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Ipswich's Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

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1 hour ago, BroadstairsR said:

Johnson (and the two others) must have had a coherent strategy in order to persuade the fund managers to part with their millions.

If it's a question of just buying players with a view to profit and not re-investment in the squad, then the binners have been well and truly duped (easily done?) as many of them now, once again, see the sky as the limit for their team.

It would appear to be a long shot regards Cook's recruitment, but Ashton has been successful with this approach in the past; data based recruitment, apparently. All a bit hit-and-miss and the pair of them will need to be pretty damn good at it from now on in order to service the losses and the debt, whilst keeping the fans onside.

I would suggest that the fund managers have been conned as well, or are excessively naive regards the potential profit from the English game, and have  been uncharacteristically careless with the fund's money to boot.

I wonder what collateral was needed, apart from hot air, as there was little on offer from deepest Suffolk, apart from the training ground. 

There's something so fishy about the whole business that Mortimer and Whitehouse might be more suited to the job than Ashton and Cook.

Like you say, interesting to watch from afar.

The fund loans money into the club, pays itself interest.  If they ever managed to get a run of results together and find themselves back in the premiership within the next 20 years. They can sell the club for a big profit?

But as you point out, either way these funds look to make profit and have no interest in the sport, the players, fans just a bottom line.

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33 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

There are plenty of ways to make a profit out of a football team without getting into the Premier League. If Ipswich can get into the Championship and implement a Brentford style model, the fund managers in America will be quite happy with the returns I'm sure - as mentioned previously on this thread they won't be looking at the next few years, but will look at this as a long-term investment, that tends to be what pension funds prioritise.

If they can get Ipswich into the Championship and then they will already almost certainly have an asset worth more than the £40m they spent, and if they can develop a few £500k players into £10m players then they are laughing. 

In a fund worth more than a billion dollars, a £40m investment is very small. 

Rivalry aside, it will be really interesting to see how they get on at Ipswich - Ashton did some good work at Bristol, but made some crucial mistakes when it looked like they were getting close to being a play-off/promotion contender.

It takes time to implement a good recruitment team - Webber was lucky at Norwich as behind the scenes there was a good foundation, it just needed to be given more influence and the key appointments of Scott and Badlan. Lee Darnbrough had done good work in setting up the data side of things and many of the people he brought in are still at the club.

Whether it is possible for someone to copy the Brentford model with the new work permit rules is another matter though. No more Maupay, Benrahma type signings. 

Not sure this is actually true, I struggle to think of any owner that has made money from owning a football club- except the Glazers, and they United are an exceptional case. Tony Bloom is reported to have said he spent £200m of his own money getting Brighton into the EPL, and that club is probably worth £200m atm.

That leaves two options to get your money out. Find another mug which in effect is a giant Ponzi scheme or assett strip what you bought along the Burnley/Glazer model.

There is one way to make a small fortune out of owning a football club, that is start with a large fortune.

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So they have to achieve two things in order to be successful?

Recruit well and then sell off their best players at a profit.

Achieve PL status in order to be an attractive proposition for a potential buyer.

There's some contradiction there.

Have they recruited Merlin to the back-room staff yet? They seem to have added the whole world and his dog to the pay-roll thus far.

 

Edited by BroadstairsR

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It would be interesting to have some of their fans come on here, have a non p-take conversation, and talk about their ambitions as fans. What would they be happy with, and where would they want/expect their Club to be in say 3 years, 8 years, 12 years time? How do they view  their owners, against other current owners and their ambitions/targets?

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3 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

So they have to achieve two things in order to be successful?

Recruit well and then sell off their best players at a profit.

Achieve PL status in order to be an attractive proposition for a potential buyer.

There's some contradiction there.

Have they recruited Merlin to the back-room staff yet? They seem to have added the whole world and his dog to the pay-roll thus far.

 

How is that a contradiction. It's what Southampton employed to great success (Walcott, Bale etc), Us and Brentford are trying to make it work. Depends on how good your scouting and player development is. 

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8 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

How is that a contradiction. It's what Southampton employed to great success (Walcott, Bale etc), Us and Brentford are trying to make it work. Depends on how good your scouting and player development is. 

