes a new investor will be in place this year after the company that controls the Chiefs posted more than £10m in losses.

Exeter Rugby Group made an after-tax loss of £10.3m last season as the Chiefs finished a club-worst ninth in the top flight.

The company, which is also responsible for the conferencing business at Sandy Park, was forced to write off a loan of £6.2m, which contributed significantly to the losses.

The loan was associated with the hotel on the Sandy Park site that Rowe bought off the club in December 2022 to help repay some of the club’s Covid-19 related debts – Exeter still owes a number of loans taken out during the pandemic when rugby matches were played behind closed doors.

Without the loan write-off Exeter’s pre-tax losses were just over £3m, a rise of more than £2.5m on the previous year.

Turnover dropped by around £1.5m while wages across the group went up by £1.4m.

While Sandy Park’s income through conferences and events was steady from the previous year at just over £2.5m, the rugby side of the business saw income drop by more than £1.5m as poor results on the field caused a fall in crowd numbers.

“I have no doubt that within the next two to three years you will find us back right at the top knocking on the door for Twickenham and wherever the European Championship final will be,” Rowe told BBC Radio Devon.

Rowe is hopeful a proposed new franchise model for English rugby’s top flight will increase interest in investing in the rugby club.

The 77-year-old businessman has been at the helm at Sandy Park since 1998 and financing, thanks in part to his business success, has helped Exeter rise from the lower leagues to the pinnacle of the domestic game.

The club moved to Sandy Park in 2006 and subsequently expanded the stadium as the Chiefs won two Premiership titles and lifted the 2020 European Champions Cup.

But having sold many of his other business interests, Rowe says it is time for someone else to take up the reins.

“I’ve enjoyed my 30 years running the club and doing what I’ve done, and I made no bones about it, I used the the association with Exeter Chiefs to promote my businesses and that’s how I could afford to put the money into the club,” Rowe said,

“But we’re at a stage now where we’ve got to move on, the club’s got to move on, we’re looking for an investor.

“If I was 20, 30 years younger and offered the opportunity I’d jump at it.

“It will need a bit of money over the next two or three years until we get to franchise, which is likely to be probably be in the next four years, it’s going to still need financially supporting.

“I’m talking to people and we’ve got a a London company that’s dealing with it for us.