New Town co-owner Mark Detmer says one of the advantages of being partnered with a pension fund, such as Arizona’s Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), who own 90 per cent of new Blues owners Gamechanger 20 Ltd, is their “very long time horizon”.
TWTD first reported in February that the then-proposed takeover was being backed by the pension fund of a US state’s fire and police service and revealed after the deal had been completed that PSPRS was that fund.
PSPRS, whose chief investment officer is Mark Steed, was established in July 1968 to "provide a uniform, consistent and equitable statewide retirement program for Arizona’s public safety personnel”. The fund is worth $13 billion (£9.47 billion) with $700 million (£510 million) in cash.
A US investment fund called ORG manages funds on behalf of PSPRS with Edward Schwartz their representative on the Gamechanger 20 board.
Detmer, speaking to TWTD and Blue Monday in the first podcast of what will be an ongoing collaboration, was asked how PSPRS got involved in the takeover.
"Through relationships, like anybody. And, of course, at this point there’s only so much I can say about that,” he said.
"But they’re great partners of ours, they’re committed to see the project through. They have capital, we have capital to commit but it’s not just about capital.
"As you’ve seen, Marcus [Evans] is very passionate about the club and spent a lot of money on the club and it didn’t yield the results that you would all have liked to have seen, so it’s not just about capital.
"The PSPRS brings capital to the table as well as partnership and again at this point, culture. And those are the things that we’re really hitting on, and connecting in the community.”
Pension funds becoming involved in the purchase of sports teams is not as unusual as it might first appear, although often their involvement is more opaque as their investment is pooled with others in wider funds.
One example of an investment in North American sport is the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund's investment in ice hockey side the Toronto Maple Leafs.
"That’s right, it’s not uncommon,” Detmer continued. "Maybe we’re trendsetters [in the UK]. You might see more of this type of transaction going forward.”
One concern fans may have is that the fund might be on a tight timescale to make a profit from Town. Detmer says otherwise.
"That’s the nice thing about pension funds, their time horizon is very, very long,” he said. "It’s not about trying to come in like certain groups that try to, I hate to say make a quick buck, that’s not a good characterisation, but to try to turn something really quick.
"They’re not at all like that. They’re very much aligned with us that we need to create the building blocks to go up to the Championship and at that point build the club and the support and stadium and everything around it going then to the Premier League.
"They’re aligned with us in that mission and that vision but they have a very, very long time horizon associated with it.”
Detmer says he, his fellow Three Lions, Brett Johnson and Berke Bakay, and PSPRS are aware that it’s impractical to aim for reaching the Premier League in just a couple of years.
"It’s unrealistic as much as we’d all love to see that happen,” he said. "It’s taken decades to end up back in League One, it will take time for us to get back to the Championship and then hopefully [fulfil] our vision to be in the Premier League.”