Fair enough, but the Saints have Cat. 1 (as do we, and the two you mentioned came through the ranks there) and City are currently yo-yoing on a regular basis, whilst there's all to prove at Brentford.

All three could be relegated sooner rather than later  ... fingers crossed it's just the other two.

If the viability of that approach is to be considered with regards ITFC I would rather look to Bristol City, for obvious reasons, than Norwich City. Our self-sustaining approach is fairly unusual, as we know, and we are not therefore behoven to the whims of an American pension fund.

 

Edited by BroadstairsR

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Do the pension fund actually own Ipswich though? I thought that the pension fund had loaned money to Gamechangers ltd, who are the actual owners. As such the pension fund wouldn't care whether or not Ipswich make huge profit, they are only interested in the loan repayments being made...

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Just now, BroadstairsR said:

Fair enough, but the Saints have Cat. 1 (as do we, and the two you mentioned came through the ranks there) and City are currently yo-yoing on a regular basis, whilst there's all to prove at Brentford.

All three could be relegated sooner rather than later  ... fingers crossed.

 

its the hardest strategy to get working, and i would suggest it takes an enormous amount of planning/co-ordination throughout the hierarchy to even get it close to working, something that appears to be fundamentally wrong with Ipswich over the last few years. 

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8 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Fair enough, but the Saints have Cat. 1 (as do we, and the two you mentioned came through the ranks there) and City are currently yo-yoing on a regular basis, whilst there's all to prove at Brentford.

All three could be relegated sooner rather than later  ... fingers crossed.

 

Brentford don't even have an academy though. They have a 'B team' of players with potential but not limited by age and just play friendlies instead of being in the u23 league. I would argue that Brentford do very little player development of the sort we or Southampton rely on...

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Just now, cornish sam said:

Brentford don't even have an academy though. They have a 'B team' of players with potential but not limited by age and just play friendlies instead of being in the u23 league. I would argue that Brentford do very little player development of the sort we or Southampton rely on...

Yes, I know that. It's because they considered there was too much competition for youngsters from the many bigger clubs in the  London area.

Their model does work quite well for them, but it's not the one Ipswich aspire to.

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13 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Not sure this is actually true, I struggle to think of any owner that has made money from owning a football club- except the Glazers, and they United are an exceptional case. Tony Bloom is reported to have said he spent £200m of his own money getting Brighton into the EPL, and that club is probably worth £200m atm.

That leaves two options to get your money out. Find another mug which in effect is a giant Ponzi scheme or assett strip what you bought along the Burnley/Glazer model.

There is one way to make a small fortune out of owning a football club, that is start with a large fortune.

There are plenty of ways to derive a profit, many owners pay themselves very large salaries. Bloom runs Brighton as a personal project and not for profit. Arsenal have paid their owner around £100m already over the last 5 years.

I'd say it is much harder to make money from Premier League clubs as it is very difficult to increase their value - but doing it at lower leagues, especially from League One to the Championship is easier. That being said I'm sure when FSG etc look to sell their clubs they will make a healthy return, especially as they will have improved the infrastructure with loans that the club repays the owner - so they increase the value of their asset and get can income from loaning the club money! Think this is what the American investors at Palace are looking at also.

Ipswich's owners can lend the clubs some money and charge interest to improve Portman Road and the training facilities and then sell the club on for a healthy profit, especially if they are in the Championship. Or stick around and everytime they make money of the sale of a player, skim a bit off the top. 

Also, unlike many other businesses, football clubs retain an inherent value and don't go bust easily, even where a normal business would. Even if things go horribly wrong, there is always someone who will buy the club as it is a 'brand' or they are a supporter and value the club in a way that isn't related to its book value. 

Wealthy Americans wouldn't keep 'investing' in football clubs if there wasn't a way to profit from it.

 

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Do the owners actually put their own money into the clubs... if they are paying for it, then why is literally every club in debt. It seems like its one big "racketeering" scam. Owners buy the clubs, loans the clubs money (hence why they all in debt) and pay themselves interest. 

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Did Brett Johnson consult you before selling the idea to the pension fund BY&G?

You make a good case. 

I wouldn't want my chips to be on that particular square though. 

Edited by BroadstairsR

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7 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Do the owners actually put their own money into the clubs... if they are paying for it, then why is literally every club in debt. It seems like its one big "racketeering" scam. Owners buy the clubs, loans the clubs money (hence why they all in debt) and pay themselves interest. 

