MrBunce

Thanks Parma. Why Ipswich? Let me answer a different question that was posed here recently, why Crystal Palace? They recently had another(!) investor buy into the club - how do they keep getting so lucky? Well Palace are owned by pretty astute businessmen. They used their contact book to get in Blitzer and Harris to invest in the club several years ago. The latest investor, Textor was looking to invest in a club, the Palace investors looking to sell and the people running Palace are good businessmen. A case of the right man at the right time. Ipswich Town is similar. Marcus Evans was publicly looking to sell. In fact, pretty desperately. He has run out of patience and was no longer going to put serious money in. Regardless of how things have turned out at Ipswich, he's a good businessman. You don't create just a profitable corporation like his through sheer luck. So he's going to be reasonable to deal with, professional. And ORG are looking for someone to buy. For better or worse, they've met some guys who they trust to run football clubs. They've already tried their hand in the US with Phoenix Rising (it seems to be working out). The next logical step is England - like you say it's the current zietgeist. On the face of it though - it doesn't make much sense. Wearing my financial adviser hat - it seems like a very risky punt for a lot of the reasons you (and others) mention. However, there are some reasons why Ipswich. First, as mentioned above, Ipswich were available. Sometimes that is the most important reason. Money burns a hole in a pocket. Another example (that has gone all awry) is Sheffield United - McCabe wanted to sell, a Saudi Prince was looking to buy... Second, as much as it pains me to say, Ipswich aren't where they belong. It's pretty reasonable to say that they are punching well below their weight in League One. A little investment and they should easily be back in the Championship. An easy opportunity for a return. Third, is cashflow. As touched on by another poster, OGR didn't actually need to front much cash to takeover the club. The majority of the deal 'value' was in Marcus Evans writing off debt - he even kept a stake in Ipswich, reducing the initial outlay. Very little cash needed to change hands. Compare to, say, Norwich, you are needing to spend a lot of cash to buy out Delia and the other shareholders before even thinking of investing in the club. In addition, as opposed to a Championship club, you can overhaul the playing squad cheaply and with most of the cost backloaded (see the ton of free transfers). Overall, the less cash you need to put in upfront, the easier to generate a higher rate of return. Finally, my gut feel is the property is a key part. It's in effect an option. If things go well, Ipswich get promoted, then they can re-buy the property. If things don't go well, they haven't had to pay upfront for the expensive land in the initial deal. The other aspect is the owners of the Portman Road land (the Council) and Playford Road (Marcus Evans) are going to pretty professional to deal with (compare to, say, what happened with Wimbledon). All that said - I still don't think this is a good deal - but I've seen worse. Would a UK pension scheme even consider something like this - no chance! Thinking of one of the pension schemes I work with, it's contoversial enough that they are investing even a tiny bit into private infrastructure. This would blow their mind. My prediction is that the yanks and Ipswich Town fans are going to end up disappointed.

