Benefactor Pumps £44m Into Ipswich - 04/11/2007

Ipswich Town's chances of regaining their Premiership status have been considerably boosted by the news that businessman Marcus Evans is prepared to put £44m into the football club. The deal would involve Evans purchasing £32m of debt and investing an extra £12m into the Championship club. Long-serving chairman David Sheepshanks would remain in office. There have been rumours for some time of a takeover of Ipswich. Compared with many other multi-millionaires who have invested in football clubs, Marcus Evans has a very low media profile. His company, the Marcus Evans Group, includes a business events division which promotes more than 2,000 conferences and exhibitions in 32 countries and is also a major provider of professional training. However, the roots of the group's success lie in the corporate hospitality sector, in which Mr Evans reuptedly began by serving up strawberries and cream in the garden of a former home in Wimbledon during the annual tennis championships. In all, the group is said to employ more than 3,500 people in 61 countries, but rather less is known about the man behind the business.

Mr Evans was last year linked with a £800m bid for newspaper group Trinity Mirror, compared with which his £44m investment in the Tractors is relatively small change. He is seldom photographed and does not give interviews. He is reportedly a tax exile with most of his businesses being registered abroad, but is said to own a spectacular home on 'multi-millionaires' row in Kingston-upon-Thames, along with another multi-million pound property in Chelsea. Although it is claimed that he has 'long been an admirer' of Ipswich Town, little is known about his personal interest in sport in general or football in particular. From a business prespective, the level of interest in Premiership football and the established involvement of the group in the lucrative corporate hopsitality sector makes ownership of a football club a logical, if risky, next step. A club with a defined catchment area like Ipswich is probably more attractive than a London club like Charlton which has also been on the market.