Three things in the world of finance puzzle me.

Ponzi schemes, Bitcoins and the finances of English football clubs.

The vagaries of our complex tax system are junior school arithmetic by comparison ... VAT and all.

Derivatives? Easy, peasy.

Edited by BroadstairsR

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4 minutes ago, Baracouda said:

Do the owners actually put their own money into the clubs... if they are paying for it, then why is literally every club in debt. It seems like its one big "racketeering" scam. Owners buy the clubs, loans the clubs money (hence why they all in debt) and pay themselves interest. 

This from 'How did the Glazers buy Man Utd"

Most of the capital used by Glazer to purchase Manchester United came in the form of loans, the majority of which were secured against the club's assets, incurring interest payments of over £60 million per annum. The remainder came in the form of PIK loans (payment in kind loans), which were later sold to hedge funds.

So the answer is 'no, they don't put their own money in'.

 

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I’d be interested to hear from any Pension Fund Management specialists. There are quite strict regulations regarding how a Pension Fund can invest on behalf of its clients.
 

Indeed you do not especially ‘own’ your own Pension Fund in the sense that it must be kept at arm’s length from you, precisely to avoid inappropriate* disbursement of the fund.
 

If the Pension comes from a business owner, the fund must be very careful not to intertwine inappropriately or indeed be influenced in any way (say if business circumstances for the proprietor changes). It is all remarkably strict and limiting. 

It would not surprise me if US rules were lighter touch - and it is certainly true that ranges of assets from low risk bricks to high-yield-low-cost punts can be part of a portfolio (according to stated risk profile of client). 

When I have had cause to get involved with Pension Fund Management operators in the Uk, the limitations on actions have been considerable. 

Parma 

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16 minutes ago, BroadstairsR said:

Three things in the world of finance puzzle me.

Ponzi schemes, Bitcoins and the finances of English football clubs.

The vagaries of our complex tax system are junior school arithmetic by comparison ... VAT and all.

Derivatives? Easy, peasy.

Things that confuse me about finance. https://positivemoney.org/how-money-works/how-much-money-have-banks-created/ how this is legal. 

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33 minutes ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Arsenal have paid their owner around £100m already over the last 5 years.

Are you sure? Had a quick Google and all I can find is £6m, are you getting confused with the £100m in repayment & interest on loans, largely not to KSE. Added to that KSE have recently loaned the club £120m to repay other lenders.

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I think this is all very interesting, but football is still changing. As someone said, the gap between the Championship and League One is now huge - making that financial transition will become harder and harder. From there, getting to the PL is in most cases a poisoned chalice - as we are discovering, most of the TV money you get is spent on salaries, leaving little for transfer fees, unless you have existing assets to sell or a very rich owner prepared to fund cashflow.

Recently only Leeds and Wolves appear to have made the transition. Fulham, West Brom and others have failed to make the leap and have joined us as "too good for the Champs and not good enough for the PL". The difference now is the strength of those teams - add in Bournemouth and whoever is relegated from the PL. This club's membership will increase. Some, like Swansea, will drop out; Stoke and others are trying to get back in.

 League One has a similar problem - the clubs at the top have mostly been in the Champs recently. Joining those clubs is also going to get harder and harder without a benefactor. Ipswich now have one and so have a chance, but establishing a League One club in the Champs is now as hard as the Champs to PL. Luton seem to have a chance, but no one else has done it recently. Sunderland and Portsmouth can't make the leap and they are both much bigger clubs than Ipswich. Now there is Sheffield Weds as well as clubs like Peterborough, Rotherham and Wycombe who consistently do better than they should.

The first aim for Ipswich has to be to get within sight of that top 6 consistently, so that if they have a playoff campaign it will be deemed a success. They don't have to win it yet, but they have to build a club capable of surviving in the Champs when they do win it. That could take them two or three years - but in the meantime the goal will have shifted again, and the PL will have moved even further away. The time when a League One club could then storm through the Champs is over.

The problem for Ipswich is the short termism of an investment mindset and whether their owners will hang around long enough to see it through, when it becomes clear that instant success isn't achievable. 

