Gamechanger director Ed Schwartz was at this evening’s fans’ forum at Portman Road but before he answered supporters’ questions he spoke to reporters, including TWTD’s Phil Ham.

Schwartz is the CEO of ORG, the US investment firm which manages funds on behalf of the Arizona Public Safety Personnel Retirement System (PSPRS), which holds a 90 per cent stake in new Blues owners Gamechanger 20.

The 54-year-old is the second member of Town’s US-based ownership to make the trip to Portman Road, following in the recent footsteps of Brett Johnson.

“Brett just spoke so highly about this place, I had incredibly high expectations,” Schwartz said. “And so far from what I’ve seen they’ve literally been exceeded. The facility is absolutely incredible

“I really feel the history already, even with an empty stadium. I walked in and literally the hair on the back of my neck stood up, I just had such a chill, just to walk through.

“And my first sight of the entire expanse of the stadium, it’s incredible and all the history is just so much fun to see.

“I’m excited because I really want to be part of the current and future because I think that we have such enthusiasm and such hope for restoring what’s just an incredibly storied club, and we really want to be a part of it.

“When you hear the fans sing the songs and the passion, just wanting to come over here and be a part has been such a desire and to finally be here it’s almost surreal. I can’t wait for tomorrow night and then again Saturday.”

He says his trip will be a mix of business and pleasure and he’s going to try to get to immerse himself in the community.

“It’s hard to answer because it’s been all business but it’s also been pleasure, so it’s been 100 per cent both,” he said.

“I’ve really, really enjoyed it and I enjoy the business aspect of it. I spent all day here today, I’ll be here all day tomorrow, I’m spending the nights in Ipswich, I want to get to know the community and really feel it here, so I want to spend a lot of time here, and then I’m coming back again for the game on Saturday.

“I want to spend as much time as possible and my partners and other board members from the US, we’re talking about coming again next month, all of us. That would be really fun as well.

“We really want to show the supporters that we really, really are committed and we’re committed to making this a long-term, sustainable investment that we can all be proud of, the whole community can be proud of.

“This is a community asset. We may represent the money behind this but this great football club is an asset of the community, and we all have to remember that.”

Having spent most of the time prior and since the takeover talking to chairman Mike O’Leary and CEO Mark Ashton on Zoom, Schwartz says it’s good to meet them in person.

“It really is,” he continued. “Zoom is a great tool, it’s certainly better than just an audio telephone but there’s nothing that can replace face to face and I’m sure after tomorrow and then Saturday, as much as I enjoy, especially the commentators on iFollow, it’ll be even more fun to be here in person.”

Quizzed on where ORG’s interest in English football and taking over a club came from, he said: “We look for investments that have unique characteristics that can’t be replicated. And this particular investment and [it’s] scarcity [in] English football is very unique.

“So when we had an opportunity to team up with what we think is the best management team in all of football and to identify a club that has such incredible value and history but was so undervalued, the opportunity was too good to pass up.

“And so far what we’ve seen as we’ve got into this and uncovered things is really more excitement, more opportunity literally every day.

“I feel more confident about this investment, this opportunity now than I did at any time during the time that we’ve been involved in this, so it’s pretty exciting.”

Did you consider other clubs? “We did. We looked for the last several years. We even looked at being a part of a bigger group for a Premier League team but it really wasn’t nearly as good an opportunity as this, this is by far the best opportunity we had seen.”

He added: “The Three Lions had the relationship with some people in English football and Mike O’Leary, and they were the ones that brought it to the pension fund (PSPRS) and to ORG.

“So that was something that I did not find but once I learned about it and we did our homework and due diligence, I became incredibly excited about.”

As manager of the investment for the pension fund, he liaises regularly with the management of the club at Portman Road as well as the Three Lions and Mark Steed, the chief investment officer of PSPRS.

“We all spend a lot of time collaborating on items and different issues,” he continued.

Does he see the investment in Town as a gamble? “We don’t it as a gambling, it’s certainly risky but all investments have some type of risk involved.

“But we think the return that we expect to get out of this [more than balances] the risk, so we look at it as a very sound investment and we couldn’t be more excited about it.”

Is the return dependent on reaching the Premier League? “That’s part of it. That’ll likely provide us the highest rate of return but we feel that there are things we can do in the current situation and then getting to the Championship where we can make a nice return.

“Certainly our goal is at some point to get to the Premier League but one step at a time, we’re just excited to be provide an exciting product today, really quickly in our ownership and just continue to build on that.

“Build on the business, build on the community, build on the football and the business end of it.”

It is clearly viewed as a long-term project. “It really is. To look an investment like this, it’s going to take many, many years. But we’re in it for the long haul, that’s our objective, that’s our goal.

“The pension fund is a long-term investor that we represent and we’re taking a very long-term approach to this.”

The intention isn’t to get into the Championship and then flip the club? The vision is longer term and bigger than that?

“It is,” Schwartz continued. “Again, I hesitate, there are no promises being made but that’s our goal. I’d be lying to you if I told our goal wasn’t to eventually get to the Premier League, that would be incredible.”

A pension fund becoming involved in a football club might raise some eyebrows with plenty losing money hand over fist but Schwartz says that doesn’t have to be the case.

“I think it depends on how you look at this type of investment,” he said. “I think the reason people think that is many people invest in football clubs, as they do in other sports, I’m going to call it a sort of toy or an ego investment.

