| Talkeover news 14:22 - Feb 26 with 657 views | bluefunk |
THe Athletic are reporting a £17.5m takeover for Town has been agreed with Paul Cook to take over as Manager |  | | |  |
| The article in full on 14:29 - Feb 26 with 579 views | bluefunk |
A group of American investors led by Los Angeles-based businessman Brett Johnson is on the verge of buying Ipswich Town for £17.5 million, The Athletic understands.
The League One club have been owned by British multi-millionaire Marcus Evans since December 2007 but the 57-year-old has been in talks with various parties for at least six months, having poured more than £100 million of his wealth into the club over the last 13 years. Evans is understood to be writing off that debt, giving Johnson’s group a clean slate.
Johnson’s group would like Bristol City chief executive Mark Ashton to take over the day-to-day running of Ipswich but he is understood to be happy in Bristol for the time being, particularly as the Championship club have just appointed Nigel Pearson as their new manager and are about to open a state-of-the-art new training ground.
There is one staffing change that does appear to be imminent at Portman Road, though, as manager Paul Lambert is set to be replaced by former Wigan Athletic boss Paul Cook.
Lambert took charge in October 2018 but was unable to prevent Ipswich’s relegation from the Championship, which ended a 17-year stay in England’s second tier. Ipswich started their first season in the third tier well under the 51-year-old Scot but faded to finish in 11th place, their lowest finish since 1953.
This season has followed a similar pattern, with a bright start fizzling out, leading to calls for Lambert’s sacking and protests by fans. Ipswich are 10th in the table, five points behind Doncaster Rovers in the final play-off spot.
Cook resigned as Wigan boss in July shortly after their relegation from the Championship. No blame for that can be attached to Cook, though, as Wigan had been punching above their weight until they were hit with a 12-point penalty for entering administration. The 53-year-old Englishman has previously led Chesterfield and Portsmouth to the League Two titles and Wigan to a League One title.
Johnson is the founder and chairman of Fortuitous Partners, a sports investment fund, and Benevolent Capital Partners, a private equity firm with investments in manufacturing, property and sport.
In 2015, Johnson bought a minority stake in Arizona United, a new team in the USL Championship, American soccer’s second tier, and became the club’s co-chairman and president. His first significant appointment was making former Ipswich stalwart Frank Yallop the team’s manager.
Within a year, the team had been rebranded as Phoenix Rising and the ownership group had swollen to include American DJ, songwriter and record producer Diplo; Pete Wentz, the bass player and lyricist from rock group Fall Out Boy; and several more investors.
Since then Phoenix Rising have become one of the most successful teams in the USL and have moved into their own 10,000-seat stadium. Didier Drogba and Shaun Wright-Phillips are among their more notable former players and Drogba, who finished his playing career in Arizona at the age of 40 in 2018, has a minority stake in the club. The hope is that Phoenix Rising will eventually join Major League Soccer.
Drogba is not believed to be among Johnson’s proposed group of investors in Ipswich, although it does include Phoenix Rising’s co-chairman Berke Bakay, the founder of Bakay Capital, a Phoenix-based hedge fund.
As well as his investment in Phoenix Rising, Johnson is also launching a USL team in Rhode Island and has a small stake in Danish side Helsingor.
The takeover would end a deteriorating marriage between Ipswich and Evans, who was born in London but raised in the Suffolk village of Walsham le Willows.
Despite being fiercely protective of his privacy, Evans took control of Ipswich when he paid approximately £6 million for the club’s £32 million debt to Barclays Bank and insurance company Norwich Union in 2007. He also invested a further £12 million into the club via a share issue that left him with an 87.5 per cent stake.
The plan was to return to the Premier League as soon as possible, having been relegated from the top flight in 2002, a year after George Burley led them to a remarkable fifth-place finish. Burley’s side were only pipped to the final Champions League place on the last day of the season by Liverpool.
David Sheepshanks, chairman at the time, predicted a bright future under Evans, saying: “We believe the investment provides the best opportunity for this football club to move forward, return to the Premier League and stay there.”
