Keen football fan turned turned investor in East Bengal - Ajit Isaac shakes things up in Kolkata!
After sweeping up a 70 percent stake in East Bengal FC, Quess Corp's Chairman Ajit Isaac has been making quite the buzz in Indian football...
In the summer of 1997, when a young professional named Ajit Isaac was falling in love with the beautiful game while attending English Premier League matches, he was oblivious to the footballing storm that was sweeping across the city of Kolkata. Amal Dutta's 'diamond' system had seen 131000 people attend a Kolkata derby that East Bengal won 4-1 and for the last time before embarking on a downward spiral.
Since then, the derby attendance figures have only dwindled.
Two decades later, their paths have crossed...
Sweeping up a 70 per cent stake in what will be now known as Quess East Bengal FC (QEBFC) Pvt. Ltd, Ajit Isaac, Chairman and Managing Director of its holding company, Quess Corp talks to Goal about his passion for football and his vision for the Red and Gold brigade.
Though he grew up in Chennai, Isaac's family originated from Kerala which is one of the footballing hotbeds in the country. "Most kids growing up do kick the ball a bit and you grow up with football in your life. The sport has been a matter of great interest for me and I have been tracking it a bit off late", said Isaac.
"In my school and college days in Madras, I used to go and watch when East Bengal and Mohun Bagan came to play there. I remember in Calcutta, I had gone for a match once when I had gone to visit my cousins. Those are fond memories for me", he reminisced.
Upon completing his studies from Loyola College in Madras, Isaac trenched deep into the corporate world but it was a visit to England (as a Chevening Scholar from the University of Leeds) that re-ignited the football fan in him.
He recounts, "I had gone to watch some Premier League matches in the UK in 1997 and that is when my interest in the game solidified. Seeing the mood, the game and the emotion that it creates, it surely was something that you remember for a long time."
Twenty years on, Isaac has gone on to build a firm with a market cap of more than ₹15,000 Crores and is termed as an 'acquisition specialist', having made around two dozen additions to Quess Corp's portfolio in the last decade with companies including Monster India, HCL's Care Business and Tata Business Support Services (now Conneqt Business Solutions).
Having made their first investment in the world of sports, Isaac now looks forward to making a direct impact with consumers through their association with East Bengal.
"We have a majority investment in the company that manages the footballing activities of the club. We will participate actively with the club in developing the game in three avenues - footballing activities, the infrastructure and engagement with the fans," Isaac explains the exact nature of the transaction between Quess and East Bengal.
When Quess made the announcement of investing in East Bengal, their share prices shot up understandably. "The shareholders of Quess Corp can hopefully get a terrific increase in the brand value of Quess as we are able to undertake this initiative right across many segments of our market," Isaac shared.
"Second, an increase in the branding activities of the company should lead to reaching our products to more number of consumers and hopefully increase the exposure for the product. We will use our brands directly with the club. It adds tremendous synergy in that way. It shall be said that we are a long-term player.
"We've always made decisions different from what the market has seen from other examples in the past. We've built a business model that is very different as a business services company, such a platform never existed and we've built out one. As our business becomes larger and moves from the B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) space, such a marketing initiative through a sports asset is a super opportunity for us.
He did not reveal whether Quess will be looking to invest in other sporting ventures.
"They (further sporting investments) are not in the pipeline so to say or we are not looking at anymore right now but I think it will be prudent to think that we will build on this initiative in the future."
With East Bengal now injected with a dose of financial might, Isaac foresees the Kolkata giants to function like any of Quess' other subsidiaries. He believes that the club will run professionally with decisions taken, keeping in mind their long and short-term goals.
"We are a very decentralised company. We have only ten people in our corporate office (in Bengaluru). We don't run any of our businesses ourselves. We have over 270,000 people and rake in more than a billion in sales per week. We leave it to all the presidents that run their businesses. We expect the club similarly to run out of Calcutta and with a lot of independence," he commented.
Keen football fan turned turned investor in East Bengal - Ajit Isaac shakes things up in Kolkata!
Isaac shed further light on the what will incorporate QEBFC. "Quess East Bengal Football Club will be the company that runs the footballing activities of East Bengal club. It will be headed by a professional and the team is being put together right now.
"It's a bit premature to talk about it because we are just about a week or ten days since we signed up. We are looking at about another two weeks before we settle into a new office and put the team together. There won't be a third party. It will be our own management that will be involved," he stated.
Quess becomes one of many such private firms which have invested in Indian football in the last four to five years ever since the Indian Super League (ISL) sprang up. Isaac had various ideas of his own how the game could do with a holistic facelift in the country.
