We’ll break even on £2.4bn Olympics bill, says Locog

London 2012 organisers say they have exceeded their targets for raising private funds and will break even on the £2.4 billion bill for staging the Games.

Locog will next week tell the London Assembly it raised £764 million from deals with 44 domestic sponsors, beating its target total of £700 million.

It also outstripped by far its £500 million-plus ticket revenue target for the Olympics and Paralympics by raising £659 million from sales. That was achieved by boosting capacity at the Olympics by 800,000 to 8.8 million seats and by exceeding expectations with a near sell-out of the Paralympics.

Locog sold 8.21 million Olympic and 2.78 million Paralympic tickets, with just three per cent and one per cent unsold respectively. It raised £85 million from merchandise and licensing deals, based on arrangements with 65 companies and revenues of about £1 billion — roughly in line with its profit expectations. Lord Coe’s organisation took £609 million from the International Olympic Committee, broadcast rights sales and global sponsors.

A Government grant of £111 million for half the cost of the Paralympics and £200 million from incomes took its total revenue to £2.4 billion. A full breakdown will be given to the Assembly next Wednesday.

Locog said it “remained confident our revenues will meet our costs”.

However, last month the full extent of government funding from the £9.3 billion Olympic budget channelled via the organisation was revealed. It received a total of £952 million, including £514 million for security and £78 million for Olympic Park operations.

A further £136 million went via Locog for transport and utilities. Games chiefs stress much of this was simply channelled through it to the coffers of other public bodies. But some £224 million of Government funding went directly to Locog for security, ceremonies and the cultural Olympiad.