St Johnstone are aiming to turn around their fortunes on the pitch.
But the latest annual accounts have revealed they have already turned them around off it.
The Perth club posted a £110,000 PROFIT for the financial year ending May 31, 2024.
That follows an operating LOSS of £2.1 million over the previous 12 months.
Stan Harris was brought back to Saints by then owner, Geoff Brown, to sort the McDiarmid Park finances out.
He stepped away again following the sale to Adam Webb and other American investors, leaving the club in rude financial health.
As well as posting a profit, the accounts reveal that £2.8 million cash reserves have been passed on by Brown.
In his report to the shareholders, Harris said: “Unlike many of our contemporaries, we hand over a club to Adam Webb that carries in excellent health with strong cash reserves and ready to face a 16th consecutive season in the SPFL.
“We all owe Geoff and latterly Steve (Brown) a huge debt of gratitude for showing Scottish football that it can be done.
“We are delighted that Adam and his investor group have taken on the task as custodians of this amazing local institution. We wish them every success.
“The last couple of seasons in Perth has shown that without tight control even our club can get caught up in overspend.
“That said, we vigorously implemented the stretching cost controls mentioned in last year’s report and managed to reduce our losses by £2.2m from the underlying £2.1m loss from season 22/23 (which was reduced to £1.5m after a donation from the club lottery).
“Along with some fortuitous tailwinds and the tremendous work behind the scenes, everyone involved in the club should be rightly proud of their input in achieving this result.
“We have posted a profit of £110k for season 23/24.
“A stretching but realistically achievable budget has been set to break even in season 24/25.”
A provision of just over £500,000 has been maintained in the accounts for spending on infrastructure projects at McDiarmid, with cash reserves sitting at £2.8m.
Base revenue at Saints, excluding interest and donations, has risen from £5.11m to £6.06m, while base salary costs have gone down from £4.8m to £4.4m.
Tough circumstances for Steven MacLean
Harris took over just after Steven MacLean had been appointed manager by departing chairman, Steve Brown.
And, turning to the football side of things, he noted the difficult task MacLean and fellow playing legend, Liam Craig, had before both were sacked and replaced by Craig Levein and Andy Kirk.
“Starting the following season was extremely difficult,” said Harris. “Coming in fresh in June as we did.
“Steven MacLean had been appointed to the role of manager in late May and was given a difficult task in that he quickly had to ramp up recruitment.
“This slow start to our recruitment and lack of pre-planning affected us greatly. It also wasn’t helpful in our League Cup challenge.
“Results in the league also eluded us and we found ourselves slightly adrift at the bottom of the league. The difficult decision was taken to change the management team and as such, Steven MacLean and Liam Craig both left the club.
“I’d like to put on record that both Steven and Liam have been the most amazing servants to St Johnstone. Although things didn’t work out managerially, they both deserve our sincere thanks for their time and commitment to our club.
“We wish them well in the future and assure them that they will always be welcome at McDiarmid.”
Although Levein, MacLean’s successor, was sacked in the following financial year, Harris noted that he too operated in an “extremely controlled budgetary environment”.
Saints secured their Premiership status on the last day of the season, with Harris observing: “Success was mainly due to everyone, both upstairs and downstairs, getting on board with the task in hand and understanding the immense challenge of reducing spend and increasing revenues in all areas.
“While many of the actions throughout the year weren’t always pretty, or to the liking of many fans, we were very limited with the levers we had to work with.”
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