It's best to lay out the structure of the investment first. Ipswich Town are now 87.5% owned by Gamechanger 20 Ltd (the remaining 12.5% owned by the legacy Ipswich Town Plc which is principally owned by Marcus Evans). Gamechanger is owned by the Org Az Secondary Opportunity Fund. This is an investment fund managed by investment adviser called ORG. The fund appears to be set up by ORG to invest assets on behalf of Arizona pension funds. There isn't much information on ORG, but they appear to be predominately focused on real estate investment (which makes the investment in Ipswich Town seem a little strange). ORG are listed as a consultant to the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System pension scheme (PSPRS) , again as a real estate adviser. The fund is listed as a real estate fund. In that sense, the ultimate owner of Ipswich is now the pension scheme. But legally, and more accurately, it is the ORG fund that is the 'ultimate beneficial owner'. ORG will be looking to maximise the return on investment which will in turn be passed on to the pension scheme. According to some quick searches the pension scheme has assets under management (AUM) of $13bn (relatively medium in size in pension scheme terms). The ORG fund has AUM of c.$200-300m. In that sense, the investment in Ipswich Town is puny for the pension scheme, although relatively significant for the specific ORG fund (ORG has several other investment funds). So how can a pension scheme invest in a football club? First, PSPRS is a 'defined benefit' scheme (DB). In short, it means that individuals get a set pension on retirement based on a formula - a defined benefit. These are often referred to as 'final salary' schemes (though few schemes are based on final salaries anymore). These schemes are now rare in the UK (the public sector is one of the few remaining defined benefit pension offerers). This is in contrast to 'defined contribution' schemes (DC) in which the employee gets as a pension what they've put in plus investment return (or loss!) These are the predominant schemes in the UK. The rules on what you can invest in as a DC scheme are much stricter than for DB schemes. This is because, if investments plummet the inidivudal loses out in a DC scheme. Pension schemes must invest in the interest of the pension scheme members. Therefore a DC scheme is much less able to invest in private equity (if at all). Even for DB schemes, UK regulations are now much stricter - certainly more so than the US. PSPRS as a US DB scheme can more easily invest in private equity. In fact it does so. According to its website, 24% of its AUM is invested in private equity (i.e. investments into things like Ipswich Town). This is because it can have a long 'time horizon' to get a return on its investment (i.e. how long it can wait to make money) and private equity investments are riskier and therefore on balance are more likely to provide a higher return. Moving on to management. Pension schemes are hands-off the management of the companies in their investment portfolio. As such they will have no involvement in the running of Ipswich Town. Investment funds (like ORG) also typically do not get involved in the operations of the companies they invest in. They are in the business of identifying investment opportunities - not running companies. It may be the case they are a more 'hands-on' manager, but that appears unlikely. It seems that Brett Johnson, Michael O'Leary and Mark Ashton will running things. ORG instead will be monitoring their investment and checking it is on track. Moving to the investment / finance side, ORG can get a return through two ways: dividends/distributions; and sale (exit) of the investment. The first way can be through dividends or interest on loans. For Ipswich, the dividend route is unlikely - the club doesn't turn a profit so won't be able to pay dividends. Instead, the money would have to come from interest on loans. That interest would have to be paid out of operating income - i.e. money that would otherwise have gone on buying players, paying wages or investing in the ground. The second way is via an exit - that is selling the club for more money than you bought it for. Private equity investors will typically buy in at a 'multiple' (of revenue, or profits or assets), they then seek to increase revenue/profits/assets and exit at the same (or possibly higher multiple). That doesn't quite work for football clubs as the pricing of clubs doesn't tend to marry well to financial metrics. In short, for ORG to get a successful exit they will want to increase revenue (principally via promotion, increased commercial income - see Ed Sheeran); reduce costs (staff redundancies, 'trim the fat'); and improve the assets of the club (here Ipswich Town is light on assets, they don't own the Portman Road land for example). The economics for turning a profit on football clubs is generally awful. I saw Brentford mentioned above as an ideal investment outcome. For perspective, Brentford have racked up the best part of £100m in losses over the past decade. They made losses in each of those years (bar one where they sold the Griffin Park land and made a huge profit on player sales). As a reminder, the ORG investment fund has total assets of c.$200-300m - an investment of even half of Brentford's is not realistic unless PSPRS decides to give more money to ORG (again unlikely as the hundreds/thousands of investments PSPRS has compete against each other at any one time). Even Norwich, which balances the books generally makes losses in the Championship (albeit we usually have larger promotion bonuses). So what do I think the plan is? Immediate promotion this year is the short-term goal. Long-term, I imagine ORG were interested in getting back the Portman Road land and the other real estate assets (ORG is a real estate investment adviser after all) - ideally at a cheap price. I also imagine the goal isn't promotion to the premier league (although that'd be great if it happened, it takes a huge investment). Instead, I'd imagine something more along the lines of Mick McCarthy's reign - get in cheap players, flog players at the peak of their market value and run the club on a purse string. This would hopefully keep Ipswich in the Championship and generate enough income to get those interest payments. With the club owning the real estate again and established in the Championship, they can then work on finding an exit. A final word on Mark Ashton (as I think its important). My experience (when things go wrong) tells me to be vary wary of guys like him. I often refer to these (somewhat unprofessionally) as 'Todler CEOs'. That is they like shiny things, make reckless decisions and then get bored. They like doing M&A (or buying players, see how many players Ashton signed at Ipswich and at Bristol). They like their ego stroked (Ashton at Watford to disastrous effect, see the social media crap coming out at Ipswich). If I was a Town fan I'd be concerned with him at the helm. Apologies for the very long post.