"Indian football should see a lot of grassroots-level changes. For example, the footballing activities at school, colleges should be promoted. There should be an infrastructure that supports this. It is unfair to expect all of this infrastructure will come from private funding. The government should aid with some of it," he opined.
The 51-year-old further added, "The second thing is that we should reach out and to areas that produce talent - the North-East and parts of West Bengal, in the south in Kerala have traditionally have had a lot of footballing talents so we must talent scouting as a proper process.
"There should be a sports culture in the country, not just viewership but in terms of sports medicine, rehabilitation, training methods, sports psychology and the whole ecosystem that promotes winning athletes.
"At every club level, we must have a professional management and an ability to run a club like how well-oiled corporates work. So if it remains as a backyard system of few individuals, it is not going to develop a mass-based appeal."
East Bengal might not have had an indelible public image with various personnel within the club having criminal cases pending against them. Debabrata Sarkar, a current Executive Committee member of the club, was taken into custody by the CBI four years ago and Subhash Bhowmick, the current Technical Director of the senior side, was sentenced to three years in prison for bribery charges (although out on bail).
That, however, did not deter Isaac from investng in East Bengal. "I have no comments about that really. We are investing in an institution and it has a lot of background and a lot of character and that is what we are buying into," concluded Isaac.
East Bengal have had a morbid fourteen years, without a national league title and its fair share of controversies. The Kolkata maidans have been abuzz again and one could hope this new relationship only lights the torch brighter for the Red and Golds.
Quess East Bengal's Ajit Isaac - ISL has potential to become an outstanding league
The Red and Golds' new investors want to develop the club irrespective of an entry into the Indian Super League (ISL) this season...
The 98-year-old Kolkata club, East Bengal, got a fresh lease of life earlier this month when Quess Corp acquired a 70 per cent stake in its football team. East Bengal have been part of the I-League since its inception and it is not surprising to see that the club will look to be a part of the Indian Super League (ISL) in the near future, given the financial boost they have received.
Ajit Isaac, Chairman and Managing Director of Quess Corp, the parent company of Quess East Bengal Football Club (QEBFC) Pvt. Ltd, spoke to Goalabout what the potential entry into the ISL would mean for both the club and the company.
"Quess as a company is moving from being a business services provider to being a platform that connects with a large number of customers and consumers. The need to develop and execute a branding initiative is very necessary for us and sport is the medium to reach a unified constituency that resembles the type of people that we are dealing with. That is really the strategy and looking at a sports-related initiative is the first one," Isaac explained why the decade-old firm chose to invest in East Bengal.
"It's coincidental that we were exploring options in football and about the same time the club reached out to us because the previous sponsors (UB Group) were reconsidering. So, it all worked out," he revealed how the deal saw the light of the day.
The 51-year-old laid down his marker straight in terms of his vision for the club, indicating a jump into the ISL. He said, "To play in the league which has the best level of competition, viewership and in terms of branding would be outlook and desire of the club and whenever it happens, we would be happy for it.
"We want to give the best to our fans. We want to ensure they have an engagement with us that revolves around sporting activity and be a part of the winning culture the club wants to create. The ISL, if it happens, it happens. Otherwise, we want to build the club in any case."
He heaped praise on the ISL, merely a four-season-old league and hoped that it emerges to be a more superior brand in the future. "ISL is an interesting format. It has got potential and has done well for itself in the last few years and it could be the premium platform if developed in the right manner and with the right input. It has the potential to become an outstanding league," he opined.
Quess Corp have put in an initial investment of ₹10 Crores into QEBFC and are ready to further the funding through both organic and revenue-based streams. Isaac shared, "We've backed our companies wherever we have invested to ensure that they attain their business and commercial goals.
"We've put in 10 Crores for 70 per cent of the company right now. We obviously will have sponsorships that come in and when necessary, we're open to new methods of capital-raising should it be necessary."
Isaac also discussed how Quess East Bengal could market itself better and how to build revenue. He envisaged, "There is a lot of opportunities to build on merchandise, using the brand for other formats of the service industry that we could take a look at in the future. It is a bit too early but these are typically activities that clubs have done in the past. I see no reasons why East Bengal or any other footballing clubs in India should not pursue it."
Kolkata-based ISL side ATK have a venue-exclusivity clause for the first five seasons and that might prompt East Bengal to shift bases if their entry is approved for the 2018-19 season. According to sources, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), organisers of the ISL had recently sent a team to recce the Kanchenjunga Stadium in Siliguri, a city in northern West Bengal.
