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How a former powerboat racer came to become Exeter's Big Chief ; Q&A [Western Morning News (England)](Western Morning News (England) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) The Aviva Premiership rugby season is now in full swing and the Exeter Chiefs are gunning for a top six finish and a place in the new format European Rugby Champions Cup. OLIVIER VERGNAULT visited self-made millionaire businessman Tony Rowe, the man credited with transforming the club into a successful brand, to find out how it happened What's your background? I am from Portsmouth. I joined the Royal Marines band at 15 in 1964. My first band was the Portsmouth Group Band of The Royal Marines, was made redundant after eight years in 1972 when they cut back the armed forces. Because I was being made redundant I was given time off to retrain and I retrained as a two-stroke marine engineer. I then set up a business repairing outboard motors which led me to driving racing boats. How long did you do that for? I was a semi-professional racing boat pilot for 10 years. All the money I earned fixing engines I spent on racing. Did you win anything? I was UK champion in circuit power boat in 1976 and was part of the only all English team to win the Rouen 24 hours power boat race, which is like the Le Mans 24 hours but for boats. I had a great life for 10 years. I had my business mending and racing boats, but I felt I needed to get a proper job. What sort of proper job did you get? My desire for a proper job coincided with the privatisation of the telecommunications market and BT; at the time I thought there could be some money in that. It was almost like black art because the only people who knew the industry were from BT. I asked a couple of guys I knew to come and work for me as telecommunications engineers, which they did and we were like pioneers. The Government had suddenly created a whole new market, and that's when I set up South West Telecoms. Where did you set that up? We were near Exeter's central station at first, then we moved to Marsh Barton and finally we built our head office on the Sowton Industrial Estate. When I left the Royal Marines I had every intention of going back to Portsmouth but I never got back there. I have had many opportunities in my life to travel but I love Devon and I love Exeter. In Devon there are a lot of people like me, blow-ins, who came from somewhere else and stayed, but in Devon people get accepted and it makes the place great. How was business at first? The first few years were a struggle because there was a shortage of equipment for the private sector. BT still had a big stronghold on the market, but we managed. The first engineers I ever employed are still with us to this day. My first salesman I employed at Telecoms is still working with me. He's working with me at the Exeter Chiefs rugby club. We struggled for equipment and to break into new markets but in 1998 we started to see the woods from the trees and business picked up. What does South West Telecoms do, or did? We were a telecommunications, service and maintenance business. We sold small telecom systems to the small businesses. We quickly realised that the smaller companies were buying these telecommunications systems on finance, so we decided to start our own finance company so we could offer the whole package. In the early 90s we could see what was on the horizon was integration of voice and data so we bought a small data company called Bit Rate Data which we integrated into our company. That gave us the experience and knowledge to go into the data side of business. How did the company evolve over the years? In the mid-90s we built a Data Hotel to host thousands of racks of data. And today we host thousands of websites from all over the world. Having completed our integration between voice and data we changed our name and we became the South West Communications group. Along the way we bought an office block in Portsmouth and two others in Exeter in which we have a managed office business which rents out desks and office services to businesses. I also a bought a company in receivership in Somerset which refurbishes enamelled range cookers. It seemed like a good idea at the time. I guess I'm always ready for a challenge. What's your turnover and how many staff do you employ? Our total turnover is about Pounds 25 million and we have 150 staff across the group. We are where we are with the business. The technology supporting modern business is developing day by day. We have come off the back of a tough old recession. I suffered a recession in the 90s, in 2000 but this has been the toughest I have seen. Our business suffered as a result of being as a service provider for the business sector. We have been treading water for the past two to three years but we are starting to see growth again. It's good to see pre-recession levels of business again. We have a pretty diverse business, from managed offices to a data centre. It's interesting to see that all the elements of our business are back in the black and are moving forward. Why and when did you get involved with Exeter Rugby Club? Back in 1993 I was friendly with a chap who was a former rugby player at the club. He said the club was struggling and needed money to endure. The club was not commercially orientated at all. When I was building my own business I was trying to engage the business community. Their sports are golf and rugby. We were already sponsoring the golf club so I thought we should get involved in rugby too. I thought sport was a good vehicle to promote my business. I got involved with