Marcus Evans

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Marcus Evans is an English businessman who is also the Owner and Chairman of Ipswich Town Football Club. He was born on 18 August 1963.^{[citation needed]} He has links with Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk.^{[citation needed]}

His company marcus evans runs global summits, strategic conferences, and professional training.^{[citation needed]} Founded in 1983, the company now employs over 3500 employees operating into 36 countries around the world.^{[citation needed]}

Contents 1 Profile 2 Career 2.1 The Ross Group 2.2 The Trinity Mirror Group 3 Ipswich Town Football Club 4 The Hospitality Group and the Rugby World Cup 5 Politics 6 References 7 External links 8 Marcus Evans Conference Websites

[edit] Profile

In 2006, MoneyWeek reported that Marcus Evans has given no public interview and there were no publicly available photographs of him.^[1] He does, however, have all the trappings of wealth, according to the Evening Standard, '... including a gorgeous home on multi-millionaires row in Kingston-upon-Thames, with a line of "Top Gear beauties" parked outside', and The Boltons in Chelsea, London^[2]. He enjoys teasing his pursuers according to The Independent; his events firm, which specialises in arms and military conferencing, has a quote from Aristotle on its website: “All men by nature desire to know.”

Evans has now been a tax exile for more than a decade. Documents filed in the late 1990s, when he was a director of Ross Group, revealed that his contract as chairman required him to spend only 60 days a year in the UK — evidence, according to tax experts, that he had moved offshore.^[3]. Companies House also lists his fifteen firms, including his core company The Marcus Evans Group, as all being registered in Bermuda.^[4] He now lists an office building in Bermuda as his address, although he still owns his two homes in Britain.^[5] Evans resigned all his UK-based directorships in 2000.

[edit] Career

Evans’ started his first firm, Associated Promotions, in the early 1980s to tap the gravy train of corporate hospitality. In 1997, he made the national press during Wimbledon fortnight when he served champagne lunches and strawberries and cream from a marquee in the garden of his own house in Somerset Road which overlooked the All-England Club. According to MoneyWeek:

‘...his strategy was to sidestep fortress Wimbledon by serving champagne lunches and strawberry teas in his garden overlooking the club – much to the annoyance of neighbours. At a subsequent inquiry, his solicitor defended “this talented and able young man”. A neighbour, who alleged he’d been offered a £1,000 bung, took a different view, describing Evans as someone who believed “every man has his price”.'^[6]

The marcusevans Group, which Evans set up in 1983, is based in Soho.^[7]

[edit] The Ross Group

Ross Group was an ailing consumer electronics company that had fallen on hard times since a spending spree in the three years up to 1992 saw it splash out £23m for a number of acquisitions which led to large losses. The company was forced to sell a pallet manufacture, closed a car hi-fi business and sold a travel accessories company and a supplier of in-flight products. In 1994, it received an injection of new management and new funds from Marcus Evans. Evans paid £325,000 for a stake of just under 5 per cent in Ross and assumed the role of chief executive. He brought with him two non- executive directors - Thomas Melvin, head of taxation at British Gas, and David Powell, a legal adviser to PA Consulting. Evans had plans to reverse THG, which he had spent 12 years building up, into the group.^[8] It came to nothing, nor did the ailing Ross Group, despite a major streamlining, according to The Guardian. In 1999, Evans was toppled in a shareholder coup.^[9]

[edit] The Trinity Mirror Group

Trinity Mirror plc (LSE: TNI) is a large British newspaper and magazine publisher. It is Britain's biggest newspaper group, publishing 240 regional papers as well as the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, People, Sunday Mail and Daily Record. Its headquarters are at Canary Wharf in London, and it is listed on the London Stock Exchange (it has typically been a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index; however, on 22 December 2008, it became one of three major media companies to fall out of the index.)^[10] Trinity Mirror, its current owner, was formed in 1999 through the merger of the Mirror Group (after its editor, David Montgomery, had resigned) and the regional newspaper group Trinity.

In 2004, Evans’ company led a consortium which launched a bid of between £700-£800 million for Trinity Mirror. However, the offer was rejected as undervaluing the company, given that Trinity Mirror earned £66.4 million in operating profit in 2004.^[7]

In 2006, Evans re-newed his offer to NM Rothschild representing Trinity Mirror but bid £600 million owing to the continued loss of circulation and a reduction in advertising revenue since his first initial offer.^[11] A Trinity spokesman said the company would not entertain talk of a sale before it completes its review, adding "Marcus Evans is welcome to buy the Daily Mirror for 40p at the newsagent. This approach is wishful thinking on his part as none of Trinity Mirror's assets are for sale."^[12]