Unfortunately, Ipswich “spent a lot of money in the first few years and got nowhere”, as Evans once admitted. Managers Roy Keane and Paul Jewell were backed financially but a sixth-place finish in the Championship under Mick McCarthy in 2015 has been the zenith of Evans’ time in charge. And to add insult to injury, Ipswich lost to local rivals Norwich in the play-off semi-finals that year.
Evans has reduced his financial support in recent seasons but the club accounts show a total wage bill of £102 million over the last six years, which is more than their total income of £98 million. As of summer 2019, the club’s debt to Evans had grown to £96.4 million. Writing to supporters in December, Evans admitted Ipswich had lost money in all but one of the last 13 years.
Without publicly putting the club up for sale, Evans has consistently stated he would relinquish control if suitable investment was forthcoming. “I have always said I would step aside for an owner who would be prepared to spend more money on Ipswich so long as they are fully committed financially over a period of time to take the club up the league tables,” he wrote before Christmas.
The pandemic has taken a further toll on both the club’s and his own finances. Earlier this season, Evans predicted COVID-19 would cost Ipswich £10 million in lost income, while his Marcus Evans Group will likely have struggled more than most over the last 12 months as it is one of the world’s leading conference and sports hospitality businesses.
As Evans wrote in an article published on the club website in September: “Owners, whose own businesses may well be suffering losses, will get to a point where they are not in a position to continue to cover substantial deficits at their football club.”
The £17.5 million price tag for Ipswich will raise some eyebrows in the industry. It is not much less than Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is understood to have paid for his shares at Sunderland, a club that, unlike Ipswich, own their stadium and are fifth in League One.
It is also believed to be a similar amount to the Allam family’s asking price for Hull City. They do not own their ground either but were a Premier League side as recently as 2017 and are currently third in League One.
That said, Ipswich’s average gate of 19,500 was second only to Sunderland’s in League One in 2019-20, with only Leeds United, Derby County and Nottingham Forest having higher attendances in the Championship that season. And fans of a certain generation will remember the club’s golden era in the late 1970s and early 1980s when they won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup and twice finished second in the old First Division under Sir Bobby Robson. | | | |
| The article in full on 14:41 - Feb 26 with 496 views | Tangledupin_Blue |
| The article in full on 14:29 - Feb 26 by bluefunk |
A group of American investors led by Los Angeles-based businessman Brett Johnson is on the verge of buying Ipswich Town for £17.5 million, The Athletic understands.
The League One club have been owned by British multi-millionaire Marcus Evans since December 2007 but the 57-year-old has been in talks with various parties for at least six months, having poured more than £100 million of his wealth into the club over the last 13 years. Evans is understood to be writing off that debt, giving Johnson’s group a clean slate.
Johnson’s group would like Bristol City chief executive Mark Ashton to take over the day-to-day running of Ipswich but he is understood to be happy in Bristol for the time being, particularly as the Championship club have just appointed Nigel Pearson as their new manager and are about to open a state-of-the-art new training ground.
There is one staffing change that does appear to be imminent at Portman Road, though, as manager Paul Lambert is set to be replaced by former Wigan Athletic boss Paul Cook.
Lambert took charge in October 2018 but was unable to prevent Ipswich’s relegation from the Championship, which ended a 17-year stay in England’s second tier. Ipswich started their first season in the third tier well under the 51-year-old Scot but faded to finish in 11th place, their lowest finish since 1953.
This season has followed a similar pattern, with a bright start fizzling out, leading to calls for Lambert’s sacking and protests by fans. Ipswich are 10th in the table, five points behind Doncaster Rovers in the final play-off spot.
Cook resigned as Wigan boss in July shortly after their relegation from the Championship. No blame for that can be attached to Cook, though, as Wigan had been punching above their weight until they were hit with a 12-point penalty for entering administration. The 53-year-old Englishman has previously led Chesterfield and Portsmouth to the League Two titles and Wigan to a League One title.
Johnson is the founder and chairman of Fortuitous Partners, a sports investment fund, and Benevolent Capital Partners, a private equity firm with investments in manufacturing, property and sport.
In 2015, Johnson bought a minority stake in Arizona United, a new team in the USL Championship, American soccer’s second tier, and became the club’s co-chairman and president. His first significant appointment was making former Ipswich stalwart Frank Yallop the team’s manager.