The short answer is we don't know. The long answer is probably a combination of people at the club making the call. Delia and MWJ have always been keen on a DOF model. Although each time it hadn't worked out. Back in the 90s, Delia had publicly stated that she sought to recreate the Auxerre model (https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/06/delia-smith-hails-norwich-new-direction-improve-academy and https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football-interview-delia-smith-hardboiled-but-softcentred-1086611.html). She had also met with Arsene Wenger and took on board lots of his innovations (in particular, player nutrition, http://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2005/02/25/sport_delia_carbohydrates_feature.shtml ). The first time a DOF model was tried out was in the 90s with Rioch as manager and Hamilton as DOF. That unhappy pairing ended up with Hamilton as manager after Rioch resigned. Rioch left after feeling the club lacked ambition (https://www.theguardian.com/football/2000/mar/14/newsstory.sport1) The second time was almost doomed from the start. With Adams as manager and Joe Royle as a 'football consultant'. That lasted less than a month before Royle moved to Everton. Instead, Mike Phelan came in as head coach, to support Adams and reprise the very successful job he had done at Man U. It didn't work out and Neil came in. It is commonly accepted he wanted full control and we went back to a more 'traditional' set up - he would not accept a DOF. After Neil was sacked it was commonly accepted at the club that the 'traditional' model was not sustainable - particularly the player recruitment side (which, let's be honest, was very poor under Neil and put a huge strain on our finances) (https://www.pinkun.com/sport/norwich-city/ed-balls-explains-club-restructure-alex-neil-6864232). Ed Balls was a driving factor in getting Delia and MWJ to try again with the DOF model having a relationship with Damien Comolli (though I've always been slightly skeptical of Ed's implication that Delia and MWJ needed convincing given the history I've set out above). The obvious difficulty was that you had to recruit the right person, which we hadn't done in the past. Webber was seen around that time as one of the most successful DOFs out there (at least at or around our level). I'm sure also that his wife being at the club already and the mutual contact with Comolli also put him high up the shortlist. Regardless of who made the call it was certainly the right one.

The right decision. It was a shocking failure of due diligence. It raises some troubling questions on the business acumen of the management team at the club. I'm sure (or at least I hope) those tough questions are being reflected on.

The current landing page for the website. Seems less "historical marketing" and more fundamental part of the product:

McCallum had a good game last night. Defensively kept first Olosunde and then the in form Freddie Ladapo completely silent. Rotherham had nothing down Coventry's left (though to be fair they had very little full stop). Offensively he was also solid. He put in several good crosses both in play and from set pieces. His long throws were dangerous and Coventry were unfortunate not to score from at least one of them. He also won the free kick in a dangerous area that resulted in the goal. He looked composed on the ball. Whilst perhaps not as eye-catching as Da Costa on the right, he is clearly one of the more (if not the most) technically gifted players in Coventry's side (along with O'Hare and James). On that showing he'd fit right in to a Norwich side in the Championship (or another top half Championship team). Hard to say how he'd do in the Premier League - but looks like a talented young player. I'm sure Adams' call with him last night was a positive one.

Spot on Shefcanary. To give some more detail: 1. We're much more fluid as a team. All nine defenders and midfielders drop deep for the ball (e.g. see against Forest when Skipp and McLean were being marked, Rupp (our #10) would drop for the first ball out of defence). Few teams in the champs have the disclipine and ability to press our entire midfield. 2. We're much more disclipined. Not to pick on players, but Cantwell, Buendia and McLean all had a tendency to want to do the hollywood pass or dribble past players in our own half. They have become more disclipined and rarely try that kind of stuff, leaving it (where it should) in the opposition third (e.g. think about how few times we've given the ball away in dangerous areas recently - last time I can remember was versus Stoke(h)). 3. Teams are struggling with squad depth now. At the start of the season we were seeing teams use four or five subs early which allowed them to press for longer. When the first XI got tired they'd swap out around the 50-60 min mark. That's why it took late goals to beat a lot of teams. Now teams are missing lots of players to injury and the bench is filled with more limited, out of form, or returning from injury players. Asking those players to play 50 minutes is harder and managers are less able to do it. 4. The Hanley-Gibson partnership is excellent for bringing the ball out. Gibson is a great passer, he is perfectly capable to pass long, straight to Pukki (who rarely gives the ball away). More importantly he passes with speed. His passes have a real snap to them. When we are passing around the back it's not slow, lazy passing (compare to the opposition and how easy it is for Pukki alone to push a team towards one side of the pitch). The opposition really have to run to cover the outballs. Similarly, at this level, Hanley has the speed and power to break though the press with a run, usually with a safe outball to Aarons ready or a pass to Buendia. 5. Farke is a better coach. We tend to forget, but Farke is (still?) a relative newcomer to management. He's more tactically aware and we're better able to deal with the opposition throwing us off with their tactics (although not perfect: see Luton (a), Middlesbrough (h)). He's improved at reading when we have to adjust things slightly, and more importantly the players have been coached well to adapt their gameplay and keep their disclipine to do that.

I know what you're saying Bethnal - though I'd suggest they are touch and go for the playoffs. I see it as 2 out of 6 of Reading, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Stoke, Barnsley and Middlesborough. Regardless, the top four look head and shoulders above the rest this season. It'd be a tall ask for Bournemouth to win the playoffs, even if they make it.

That's true which is why he tends to be the one to come off. Obviously it's relative! Compared to Vrancic it's not a contest - compared to Emi and Skipp they tend to last the minutes a bit better.

I would have made the same decisions as Farke: The game was finely balanced. Changes could turn the game in our favour. They could turn the game in Rotherham's favour (if we don't get settled quick enough). Rotherham wern't particularly dangerous outside set pieces, so it wasn't urgent to make a change. The only obvious change was Vrancic coming off. You have two options: like-for-like with Dowell or change our shape (e.g. Tettey). Being frank, Dowell has not really shown he's capable of controlling the game yet. Further, he's not particularly workman like and from what little we've seen not that great in the air (bizarrely Mario isn't too bad in the air). Bringing Tettey on breaks the balance of the midfield and we saw that at the end where we just were trying to play out the minutes. Besides Tettey is notoriously awful defending set pieces and that was arguably Rotherham's biggest threat. Another change was bringing Pukki off - but he was still getting sniffs at goal and I'd much rather him upfront than Idah (with the greatest respect to Adam, he's unlikely to fashion a chance on his own). Also, Rotherham wern't playing out from the back much, so there was little chasing for Pukki to do. The only other change was to take one of Cantwell or Buendia off (taking both would really stymie our creativity). Buendia is a workhorse so it didn't feel necessary. Cantwell is our weakest player in the air and has lower stamina than the other midfielders. But he was arguably our best player on the ball second half and the one most controlling the flow. You could have brought Hernandez on, but he does give the ball away and has less discipline than Cantwell. Rupp was probably the obvious choice as he's tidy on the ball, won't give it away and is better defensively. Neither would have particularly helped defending set pieces however. In short, I'd have made the same changes as Farke. Though I'd space them out more for game management purposes.