the club as a sponsor at first. I had a close relationship with the then chairman and when the game turned pro I gave the club some advice which resulted in me forming a board of directors in 1998 and turning the club into a limited company. That's when Exeter Rugby became a proper business. Sport is a business. We must not forget that. It is a business which has to make a profit so the sporting side of things can continue. I see too many business people who get involved in sport and forget everything they've learned in business. They forget how to make it financially successful. When did you take over the club? I took over running the club in 1998. We set some goals and I am pleased that we have achieved some of them. But there's a long way to go. What's your favourite moment as owner of the club? Bristol 2010 when we won the Championship and gaining promotion into Premiership. How is the club doing financially? The club has gone from strength to strength on the pitch and commercially. From 1998 to 2008 I built the business up from a turnover of Pounds 200,000 a year to more than Pounds 1 million a year. We couldn't do much where we were so we moved to Sandy Park. In our first year the turnover went to Pounds 3 million. Now it has grown year on year and we have a Pounds 10 million turnover. I expect we'll have Pounds 11.5 million turnover next year and some profits too. It's not Premiership football, but in rugby terms, it is one of four clubs which make a profit and are run like proper businesses. When we looked at the challenges of Premiership rugby, building a stadium where you only play 16 times a year didn't make sense commercially. The business people who enjoy rugby also like being wined and dined, I had also noted that there was a lack of event and conferencing facilities in Exeter. So we built Sandy Park to be a conference centre which can be adapted to rugby. The core business of Sandy Park is events and conferencing. This pays for the rugby. What money the business generates goes into the club. Not the other way round. The reason our match day is a big event is because we have great conferencing and event facilities to do it. What sort of investment have you made in Sandy Park? Sandy Park initially cost Pounds 15 million and we are investing Pounds 10 million into the facilities to increase the size of our conference and banqueting facilities. The spin-off is that we have a bigger facility to get more people on match day, which generates more revenue. Conferencing and rugby support each other. They would not be sustainable on their own. What is the Sandy Park's capacity? Last season we finished with a capacity of 10,750. When our extension work in preparation for next year's World Cup is done we will have a capacity of 12,500. We have also increased our kitchen and banqueting capacity. Before our kitchen could produce 650 sit-down three-course meals at one sitting. Now we can do 1,300. When you think most venues in the region can do 100 to 250 covers, what we have makes this the biggest conference and events facilities in the South West. Why the name 'Chiefs'? In 1998 when I took over the club I was aware of the club's rich history. Exeter Rugby was founded in 1871. wwe needed to make it more marketable. It needed a brand. I happened to be talking to one of the old players. He suggested we call the club the Chiefs. He said there had always been a tradition in the Westcountry of calling the first 15 Chiefs and the second 15 United. It may have been an old navy slang for 'bosses'. We did our research and we started calling ourselves what we had in fact always been known as. We are the first 15. We are the Chiefs. Someone gave me an old match programme from 1904 and the first team was known as the Chiefs then. It is historically correct. All we've done is branding around it. The supporters did the rest. The tomahawks and drums, the fans did that, but it's great. What's next for the Chiefs? Commercially we are trying to get a return on our investment. We have spent Pounds 25 million at Sandy Park in the past eight years. We have got to drive the business on so it produces revenues and enables the rugby to grow. My ambition is to see the Chiefs become one of the top six teams in England year on year and establish ourselves in Europe. We are trying to build a club which is self-sufficient and can grow its own players. I'm pleased to see that 40 per cent of the squad are local Westcountry guys. We have a fantastic academy which is now producing top English players. When not busy managing several businesses, who do you relax? I now have a young family. I make sure we have regular holidays. I spent too many years chasing the money. Now my family is the most important thing to me. Luckily my family loves rugby so we come and watch the games and support the club together. I also have a collection of real fire engines and about 350 model fire engines. I got into that 25 years ago when I saw an old fire engine in a scrap yard. It must have sparked some childhood memory because I bought it and had it restored. That was the start of my collection. I bought a small-holding because I needed the space to house my fire engines. I love motorbikes too. I have done long-distance trips from Cape Town to Cairo and around South America and Northern Europe. I also collect English stamps. I suppose I'm a bit of a magpie really. I see too many business people who get involved in sport and forget everything they've learned in businessTONY ROWE The core business of Sandy Park is events and conferencing. This pays for the rugbyTONY ROWE (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |