CHAIRMAN Rod Brown has revealed that Kidderminster Harriers will break even at the end of this season after directors dealt with a £300,000 black hole.

Brown addressed shareholders at the the club's AGM on Wednesday night and in his opening statement address the board of director's work to alleviate their financial worries.

The club made a loss of £277,168 for the 2014-15 season, which had increased from £263,502 the year before.

More worryingly, Harriers Kidderminster's gross profit had reduced from £207,768 to £106,367 for last season.

“There was no sugar coating the seriousness of Kidderminster Harriers’ situation at the end of May 2015," said Brown.

“I became involved in March 2015 and I did six weeks due diligence before I joined the board.

“There has been a black hole of losses at this club from between £250,000 and £300,000 for a number of years now.

“We had a turnover of £1.34 million which was down from the previous year of £1.66 million and made losses of £277,000.

“There was a gross profit of 7.89 per cent and therein lies the problem.

“You should really be looking for any business to be generating 30 per cent in gross profit.

“The cost of sales was £1.24 million of which 50 per cent was players’ wages.

“When I did my due diligence it became very obvious to me that Kidderminster Harriers had no cost centre analysis, an over inflated playing budget and unacceptable costs such as agent fees, relocation fees and mismanaged contractual arrangements as well as unrealistic staff overheads."

In recent weeks, the club released a state of the nation address to highlight some of the financial problems they have had to deal with during the current campaign.

The playing budget was set as £260,000 this summer before rising to £380,000.

The club’s work to reduce costs and move off higher earners like Craig Reid and Reece Styche, has seen it reduced to £230,000.

But Brown said chief executive Colin Gordon's investment of £100,000 had helped the club avoid liquidation in November.

Gordon became paid a nominal fee to Barry Norgrove, Neil Savery and Jane Murrant for their shares and own over half the club.

"My colleagues on the board and myself set about putting in a foundation of cost governance to stabilise the club because it was a sinking ship," continued the chairman.

“We radically overhauled the playing budget by 50 per cent although it did alleviate after that.

“That had a massive impact on the field and impacted on the management changes as well.

"I think the management struggled to work within the constraints of those finances we had.

“We had to improve the commerciality and revenue streams and did that by bringing Dave Pountney in to work closely with Helen MacDonald. We have had a great success with the match day commerciality.

“We’ve had Colin Gordon coming in and working on the Birmingham Metropolitan College side and revenue streams throughout the year.

“We had install with day-to-day governance and we did that by making Dave managing director.

“Colin Gordon, who was on the board in a football capacity, had managed to acquire the majority shareholding with a much-needed capital investment in excess of £100,000 in November.

“This has allowed us to micro manage the business, all of which allow us to break even at the end of this season for the first time in well over 15 years.

“It creates a stable platform and avoided what could have been inevitable liquidation in 2015."