Crain’s Chicago Business says that if Sam Zell get’s his way, there will not be a ‘next year’ for Tribune ownership of the Cubs:
Mr. Zell expects to select a finalist from the five remaining bidding groups and submit the deal for Major League Baseball’s approval sometime in December, a person familiar with the sale says.
He is fast-tracking the sale — despite a credit crunch that seemed to put his year-end deadline in doubt — as pressure mounts to raise as much as $1 billion to chip away at the mountain of debt from his 2007 buyout of Tribune. With cash flow plummeting from weak advertising sales at Tribune’s newspapers, selling half the team probably wouldn’t raise the cash he needs. He has other assets to unload, but it would be difficult to do so quickly in a tough credit market.
Some observers question whether Mr. Zell will be able to pull off the sale at the price and timing he wants.
Looks like he is between a rock and a hard place. Although the Trib floated the idea of retaining 50% owneship, that has not been welcomed by the suitors.
At least one bidding group has no interest in acquiring only half the team, according to a person familiar with its plans.
If you can somehow put together the financing for this, why not buy as much as you can while the thing is discounted? Zell has to sell, no need to pay top dollar any longer.
Analysts estimate Tribune will need to pay back another $600 million to $1 billion by yearend to keep its debt in line with its shrinking cash flow. Lenders could opt to give Tribune extra time to make good, especially if a deal for the Cubs were in place but not yet completed, Mr. Courtney says.
It only takes one. All Zell needs is one crazy to make this whole headache go away:
“Any buying group’s personal wealth and ability to borrow is sure to have taken a big hit,” says Jeff Phillips, a Virginia-based managing director and specialist in sports-business deals at Stout Risius Ross Inc., an investment banking firm not involved in the Cubs sale. “It’s still a unique asset. All it takes is one guy to say, ‘I want it, and I’m willing to pay up.’ “
UPDATE 11:19 — That one will probably not be Mark Cuban. Cuban has probably just given the MLB owners who detest him the excuse not to allow him into their club. YAHOO!–Dallas Mavericks owner Cuban charged with insider trading
lol — baseball has friends at the SEC? who knew!
it makes me laugh that — after eight years of sitting on their ass and becoming an eviscerated fief for bush administration cronies to deal out as a favor, doing less than nothing (in fact acutally facilitating with moves like the alternative net minimum capital rule, which ended up busting the major broker/dealers) as the markets went criminal — they pop up for a chump-change sideshow like this in the waning days of dubya’s reign.
pardon my deep cynicism, but i’d wager this is former rangers pitchman george w. bush acting on some chits called by bud selig and friends.
I don’t think it’s cynical at all to suggest Bush has something to do with this, gm. Bush has been rumored for years to be the replacement for Bud Selig as commissioner of MLB. Most actually thought it would happen in 2009 when Selig’s contract ended, but he was signed to that extension through 2010 or 2012.
I think all it takes is a little common sense to realize that by Bush doing Selig a favor it makes his odds of gaining approval as commissioner in a few years that much better.
That being said, I’d think this kind of investigation would have lasted for well over a year, wouldn’t you?
mamma.com?
Oliver Stone seems to think that W’s a bit bitter over not getting to be the commish several years ago, so I dunno about the whole thing. I mean, if Oliver Stone says it’s true…
All kidding aside, the SEC hasn’t been completely silent during the Bush years. They got Martha Stewart, didn’t they? No, wait, I said all kidding aside. Sorry about that.
The timing is suspicious, isn’t it.
I’m always one for a good conspiracy though. So why the hell not?!?!
Since this is pure speculation, let’s make this even funnier: maybe ‘W’ is part of the ‘mystery group’ bidding for the Cubs. Come January 20, he needs something to do. He’s gonna be the frontman for the Cubs and secure funding for the rebuild on Wrigley Field, just like he did for the Rangers back in the day.
Somebody email this thread to Keith Olberman, maybe he’ll connect-the-dots and attack Bush for this move in a ‘Special Commentary’. LMAO.
the whole thing smacks of the sort of buffoonery that gets done at the end of a number of recent presidential terms — the clinton pardons come to mind, or (less trivially) bush 41’s pardons of some iran-contra players. can’t wait to see what else dubya comes up with to close it out! when you’re the least popular president in history, less popular than hoover, less popular than nixon, you don’t have a damn thing to lose.
maddog, i’d wager the executive maintains a dossier on any number of politically interesting subjects that stands at the ready for just such emergencies. they wouldn’t be very good politicians if they didn’t.
when you’re the least popular president in history, less popular than hoover, less popular than nixon, you don’t have a damn thing to lose.
Yeah, for all of the rumored tension between Bud and W, I suspect that the president’s favor comes with a much lower price tag these days than it did back in 2003 or so. His lowered status is the type of thing that lends itself to easily mended fences, I’m sure.
There’s also the possibility that the SEC is just looking for someone’s ass to kick out on the playground after being clowned in third period math class, and that Bush doesn’t have all that much to do with it. To the folks out in the general public who don’t have a particularly solid idea of what the SEC does but sees them getting at least some of the blame for the minor hiccup that we’re seeing in the economy these days, what could be better than a high-profile bust of someone who is both known and hated to Joe Sixpack and his friends?
Cuban could be paying the price for this, just like Martha Stewart paid the price for Enron. Don’t get me wrong — both could well be guilty. It’s just telling that they seem to be the only ones getting busted these days.
I wouldn’t put it past Bush and his toadies to pick on Cuban because he’s an Enemy of the State, though. His films are awfully controversial, and left unchecked, he could be the next Ed Asner. We can’t take that chance, now can we?
seems as though the SEC prosecution could be even fucking weirder than we’re conjecturing. cuban apparently financed some 9/11 conspiracy film critical of dubya, and some SEC agents from fort worth have been hounding him ever since — with SEC chair (and bush lackey) chris cox being cc’ed in emails.
no joke, apparently, but if true this would be last call for the increasingly marginal and politicized SEC, requiring a teardown and rebuild to exterminate the republican cronies.
GM,
You should know the the SEC is notoriously slow to act. I’ve seen them take years to go after a company claiming to produce a greater than unity motor, and that’s not at all unusual for them. It’s why penny stocks are such a successful criminal market. I expect this is just them being slow as usual.