Within a year, the team had been rebranded as Phoenix Rising and the ownership group had swollen to include American DJ, songwriter and record producer Diplo; Pete Wentz, the bass player and lyricist from rock group Fall Out Boy; and several more investors.
Since then Phoenix Rising have become one of the most successful teams in the USL and have moved into their own 10,000-seat stadium. Didier Drogba and Shaun Wright-Phillips are among their more notable former players and Drogba, who finished his playing career in Arizona at the age of 40 in 2018, has a minority stake in the club. The hope is that Phoenix Rising will eventually join Major League Soccer.
Drogba is not believed to be among Johnson’s proposed group of investors in Ipswich, although it does include Phoenix Rising’s co-chairman Berke Bakay, the founder of Bakay Capital, a Phoenix-based hedge fund.
As well as his investment in Phoenix Rising, Johnson is also launching a USL team in Rhode Island and has a small stake in Danish side Helsingor.
The takeover would end a deteriorating marriage between Ipswich and Evans, who was born in London but raised in the Suffolk village of Walsham le Willows.
Despite being fiercely protective of his privacy, Evans took control of Ipswich when he paid approximately £6 million for the club’s £32 million debt to Barclays Bank and insurance company Norwich Union in 2007. He also invested a further £12 million into the club via a share issue that left him with an 87.5 per cent stake.
The plan was to return to the Premier League as soon as possible, having been relegated from the top flight in 2002, a year after George Burley led them to a remarkable fifth-place finish. Burley’s side were only pipped to the final Champions League place on the last day of the season by Liverpool.
David Sheepshanks, chairman at the time, predicted a bright future under Evans, saying: “We believe the investment provides the best opportunity for this football club to move forward, return to the Premier League and stay there.”
Unfortunately, Ipswich “spent a lot of money in the first few years and got nowhere”, as Evans once admitted. Managers Roy Keane and Paul Jewell were backed financially but a sixth-place finish in the Championship under Mick McCarthy in 2015 has been the zenith of Evans’ time in charge. And to add insult to injury, Ipswich lost to local rivals Norwich in the play-off semi-finals that year.
Evans has reduced his financial support in recent seasons but the club accounts show a total wage bill of £102 million over the last six years, which is more than their total income of £98 million. As of summer 2019, the club’s debt to Evans had grown to £96.4 million. Writing to supporters in December, Evans admitted Ipswich had lost money in all but one of the last 13 years.
Without publicly putting the club up for sale, Evans has consistently stated he would relinquish control if suitable investment was forthcoming. “I have always said I would step aside for an owner who would be prepared to spend more money on Ipswich so long as they are fully committed financially over a period of time to take the club up the league tables,” he wrote before Christmas.
The pandemic has taken a further toll on both the club’s and his own finances. Earlier this season, Evans predicted COVID-19 would cost Ipswich £10 million in lost income, while his Marcus Evans Group will likely have struggled more than most over the last 12 months as it is one of the world’s leading conference and sports hospitality businesses.
As Evans wrote in an article published on the club website in September: “Owners, whose own businesses may well be suffering losses, will get to a point where they are not in a position to continue to cover substantial deficits at their football club.”
The £17.5 million price tag for Ipswich will raise some eyebrows in the industry. It is not much less than Kyril Louis-Dreyfus is understood to have paid for his shares at Sunderland, a club that, unlike Ipswich, own their stadium and are fifth in League One.
It is also believed to be a similar amount to the Allam family’s asking price for Hull City. They do not own their ground either but were a Premier League side as recently as 2017 and are currently third in League One.
That said, Ipswich’s average gate of 19,500 was second only to Sunderland’s in League One in 2019-20, with only Leeds United, Derby County and Nottingham Forest having higher attendances in the Championship that season. And fans of a certain generation will remember the club’s golden era in the late 1970s and early 1980s when they won the FA Cup and UEFA Cup and twice finished second in the old First Division under Sir Bobby Robson. |
So...
We'll have a feeder club in Helsingor but we'll be a feeder club for Phoenix. |  |
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