The answers: 1 Super at free kicks! MARIO Super -> MARIO; the freekick king 2 Leeds seethe for me all around plus he's our number 1? EMI Leeds seeth for EMI when we signed him; me all around = EM; he's our number 1 = I 3 Peg lost DOWELL Peg = DOWEL; Lost = L 4 Speedster, change to halt pace PLACHETA The Polish speedster PLACHETA; anagaram of halt pace = PLACHETA 5 Time cut short - sounds harsh TIM KRUL Time cut short = TIMe; sounds harsh = CRUEL = KRUL 6 German Jesus needs a walking frame CHRISTOPH ZIMMERMANN German Jesus = CHRISTOPH; needs help walking -> ZIMMER (frame) 7 We've not seen much of him but tells a good tale with some English BARDEN Not seen much of young MICHAEL; tells a good tale = BARD with some english = EN 8 Hops around the edge of penalty area after always asking for more OLIVER SKIPP Hops around = SKIP; the edge of Penalty area = P -> SKIPP; after asking for more = OLIVER (twist) 9 The Mayor firstly means to tidy up? MCLEAN The Mayor = KENNY McLEAN; Firstly means = M; to tidy up = CLEAN 10 Host guard of the six yard box? MCGOVERN Host = MC; Guard = GOVERN; not quite a dominating presence in our six yard box as Krul though 11 Found in lonely Argos ONEL lONELy plus his love of Argos 12 The great Macedonian sounding cuppa ALEXANDER TETTEY The Great = ALEX; Sounding cuppa = Tetley = TETTEY 13 Initially the Greatest Of All Time? PUKKI GOAT in finnish = Pukki; his goal scoring record sets him on the way to being our GOAT? 14 The big one from Burnley BEN GIBSON Big BEN on loan from Burnley 15 Fouled major hints JOSH MARTIN Anagram of major hints 16 Holiday resort for mother sheep BALI MUMBA Holiday resort = BALI; Mother = MUM; Sheep = BA 17 A great traveller and reportedly more expensive bloke MACO STIEPERMANN Great traveller = MARCO (Polo); reportedly expensive = steeper = STIEPER; bloke = MAN(N) 18 This midfielder has erupted into quite a player this season RUPP Struggled with this one…; eRUPPted; had a great season until injury 19 Gives a lot does our captain GRANT Gives a lot = GRANT; our captain: GRANT HANLEY 20 LB for a new job's resonance JACOB SORENSEN Anagram of job's resonance, the LB job has certainly resonanted with him 21 Spaniard with his five wingless villas QUINTILLA Our only spaniard; Five = QUINT; wingless villas = ILLA 22 Tango unusual - Holty doesn't like his dancing! TODD Tango = T; unusual = ODD; Big Grant Holt has been slamming his dancing recently 23 Model with not quite extensive sickness JORDAN HUGILL Model = Jordan; not quite extensive = HUGe; sickness = ILL 24 Barmy party after an end of Christmas set-back SAM BYRAM Anagram of BARMY = BYRAM; after end of christMAS backwards = SAM 25 Partners Eve - up front ADAM Partner of Eve = Adam, up front = striker 26 The top full back! MAX The top = MAX; our top (only fit) full back?

D'oh - that's right, number 10 is a surname!

Thanks Kanadyan Kanary. #10 was the last clue I came up with - clue for those attempting: it is a first name only. #2 and #10 were perhaps not expected to play much of a role this season

Inspired by the cryptic EFL teams on the Barnsley forum: https://barnsleyfc.org.uk/threads/cryptic-efl-teams-back-by-popular-demand.299218/ I've had a go at a cryptic Norwich City Squad. Some word plays, anagrams and cryptic clues. Apologies in advance for some of the er... less stellar ones. Some are full names, some are first or surnames only (it was quite a challenge to create the clues). I'll be back later with the answers, but happy to give hints. 1 Super at free kicks! 2 Leeds seethe for me all around plus he's our number 1? 3 Peg lost 4 Speedster, change to halt pace 5 Time cut short - sounds harsh 6 German Jesus needs a walking frame 7 We've not seen much of him but tells a good tale with some English 8 Hops around the edge of penalty area after always asking for more 9 The Mayor firstly means to tidy up? 10 Host guard of the six yard box? 11 Found in a lonely Argos 12 The great Macedonian sounding cuppa 13 Initially the Greatest Of All Time? 14 The big one from Burnley 15 Fouled major hints 16 Holiday resort for mother sheep 17 A great traveller and reportedly more expensive bloke 18 This midfielder has erupted into quite a player this season 19 Gives a lot does our captain 20 LB for a new job's resonance 21 Spaniard with his five wingless villas 22 Tango unusual - Holty doesn't like his dancing! 23 Model with not quite extensive sickness 24 Barmy party after an end of Christmas set-back 25 Partners Eve - up front 26 The top full back!

Some potential answers to some of the questions noted above. Please don't snap my head off. - R.e. key management compensation, see note 28 (p42). c.£4.4m for 2020; c.£2.7m for 2019 - I presume this relates to Webber & Co. (and Farke?). A substantial increase, even accounting for 13 month period in 2020 (though I'm not sure the 2019 above was the 'full cost', maybe the director remuneration, £480k (note 8, p31), should be added for fairer comparison). - R.e. the preference dividend, cashflow statement (p18) shows that as paid (£65k). I suspect the text saying otherwise is "boilerplate" which was never corrected. - R.e. the "short term loan", I think this is the assignment of premier league media income to Barclays that the club entered into in 2019 (see note 18, p36). The assignment and charge can be seen in Companies House (dates: 17 May 2019 and 29 October 2019). The question of whether it is necessary is more difficult. These arrangements are quite common - Macquarie are the leaders in this niche field - many other clubs utilise these arrangements for managing cash flow and working capital. Was it necessary for Norwich at the time? I don't know, though I recall we've had difficulty managing working capital over the past few years. In retrospect, the interest cost (5.2%) now seems quite high given we sit on £40m of cash, but that's with the benefit of hindsight. - R.e. the KPI on player wages - agree with Purple et. al. Very disappointing to see it dropped. It limits comparability between Norwich and other clubs and, more importantly, to assess whether the cost of maintaining the current playing squad is sustainable. - R.e. the contingent liabilities on promotion, these amount to £36.6m + £7.9m = £44.5m (note 25, p44). This compares to c.£30.6m + £2.6m = £33.2m last time around (based on these accounts - which is consistent with my recollection as well). Some thoughts: (i) not all the conditions might be met, so that jump in amount may not actually be realised; (ii) we have a much larger playing squad than before and many of the first teamers will be on much improved contracts compared to last time; (iii) we have invested a significant amount in players this season compared to prior to the last championship season (£4.6m of potential further payments on Dowell, Hugill, Skipp, Quintilla and Gibson - note 30). So overall, the increase doesn't seem unreasonable, though I'd caution the club to monitor this cost carefully and ensure it does not escalate too much. - R.e. cash and tax, the club has c. £44.4m in cash at 31 July 2020 (p18), but owed "Other taxes and social security" of c.£29.1m (note 18, p36). I imagine most of this is VAT, particularly on season tickets sold (see tax owed of £4.6m in previous year). If my hypothesis is correct, the shift in period end, means that it 'captures' the VAT quarterly cycle differently and (presuming the club pays on account quarterly) a significant portion of the cash balance will have been used to pay the tax bill owed. Otherwise, see what Shef Canary, Dylan and Purple (and others have all said) on the main issues. Overall, I'm encouraged by the financial performance of the club. Though I would suggest keeping a close eye on managing wage costs. As we all know, these things only tend to go up and once up don't come down without great overhaul. Happy to answer any questions - though please don't bite my head off.