In only a few years, our two clubs have moved so far apart it is hard to see that gap closing, unless we do something remarkably stupid. Even if, by some miracle, both clubs are in the Champs next season, we will still be miles ahead of them. They are still not investing in potential - presumably because it takes longer - so finding that £30m player they need isn't going to happen, unless they get very lucky.

Edited by sgncfc
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1 hour ago, Crabbycanary3 said:

It would be interesting to have some of their fans come on here, have a non p-take conversation, and talk about their ambitions as fans. What would they be happy with, and where would they want/expect their Club to be in say 3 years, 8 years, 12 years time? How do they view  their owners, against other current owners and their ambitions/targets?

I think it would be difficult to find "fans" from any club able to do that from a purely unbiased position - don't the words "fans" and "fanatical" have the same origin.

I think they found themselves in a terrible situation with Mucus Evans, and they are just grateful at the moment to have found a way out of that. Whether their new investors will bring about success only time will tell.

Personally I don't think it is a good way for football clubs to go, but I'm old and old fashioned and still believe in a Board of Directors from the local area who care about a club sitting round a table trying to make the right decisions for their club. Once you start getting complex ownerships and decisions made by people thousands of miles away I get nervous. In my mind decisions can then be made for reasons which have nothing to do with the business in this country, being vulnerable to the economic situation in another country, or even the politics in that country. For example, it concerns me that our electricity distribution network is owned by a Chinese Billionaire and his daughter, along with some of our water companies, but what do I know.

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8 minutes ago, BigFish said:

Are you sure? Had a quick Google and all I can find is £6m, are you getting confused with the £100m in repayment & interest on loans, largely not to KSE. Added to that KSE have recently loaned the club £120m to repay other lenders.

Yeah, sorry it was that Arsenal have made £100m in payments on bonds, but KSE recently bought those up so future payments will go to them. Although it isn't clear how much they'll make from this overall, it could be huge.

As I understand it from someone at Arsenal, KSE have remortgaged their stadium with a loan from KSE (as you say) but have also loaded on all the early repayment fee's that came with paying it off early. Now KSE will take interest payments from the club themselves, rather than paying them to external lenders. 

The £6m was 'administration costs' to do this. (So Arsenal are basically paying their owners for their own debts and are being charged by the owners costs to do this).

Wouldn't be surprised if Ipswich's new owners make a big play about how'll they will 'invest' lots of money in improving the ground/training facilities, but basically loan themselves a wad of cash and charge interest on it. Which is fair enough if they can improve the team while doing so - I don't think fans really care about how much money the owners make, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch and improving.

 

 

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1 minute ago, Bethnal Yellow and Green said:

Wouldn't be surprised if Ipswich's new owners make a big play about how'll they will 'invest' lots of money in improving the ground/training facilities, but basically loan themselves a wad of cash and charge interest on it. Which is fair enough if they can improve the team while doing so - I don't think fans really care about how much money the owners make, as long as the team is performing well on the pitch and improving.

Don't the council own the ground?

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27 minutes ago, Trevor Hockey's Beard said:

I think it would be difficult to find "fans" from any club able to do that from a purely unbiased position - don't the words "fans" and "fanatical" have the same origin.

I think they found themselves in a terrible situation with Mucus Evans, and they are just grateful at the moment to have found a way out of that. Whether their new investors will bring about success only time will tell.

Personally I don't think it is a good way for football clubs to go, but I'm old and old fashioned and still believe in a Board of Directors from the local area who care about a club sitting round a table trying to make the right decisions for their club. Once you start getting complex ownerships and decisions made by people thousands of miles away I get nervous. In my mind decisions can then be made for reasons which have nothing to do with the business in this country, being vulnerable to the economic situation in another country, or even the politics in that country. For example, it concerns me that our electricity distribution network is owned by a Chinese Billionaire and his daughter, along with some of our water companies, but what do I know.

I get what you are saying THB, I am of very similar thinking, but, from their fans pov, I feel it would be interesting to see if they view it from the same angle as the neutrals (of which we may not always be considered so, but there are plenty of Norwich fans who could hold a rational debate/conversation without pettiness/bias). Just seeing if their vision is clouded/informed, whilst wearing their blue and white tinted specs

Edited by Crabbycanary3

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14 hours ago, Badger said:

I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that it could be a 10 bagger or even more. It is reported that they paid 40 million for Ipswich  - even if they reach the Premier League, a club that does not even own its own ground, won't sell anything like 400 million.