While East Bengal are no strangers to Siliguri having played many games there and have a massive fan-following there, Isaac remained coy on the development with entry into the ISL yet to be confirmed. "We haven't considered such options at this point. It's very premature to look at options of which base we will play from without even being in the ISL. It is important that we take this one step at a time," he replied.
The Red and Golds recently wrapped up the big-name signing of Johnny Acosta, a defender who turned out for Costa Rica in the recently concluded 2018 World Cup in Russia. Isaac though believed more in the team effort but does understand the need for star-studded arrivals to keep the fans excited.
"For fans, two things are important. One is marquee names that they can rally around and create an identity. The second is the winning culture of the club and we want to focus on this as much as we can in terms of developing with what we have got. I think you will hear about more signings in the future," he divulged.
Finally, East Bengal's traditional rivals Mohun Bagan appear to be in an administrative soup and seem unlikely to launch a bid to join the ISL this season. Isaac took into cognizance the significance of the Kolkata derby for the fans and only hoped that the prospective divide in leagues (if it happens) does not keep fans from enjoying the biggest match in the domestic calendar.
"It's a great occasion to have these two teams play against each other. It's a true sporting encounter on any occasion and in any format. It is something that we will all look forward to irrespective of which side we belong to. So, if it does happen (both teams into the ISL), it is great," he signed off.
Quess Corp Ltd - Announcement under Regulation 30 (LODR)-Acquisition
We wish to inform you that that Administrative & Investment Committee at its meeting held today i.e. July 17, 2018, considered and approved acquisition of 70% equity by the Company in Quess East Bengal FC Private Limited, a newly incorporated company.
Further, as required under Regulation 30 of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulation, 2015 read with SEBI Circular No. CIR/CFD/CMD/4/2015 dated September 9, 2015, we submit details of the aforesaid acquisition in the attached SEBI format.
I am very surprised that lalrindika ralte is not registered for the CFL. Given the fact that, this squad definitely lacks an experienced creative midfielder, he could have been a boon of an inclusion. Any disharmony in this regard? @thebeautifulgame
@goalkeepar yes mate. Till now only one foreign player in form of al amnah has been registered. Katsumi is been signed only for ileague. So he also misses out. It is good that more local and academy boys will get their share of chances. I really like this vidyasagar singh guy. And I seriously hope surabuddin does Justice to his talent at least for this time.
Comments
Keen football fan turned turned investor in East Bengal - Ajit Isaac shakes things up in Kolkata!
In the summer of 1997, when a young professional named Ajit Isaac was falling in love with the beautiful game while attending English Premier League matches, he was oblivious to the footballing storm that was sweeping across the city of Kolkata. Amal Dutta's 'diamond' system had seen 131000 people attend a Kolkata derby that East Bengal won 4-1 and for the last time before embarking on a downward spiral.
Since then, the derby attendance figures have only dwindled.Two decades later, their paths have crossed...
Sweeping up a 70 per cent stake in what will be now known as Quess East Bengal FC (QEBFC) Pvt. Ltd, Ajit Isaac, Chairman and Managing Director of its holding company, Quess Corp talks to Goal about his passion for football and his vision for the Red and Gold brigade.
Though he grew up in Chennai, Isaac's family originated from Kerala which is one of the footballing hotbeds in the country. "Most kids growing up do kick the ball a bit and you grow up with football in your life. The sport has been a matter of great interest for me and I have been tracking it a bit off late", said Isaac.
"In my school and college days in Madras, I used to go and watch when East Bengal and Mohun Bagan came to play there. I remember in Calcutta, I had gone for a match once when I had gone to visit my cousins. Those are fond memories for me", he reminisced.
Upon completing his studies from Loyola College in Madras, Isaac trenched deep into the corporate world but it was a visit to England (as a Chevening Scholar from the University of Leeds) that re-ignited the football fan in him.
He recounts, "I had gone to watch some Premier League matches in the UK in 1997 and that is when my interest in the game solidified. Seeing the mood, the game and the emotion that it creates, it surely was something that you remember for a long time."
Twenty years on, Isaac has gone on to build a firm with a market cap of more than ₹15,000 Crores and is termed as an 'acquisition specialist', having made around two dozen additions to Quess Corp's portfolio in the last decade with companies including Monster India, HCL's Care Business and Tata Business Support Services (now Conneqt Business Solutions).
Having made their first investment in the world of sports, Isaac now looks forward to making a direct impact with consumers through their association with East Bengal.
"We have a majority investment in the company that manages the footballing activities of the club. We will participate actively with the club in developing the game in three avenues - footballing activities, the infrastructure and engagement with the fans," Isaac explains the exact nature of the transaction between Quess and East Bengal.