“That is one way to do it and people have a lot of money and they certainly do that. We’re not taking that approach, we’re taking a very pragmatic, return-on-investment approach.

“So, when you ask ‘Will there be money to be spent in January?’, if have an opportunity where we can get a good return on an investment, then yes we’ll consider it.

“But we’re not going to sit there, the directors and everyone, ‘We just want to get the Championship and we’ll spend anything to get there’. That decision won’t be made.

“If it were a billionaire owner, an individual, they could do that and lose money and it’s just kind of fun for them, but we take a different approach, much more of an investment business approach.”

Given that the funds come from the pension funds of police and fire officers in Arizona, there has to be greater responsibility than might be the case in different situations.

“I would say to the supporters, this is a good thing because what we want to build is long-term sustainable success,” Schwartz reflected.

“We don’t want to just get promoted and then maybe say ‘Oh my God, we have to now cut the budgets’ and we get relegated again.

“We don’t want that situation, we want to be able to get promoted, stay there and then be in a position to take the next step.”

Would you see the ownership continuing over a long period if the club reaches the Premier League? “We haven’t had that discussion, that’s a great question. I don’t know once we got to that level.

“I can tell you this, we really care about what we’re building here so when you talk about long term sustainable success, I know, me personally, if and when we do ever sell this, we’d want to sell it to someone that would continue the legacy that we plan to build.

“We don’t just want to get to the Premier League and then have someone tear it down. But that would be a lovely problem to have, but that would be my hope and intent, but we’re a pretty long way out from that.”

While it might be seen as unusual for an English football club to be owned by a pension fund, there are sports clubs in North America where that is the case.

“In Canada there are few, but it’s not that common. I think it may be more and more common, we’ll see,” he said.

“If you think about it, run correctly, thought about correctly, I think it is a suitable investment for a pension fund because it’s a long-term asset and many sports franchises have increased in value quite a bit if run correctly.

“The interesting difference in the UK is that if it’s not run well and they don’t perform well you can really lose a lot of value and lot of money by getting relegated, which is different than a lot of the other sports in the US because there’s no relegation.

“In the UK, in English football, you have to make sure you get the management right and our view was that you buy something on a lower value basis, one that has potential, one that has history and Ipswich was really the perfect scenario for us.

“An undervalued club that has an incredible facility, the best fans and an ability then to bring it back to its glory.”

Quizzed on whether money might be available to strengthen in January, he said: “I have to defer to the management on that. We’ll make good investments if they make sense in January.

“But we’re not just looking to spend money to spend money, we’ll be smart, we’ll be prudent and if it’s something that will benefit the long term sustainable success of the club, we’ll certainly entertain anything that’s brought to us.”

Schwartz says the academy will be an important part of the Blues’ future: “If you think about the long-term success of a club, that’s a big important aspect of what we’re going to be looking to do and to make sure that we have the right people running the academy, in the academy and the right facilities. That’s definitely a focus of myself and the board that we’re continuing to evaluate.”

He says he and the other US owners will be relying on the expertise of O’Leary and Ashton: “Absolutely, we will be relying on them and their advice and what they suggest to the board on how we can best optimise the academy.

“But it is a very, very important aspect of building that long-term sustainable success of the football club.”

Schwartz wasn’t keen to put a time frame on the ownership: “I hesitate to put an absolute time frame but it’s at least seven to 10 years that we’ve talked about.

“In year three or four, if we see things going a certain way, we may re-evaluate that and extend it, but certainly it’s a long time, not a few years, it’s seven to 10 years.”

Asked whether he’s a football or soccer fan, Schwartz laughed: “I do call it football, a lot of my friends back in the States often have to correct me!

“I have become a big fan. I wasn’t a big fan growing up but starting to get involved in this I’ve become a huge fan and I’ve really, really enjoyed getting to know more about the sport and certainly about Ipswich and the traditions and all that. It’s been a lot of fun.”

What type of supporter is he? Will he be photographed celebrating as wildly as Johnson when Town score during Tuesday’s Papa John’s Trophy tie against Colchester or on Saturday when Oxford United visit Portman Road?

“I’m going to try, I think I might be a little bit more subdued but we’ll see, I may get in that stadium and become just as crazy as Brett, we’ll see!”

Photo: TWTD

TractorClarke added 15:47 - Nov 9 I hear people worrying about the return on investment line but i think most people know that football is a business these days and no one goes into it prepared to throw everything down and dont mind coming out of it without anything left, that will just never happen. Plus in fairness to the new owners in just one transfer window, i think i am confident enough to say that most fans expectations were exceeded, they have already proven they will put the money in to improve us as a club. Not forgetting the new pitch next year and a big screen in the corner of the stand which is something that should have been done long ago as it is wasted space, and it would look good. Until we start hearing that there is not money to make additions i myself am not going to worry, in the short time they have owned us they have already proven to me they care and want to improve us and get us up where we all want to be. We have some knowledgeable people leading us now, i feel like we are in good hands personally.

0

SoCalTownFan added 16:22 - Nov 9 I'm going to screen shot all the replies and when we sell our most valuable players to "satisfy the investors" "balance the books" I will be back. I'm all for optimism but you have to balance it with some realism and healthy caution.
0

Blogs 295 bloggers

Ipswich Town Polls