The announcement that Boiler Room (UK) Limited, to use their corporate name, has been bailed out to the tune of £791,652 by Arts Council England has raised more than a few eyebrows. Although Boiler Room does pay royalties for the music used in sets broadcast on their website, the DJs only get paid in the ever modern currency of exposure.
I find a very useful source of information about businesses is Companies House. It’s a useful resource covering the whole of the UK – accounts and other information from businesses appear here for anyone to see, no matter where they are.
So I thought I’d look up Boiler Room – and goodness me, there were some surprises in there! Back in August, the company posted a statement of accounts up to the end of December 2019. They do not make pretty reading. I’ve attached the accounts in the pictures below so you can see them for yourselves.
Boiler Room (UK) Limited posted a net operating loss of £1,299,656 last year. The picture for 2018 was even more bleak, showing a loss of £6,633,752. Unless there’s something going on here that I’ve missed, Boiler Room does not look like a particularly viable company at the moment – so how is a grant of £800k going to plug this difference, let alone pay the bills that exist now?
Amidst all this, there are questions (that Boiler Room won’t answer, no doubt) as to why Arts Council England gave them the money, and questions as to why that specific amount. Questions should also be aimed at the public school boy from an aristocratic family Blaise Bellville, who founded and owns Boiler Room.
He was educated at Marlborough College, who currently charge boarding fees of £38,955 per year. He does very few interviews, but conceded in one with The Independent many years ago that he has been involved in “far more business than I can count”.
Which begs the question. What on earth has happened to all the money that this entrepreneur has made from all these ventures? How does an £800,000 grant get a company with problems of this magnitude out of the deep hole it’s in? And why on earth can he seemingly not put money into his own company?
It’s curious how capitalists suddenly become socialists when they run into financial trouble, isn’t it?
