By: E&P Staff After a nearly two-year process that spanned the privatization of Tribune Co., the Illinois governor's corruption scandal and the virtual collapse of the credit market, Tribune has picked a winning bidder for the Chicago Cubs and the baseball team's landmark Wrigley Field.
The Ricketts family of Omaha, which made their fortune with the discount stock brokerage TD Ameritrade, is offering a reported $900 million for the team and stadium.
Their bid beat out two other finalists and numerous individuals and groups who kicked the tires, including basketball team owner bad-boy Mark Cuban, whose brief interest stirred many fans of the long-suffering team.
"We would like to thank the Tribune Company for overseeing a fair and competitive process and we look forward to working with the Tribune and Major League Baseball to close the transaction promptly," the family said in a statement Thursday night. "We will have more to say publicly when this process is completed. If we succeed in buying the team, our work will just be beginning."
The reported attraction of the Ricketts bid is that it offered more cash up front than competitors, crucial to the creditors of Tribune, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization last month.
There are obstacles ahead in getting the transaction done first -- especially obtaining financing in the cratered credit market. But Tribune and the Ricketts reportedly intend to wrap the transaction up by baseball's spring training. The transaction will also need to be approved by a little more than two thirds of Major League Baseball's team owners.
Tribune began the process of selling the team in April 2007, after announcing that it was going private in a highly leveraged $8.2 billion deal engineered by Chicago real estate mogul Sam Zell. Tribune hoped to get $1 billion for the team to pay down some of that debt.
On his first day as Tribune chairman and CEO in December of 2007, Zell said he intended to sell the team quickly. But the sale was delayed as Tribune tried to structure a deal that would avoid potentially huge capital gains taxes on a team it bought 28 years ago for just $20.5 million.
The company explored selling the stadium to an Illinois public authority to avoid some taxes. The FBI said it tape-recorded Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich threatening to hold up the deal unless the Chicago Tribune fired certain editorial writers who had called for his impeachment. Blagojevich was arrested on corruption charges for that and other actions, and next week goes on trial for impeachment in the Illinois Senate. Tribune has said none of its employees acted improperly in the episode.
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