When Quess made the announcement of investing in East Bengal, their share prices shot up understandably. "The shareholders of Quess Corp can hopefully get a terrific increase in the brand value of Quess as we are able to undertake this initiative right across many segments of our market," Isaac shared.
"Second, an increase in the branding activities of the company should lead to reaching our products to more number of consumers and hopefully increase the exposure for the product. We will use our brands directly with the club. It adds tremendous synergy in that way. It shall be said that we are a long-term player.
"We've always made decisions different from what the market has seen from other examples in the past. We've built a business model that is very different as a business services company, such a platform never existed and we've built out one. As our business becomes larger and moves from the B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Consumer) space, such a marketing initiative through a sports asset is a super opportunity for us.
He did not reveal whether Quess will be looking to invest in other sporting ventures.
"They (further sporting investments) are not in the pipeline so to say or we are not looking at anymore right now but I think it will be prudent to think that we will build on this initiative in the future."
With East Bengal now injected with a dose of financial might, Isaac foresees the Kolkata giants to function like any of Quess' other subsidiaries. He believes that the club will run professionally with decisions taken, keeping in mind their long and short-term goals.
"We are a very decentralised company. We have only ten people in our corporate office (in Bengaluru). We don't run any of our businesses ourselves. We have over 270,000 people and rake in more than a billion in sales per week. We leave it to all the presidents that run their businesses. We expect the club similarly to run out of Calcutta and with a lot of independence," he commented.
http://www.goal.com/en-in/news/ajit-isaac-quess-corp-east-bengal-isl-fan-turned-investor/1nzyp3a4nb1un1vlk8h8f7qx75
http://www.goal.com/en-in/news/ajit-isaac-quess-corp-east-bengal-isl-fan-turned-investor/1nzyp3a4nb1un1vlk8h8f7qx75
Keen football fan turned turned investor in East Bengal - Ajit Isaac shakes things up in Kolkata!
"It's a bit premature to talk about it because we are just about a week or ten days since we signed up. We are looking at about another two weeks before we settle into a new office and put the team together. There won't be a third party. It will be our own management that will be involved," he stated.
Quess becomes one of many such private firms which have invested in Indian football in the last four to five years ever since the Indian Super League (ISL) sprang up. Isaac had various ideas of his own how the game could do with a holistic facelift in the country.
"Indian football should see a lot of grassroots-level changes. For example, the footballing activities at school, colleges should be promoted. There should be an infrastructure that supports this. It is unfair to expect all of this infrastructure will come from private funding. The government should aid with some of it," he opined.
The 51-year-old further added, "The second thing is that we should reach out and to areas that produce talent - the North-East and parts of West Bengal, in the south in Kerala have traditionally have had a lot of footballing talents so we must talent scouting as a proper process.
"There should be a sports culture in the country, not just viewership but in terms of sports medicine, rehabilitation, training methods, sports psychology and the whole ecosystem that promotes winning athletes.
"At every club level, we must have a professional management and an ability to run a club like how well-oiled corporates work. So if it remains as a backyard system of few individuals, it is not going to develop a mass-based appeal."
East Bengal might not have had an indelible public image with various personnel within the club having criminal cases pending against them. Debabrata Sarkar, a current Executive Committee member of the club, was taken into custody by the CBI four years ago and Subhash Bhowmick, the current Technical Director of the senior side, was sentenced to three years in prison for bribery charges (although out on bail).
That, however, did not deter Isaac from investng in East Bengal. "I have no comments about that really. We are investing in an institution and it has a lot of background and a lot of character and that is what we are buying into," concluded Isaac.
East Bengal have had a morbid fourteen years, without a national league title and its fair share of controversies. The Kolkata maidans have been abuzz again and one could hope this new relationship only lights the torch brighter for the Red and Golds.
Quess East Bengal's Ajit Isaac - ISL has potential to become an outstanding league
The 98-year-old Kolkata club, East Bengal, got a fresh lease of life earlier this month when Quess Corp acquired a 70 per cent stake in its football team. East Bengal have been part of the I-League since its inception and it is not surprising to see that the club will look to be a part of the Indian Super League (ISL) in the near future, given the financial boost they have received.
Ajit Isaac, Chairman and Managing Director of Quess Corp, the parent company of Quess East Bengal Football Club (QEBFC) Pvt. Ltd, spoke to Goalabout what the potential entry into the ISL would mean for both the club and the company.
