Trip the floodlight fantastic

THE FRIDAY INTERVIEW:Chris Jackman, CEO of Shared Access

WITH €30 million in his back pocket to invest in grassroots soccer in Ireland, English businessman Chris Jackman could almost be considered a modern-day Jack Charlton.

And while the latest Big Jack won’t be leading us to any World Cups, the proposed investment in floodlighting by his telecoms infrastructure group Shared Access might yet have a positive impact on the coaching of young kids across Ireland during the dark nights of winter in years to come.

Sitting in the bustling atrium of the Westin Hotel on Black Thursday, Jackman explained the background to his novel deal with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI).

It’s simple, really. Shared Access will erect floodlights at soccer pitches around the State in return for being able to place wireless antennae on the poles. These will then be rented to telecoms companies for 25 years.

Clubs will also get up to €12,000 a year in a revenue-sharing deal that should cover their electricity and other costs. Vodafone, Meteor and 3 have already expressed an interest in renting space from him.

“It’s not a bad deal for the clubs,” Jackman says. “We’re going to maintain the sites for five years. We’ve geared the revenue share so that they can cover any electricity or generator costs. It’s totally cash-neutral to the clubs.”

With the Government having turned off the tap to capital grants for sports, applications from cash-strapped soccer clubs have poured in.

“They’re coming in at a rate of 10-15 a week so I think by Christmas we’ll see about 500 clubs that have responded to be considered for the scheme.”

There have even been cheeky applications from GAA teams: “We launched it on the FAI’s website but we got GAA clubs responding. So we’ve had a meeting with the GAA in Dublin and we’re waiting to see if there’s an opportunity to move that forward as well.”

Shared Access has operated under the radar here but has blue-chip backers in Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan.

“To date, the investment has been around $20 million,” Jackman says, adding that more than €40 million has been “ringfenced” for deals with the FAI and others.

Shared Access got its break in Ireland by winning the right to act as the exclusive agent for the Office of Public Works (OPW), managing its telecoms infrastructure at about 220 sites. These are mainly Garda stations.

Jackman says Shared Access was to have built towers at 375 Garda stations over a 3½-year period for the OPW. But the plan stalled some months ago with only a small number of stations completed.

Shared Access continues to manage the existing OPW sites but Jackman has given up on being able to grow the portfolio.

“Our ability to add new sites, which was the original deal, was taken away because the Garda decided that the rest of the portfolio could not be developed for ‘operational reasons’,” he explains. “I don’t understand what the operational reasons are. I can’t get an explanation for that but I have to accept it. We have to move on.”

Jackman began looking around for other opportunities. “So I met a guy called Mark O’Leary [then finance director] with the FAI. He told me the [Government] grants had run out but they were desperate to get lighting schemes [for the clubs]. It really stemmed from that.”

Jackman has also just inked a deal with fuel group Topaz to put antennae at about 100 of its service stations across Ireland. He’s in talks with the GAA, and the Irish Football Association in Belfast have also been in touch.

Jackman hopes to get about a dozen sites developed this year and 120 erected in 2011.

Given that Ireland is already littered with thousands of telecoms masts, do we need hundreds more provided by Shared Access?

“Yes, you do,” is Jackman’s straight-up answer. “When it was just voice, that was easy. You just put antennas up high and you could cover so many calls at any point in time. But with data, the demand is rocketing. Data demand places immense stress on the network. The only way around that is a lot more cells. That’s the dilemma.”

Jackman’s growth plans here could yet come a cropper. His masts need planning permission and many of those earmarked for residential areas are likely to be opposed by the not-in-my-backyard lobby on health grounds.

“If there are strong local objections , we will walk away from it,” Jackman says. “But there’s a wealth of data now to support the fact that they can’t link childhood cancer to mobile telephony.

“We measure the electromagnetic effect of a site annually. We are running installations at something like 25 times less than the minimum level the World Health Organisation sets. In many cases they [the masts] are a lot safer than what people have in their homes.”

Jackman runs a tight ship, with Shared Access employing just 18 staff here. “Mostly, this is about managing subcontractors to build and develop,” he says. “There are 100 to 150 people involved with us as contractors.”

Annual revenues are about €3.5 million but Jackman wants to grow that to €20 million.

And he’s also on the lookout for a deal. “We’re an acquisitive company and it’s certainly something we will look at,” he says.

Born in Chiswick in London in 1951, Jackman left school at 16. “I was fortunate to go work for Honeywell, who put me through a fabulous training scheme and through college. I come from an electronics engineering background.”

He has designed electronic controls systems for buildings, worked for multinational giants General Electric and Ericsson and run his own companies, including Shared Access, which he helped to set up. “I’ve made some money and lost some money,” he says, wistfully.

Jackman previously worked for cable TV company NTL, which owned businesses in Ireland and Britain.

“We had a public safety business here,” Jackman recalls. “I came to Ireland to understand that and was involved when NTL tried to bid for a contract. So I understood the market and I had a relationship with a company out here that did design work for us.”

In December 2007, Jackman got a call from a “friend” to say “there’s a lot of network expansion going on in Ireland and will you come talk to us”. Three years on, Shared Access is finally on the move.

Jackman returns to the south coast of England, where his home lies between Bournemouth and Southampton: “It’s a little seaside town that looks out on the Isle of Wight.” But he has a “flat” on Lower Baggot Street, too. “Some weeks I go home, some weeks I don’t,” he says.

His wife came over recently to watch Michael Bublé at the new Aviva Stadium, where Shared Access has a corporate box. “It was great, we really enjoyed it.”

But why, given the recession and all the other problems Ireland faces, has Jackman chosen to base his business here?

“Well, everywhere is a basket case right now,” he says.

Aren’t Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan concerned about getting a return on their money here?

“Certainly, there is a concern. But they know I’m here and there’s a trust as to what we’re doing. We’ve managed the business properly and it makes money.

“The biggest hurt we had was that we didn’t invest the cash we had in the past two years at the rate we wanted to invest it. That was the biggest negative for us. But we’ve got a growth path now and I’m excited about that.”

CV

Name:

Chris Jackman

Age:

60 next February

Family:

Married with three children

Hobbies:

“I’m football mad.” Although born in London, he’s a Manchester United fan. Also likes to watch films and Formula One motor racing.

Something we might expect?

A self-confessed “techie”, he has an iPhone and an iPad.

Something that might surprise?

“At 16, my greatest ambition was to be a rock star. I would have loved to live a rock and roll life. But I found that my ambition was more writing the music than performing it.”