American investors are confident in the growth of Cornish pirates

Moritz said he first became aware of the Pirates after reading an article online, and after some initial calls he met with club management late last year.

After further negotiations, Stonewood agreed to pay the club and take a seat on the board of directors.

“We had a similar mind, so to speak, of what we could add and what the club was offering, and it wasn’t long after that that we created a framework for an investment,” Moritz said.

“I think we’re going to be involved at the board level, and that means we’re involved in important decision-making.

“We’re certainly not operations people, we’re not going to be involved in the day-to-day operations of the club.

“But, as with any of our investments, we care about the strategy, the direction, how we can help, and these things are done more at board level than the day-to-day grind of the club.”

Moritz said there is no time frame for how long he and his firm will be involved with Pirates or what kind of return they are looking for on their investment.

But he is confident that with Stonewood’s input the club will grow and become a more attractive asset.

“We don’t really know how we’re going to get a return on any of our investments,” he said.

“We assume that we will do the right things by the enterprise, and increase the value of the investment… and then we try not to make very specific claims about how we exit and when we exit, that’s always up in the air and when that might happen.

“We find that if we do the right things with investments, we grow, we execute strategies that people think will get us to a better place, that’s when all the good things happen.

“So, when we’re there, we’ll realize there’s enough growth and value that we’ve done what we can, and at that point, we’ll probably exit.”