[edit] Ipswich Town Football Club

In 2007, Evans took an 87.5 per cent share in Ipswich Town, purchasing Ipswich's £32 million debts with Aviva (Norwich Union) and Barclays Bank and making £12 million available in funds for new players. The official announcement did not stake the terms of this deal: various unsourced media reports speculated that he was paying anything between 20 pence and 100 pence in the pound of the debts, without giving sources.^[13] He also injected £12 million into the club in exchange for an issue of new shares, which gave him his 87.5% stake, and reduced the existing shareholders stake to 12.5%.^[14] The deal was finalised following an EGM on 17 December 2007, at which the proposal was backed by shareholders speaking for 98.9% of the stock.^[15] Evans does not personally sit on the Ipswich board but he appointed three group executives to join the existing board members. However, he likes to keep a tight control over his interests and, according to one newspaper, it is understood he wants to recoup his money within five years, by which time he hopes Ipswich will be an established Premier League club again.^[4]

On 23 April 2009, Roy Keane was appointed manager of Championship side Ipswich Town. The 37-year-old signed a two-year contract following the sacking of Jim Magilton, following Keane's statement that he was prepared to move from his Cheshire home and manage again in the Championship. Keane had been out of work since December 2008 when he resigned as Sunderland manager, having been in charge of the Premier League club for 27 months.

Evans was particularly attracted by Keane’s track-record as a winner and also his experience of gaining promotion from the Championship and he is expected to pour millions into a promotion push for the 2010 season. Evans is understood to have offered guarantees to Keane about a significant summer transfer budget. The sacking of Magilton came as no surprise since he has been under pressure for some time and lost his job just a day after the appointment of new chief executive Simon Clegg. Assistant manager John Gorman, who arrived to help Magilton at the end of January, has also left Ipswich. According to Clegg, 'We are close to making an appointment. If we can get someone in before the end of the season that would have its benefits. We want a winner.'^[16]

To help cement his position into Suffolk life, the names of Marcus Evans’s new investment in four two-year-old racehorses are reportedly 'Ipswich Lad', 'Portman Boy', 'Suffolk Punch' and 'Trewarthenick' which are stabled with trainer Andrew Balding (brother of BBC's Clare Balding). The fourth is named after the estate in Cornwall which Evans bought last year

[edit] The Hospitality Group and the Rugby World Cup

In June 2007, the organisers of the Rugby World Cup failed to secure exclusive control over corporate hospitality at the event. In a ruling, the Paris Commercial Court awarded marcus evans the right to run hospitality packages without the approval of the organising committee. The International Rugby Board (IRB) had been seeking to ring-fence all the activities relating to the event.

Marcus Evans won its case after telling the court that its packages included receptions before and after the matches, but not tickets to see them. This claim was contested by the organising committee, which accused Marcus Evans of acting like a “parasite” after it advertised hospitality for games in France, Wales and Scotland. The committee stated the company was running a “parallel trade and reselling tickets to the stadiums” and “exploiting the notoriety of the World Cup without spending any money”.^[17] The organising committee and the IRB said that they had signed an exclusive deal with Sodexho, the French catering group, and Mike Burton, the British corporate hospitality specialist, to set up and sell packages for the World Cup, including a champagne reception, a three-course meal, a guest speaker, travel, match tickets and a chance to watch a replay of the game as soon as it has finished. Demanding damages of €3 million (£2 million), the organisers asked the court to denounce Marcus Evans’s unofficial package – which includes champagne, an open bar, a four-course meal and hostesses – as unlawful.

The lawyer for Marcus Evans commented that “The fundamental argument is about the freedom to carry out a business activity and that is a constitutional right which was recognised by the court. This puts a stop to the possibility for the organisers of such events to award unlimited exclusive contracts". The organising committee’s Clifford Chance lawyer said after the case: “The court found against us because the companies involved stated in black and white that their hospitality packages do not include tickets to the stadiums. We have evidence to suggest the contrary.”^[17] However no such evidence has ever been produced in the French courts, by the IRB/organising committee to support this comment.

[edit] Politics

Politically he was believed to be a major contributor to the Liberal Democrats. In 2007 it was announced that Evans would give the Liberal Democrats £1 million in order to fund a call centre at the next general election.^[18] However there are unconfirmed unreports that he severed his ties to the party in late 2008, as result of losses incurred in the financial crisis.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• marcus evans employees on the beach in Barcelona
• Marcus Evans - marcus evans corporate website
• SMG Worldwide - SMG Worldwide, a marcus evans company
• Professional Training - marcus evans Professional Training
• Language Training - Linguarama, a marcus evans company
• Financial Training - marcus evans Financial Training
• 'Marcus Evans Ltd. Receives 2008 Best of Chicago Award'

[edit] Marcus Evans Conference Websites

• marcus evans congress
• marcus evans pharma brand summit
• marcus evans cio quarterly
• marcus evans cmo summit