"Quess as a company is moving from being a business services provider to being a platform that connects with a large number of customers and consumers. The need to develop and execute a branding initiative is very necessary for us and sport is the medium to reach a unified constituency that resembles the type of people that we are dealing with. That is really the strategy and looking at a sports-related initiative is the first one," Isaac explained why the decade-old firm chose to invest in East Bengal.
"It's coincidental that we were exploring options in football and about the same time the club reached out to us because the previous sponsors (UB Group) were reconsidering. So, it all worked out," he revealed how the deal saw the light of the day.
The 51-year-old laid down his marker straight in terms of his vision for the club, indicating a jump into the ISL. He said, "To play in the league which has the best level of competition, viewership and in terms of branding would be outlook and desire of the club and whenever it happens, we would be happy for it.
"We want to give the best to our fans. We want to ensure they have an engagement with us that revolves around sporting activity and be a part of the winning culture the club wants to create. The ISL, if it happens, it happens. Otherwise, we want to build the club in any case."
He heaped praise on the ISL, merely a four-season-old league and hoped that it emerges to be a more superior brand in the future. "ISL is an interesting format. It has got potential and has done well for itself in the last few years and it could be the premium platform if developed in the right manner and with the right input. It has the potential to become an outstanding league," he opined.
Quess Corp have put in an initial investment of ₹10 Crores into QEBFC and are ready to further the funding through both organic and revenue-based streams. Isaac shared, "We've backed our companies wherever we have invested to ensure that they attain their business and commercial goals.
"We've put in 10 Crores for 70 per cent of the company right now. We obviously will have sponsorships that come in and when necessary, we're open to new methods of capital-raising should it be necessary."
Isaac also discussed how Quess East Bengal could market itself better and how to build revenue. He envisaged, "There is a lot of opportunities to build on merchandise, using the brand for other formats of the service industry that we could take a look at in the future. It is a bit too early but these are typically activities that clubs have done in the past. I see no reasons why East Bengal or any other footballing clubs in India should not pursue it."
Kolkata-based ISL side ATK have a venue-exclusivity clause for the first five seasons and that might prompt East Bengal to shift bases if their entry is approved for the 2018-19 season. According to sources, Football Sports Development Limited (FSDL), organisers of the ISL had recently sent a team to recce the Kanchenjunga Stadium in Siliguri, a city in northern West Bengal.
While East Bengal are no strangers to Siliguri having played many games there and have a massive fan-following there, Isaac remained coy on the development with entry into the ISL yet to be confirmed. "We haven't considered such options at this point. It's very premature to look at options of which base we will play from without even being in the ISL. It is important that we take this one step at a time," he replied.
The Red and Golds recently wrapped up the big-name signing of Johnny Acosta, a defender who turned out for Costa Rica in the recently concluded 2018 World Cup in Russia. Isaac though believed more in the team effort but does understand the need for star-studded arrivals to keep the fans excited.
"For fans, two things are important. One is marquee names that they can rally around and create an identity. The second is the winning culture of the club and we want to focus on this as much as we can in terms of developing with what we have got. I think you will hear about more signings in the future," he divulged.
Finally, East Bengal's traditional rivals Mohun Bagan appear to be in an administrative soup and seem unlikely to launch a bid to join the ISL this season. Isaac took into cognizance the significance of the Kolkata derby for the fans and only hoped that the prospective divide in leagues (if it happens) does not keep fans from enjoying the biggest match in the domestic calendar.
"It's a great occasion to have these two teams play against each other. It's a true sporting encounter on any occasion and in any format. It is something that we will all look forward to irrespective of which side we belong to. So, if it does happen (both teams into the ISL), it is great," he signed off.
Quess Corp Ltd - Announcement under Regulation 30 (LODR)-Acquisition
We wish to inform you that that Administrative & Investment Committee at its meeting held today i.e. July 17, 2018, considered and approved acquisition of 70% equity by the Company in Quess East Bengal FC Private Limited, a newly incorporated company.
Further, as required under Regulation 30 of the SEBI (Listing Obligations and Disclosure Requirements) Regulation, 2015 read with SEBI Circular No. CIR/CFD/CMD/4/2015 dated September 9, 2015, we submit details of the aforesaid acquisition in the attached SEBI format.
Pdf Link: Quess Corp Ltd - Announcement under Regulation 30 (LODR)-Acquisition
Source : BSE - www.bseindia.com
Coach: Bastab Roy
Here is all you need to know about the upcoming final of the IFA Shield:
Date: July 19, 2018
Match: East Bengal u19 vs Mohun Bagan u19
Time: 2:30 PM Indian Standard Time (IST)
Venue: East Bengal Sports Ground
Broadcast: Kolkata TV
Unfortunately no live stream available