Any further investment will mean that the 40 million cost increases, all that they have to dilute their ownership and therefore potential return. 

Hi Badger, Your maths is sound. I agree that £400m is a bit rich. However while the deal was reported as a £40m deal it wasn't £40m in cash. The deal was £38.26M but that isn't all. Ipswich has three companies;

1. The Club.

2. The stadium.

3. The finance company.

The club was bough by a loan from the finance company (which is owned by the the Americans) however the Stadium is wholly owned by the same lot. The stadium is listed at a book value of £17.4m. 

This is a little convoluted but in effect the buyers look to have put in just over £20m in cash although that is in the form of loans. For a loan to be a genuine loan interest will be payable. 

The headline reported a £40m deal but it wasn't really that at all. More like £20m and even if the club goes bust they still have the stadium. Unpicking the accounts isn't that easy but it may be the case that the actual cash injected by the buyers was even less as they may have had some finance.

The pension fund will only be financially exposed to the cash they put in and not money they put in on finance raised against the stadium, so any return they make is a multiple of this figure and not the reported headline figure.

I hope you are all still awake.

Zzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Bonzo said:

I hope you are all still awake.

Burnley's recent investment valued them at around £250m, I believe.

Any talk of Ipswich being remotely near a "ten bagger" at even £20m is pie in the sky

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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.

Edited by MrBunce
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19 hours ago, BroadstairsR said:

How Beefy?

 

It will need one hell of a turnaround. The costs are already piling up on top of the initial £30m and the business (ITFC) traditionally loses money to the tune of around £6m per annum.

ITFC is not a particularly glamorous club, without massive support or worldwide appeal, and it was purchased with limited fixed assets ... a lease for the ground, a training ground and some unkempt stands. Goodwill virtually limited to Suffolk.  

It's a long shot expecting returns from that car crash, imo.

I didn't say that I expect them to be successful. Just saying what their intention is. 

It looks a hell of a task to turn a profit from that football club.

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I don't see how they're going to be able to copy the Brentford model to be honest with the work permit issue now. Also any promising young players in the area will be hoovered up by us or Spurs/West Ham, we've already got several schemes set up in Suffolk to identify talent from there and given a choice as a promising young player, even taking the Norwich bias away, which club do you join?

 

To be honest I'm pretty certain they will be promoted in the next two seasons. All you need at that level is a team with 6 or 7 Championship level players and a manager who isn't an idiot. But the problems don't stop there, the gap between L1 and the Championship is huge now, bigger than it's ever been. They are miles away from being even a mid table Championship club and if they're fighting for relegation for a few years they're not going to be giving young players and players with potential a go are they?

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45 minutes ago, Christoph Stiepermann said:

To be honest I'm pretty certain they will be promoted in the next two seasons. All you need at that level is a team with 6 or 7 Championship level players and a manager who isn't an idiot.

Tell that to Sunderland and Portsmouth. The Ipswich fans who post on their forum seem to think it's all about their 17 new players gelling. It might be. Clearly they have bought a couple of decent players at that level, and they have publicised that their wages budget is bigger than it has been for many years (even potentially more than 100% of income, which might not be sensible start).

Their real problems begin when their US owners don't see the team getting into the top two. I suspect that they have put people in charge who have effectively "guaranteed" that they will get promoted - having worked for US companies, that is very much what they do. One measure of success. Deliver that and the plan rolls on. Fail in that, and they either pull away completely or reduce the investment, getting out for what they can. In the meantime, their interest on the loans rolls up as a preferential creditor so, worst case scenario, they close it down and take their money out.

Of course, the promotion target might be over two or three years. That would be more sensible. But their complete lack of youth planning (Academy 1 status is a minimum requirement for them to have a chance) and buying (not loaning) young players with potential seems to indicate that the owners are looking very short term. I do therefore fear for them. As a football club, I detest them because they are Ipswich. But I don't want to see any club lost to it's supporters - especially not one so local to mine where the rivalry adds to my enjoyment.

In a perfect world, Ipswich will not succeed but also will not go out of business. Maybe it's just got to get cheap enough for Ed Sheeran to buy it.

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