OT: “Minority” piece of Blues for sale

[TheOne]

If this has been brought up I apologize, but I found it semi relevant.

TowerBrook, the team’s largest shareholder, is exiting their investment in the Blues and is looking to sell their entire ownership stake - pegged at 31%. The team has said Stillman will retain control of the team.  Stillman, although the controlling owner, is not the largest shareholder (he reportedly only owns 8-12% of the equity of the team).

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.  TowerBrook is going to have an extremely difficult time selling a “minority” piece of the team that controls the largest portion of the equity, but does not come with controlling/governing rights of the team. That said, they are a private equity firm with a fixed time horizon, so they must indeed sell the piece.

Given the team’s rough valuation range of $350-450m, and assuming there is debt on the business, a prospective buyer would need to shell out $70-$100m in cash for the 31% stake.  Stillman is going to have to be willing to concede some rights (i.e. an alternating governorship and/or path to control of team) in order to get a deal done at a valuation that makes him happy, otherwise TowerBrook could sell their piece at a much lower price that will hurt Stillman. 

They have stated they prefer a St. Louis based investor, or someone with direct ties to the community.

- - 

My questions for the board:

1) Who in the community is willing and able write a ~$75m check to do this deal, and who would the community prefer?

2) How does, or could, this impact the sports ecosystem in St. Louis?

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2018/04/12/minority-stake-in-blues-is-for-sale.html

[Bills_06]

It seems most of the St. Louis money already is part of Stillman's ownership group with the Taylors, Maritz, Steward, Kavanaugh, Danforths all included in that.  They don't mention it but I don't know why they wouldn't look at purchasing the remaining minority stake. 

The DeWitts, especially the Bill DeWitt III, is a big Blues and hockey fan, I wouldn't be shocked if they were interested. It is hard to say how it impacts the sports ecosystem here without knowing who will buy it because any of the above and I don't see it changing much.  

[slu72]

Any of the Busch's could do it. They've got the time and the money.

[Cowboy]

1 hour ago, TheOne said:

If this has been brought up I apologize, but I found it semi relevant.

TowerBrook, the team’s largest shareholder, is exiting their investment in the Blues and is looking to sell their entire ownership stake - pegged at 31%. The team has said Stillman will retain control of the team.  Stillman, although the controlling owner, is not the largest shareholder (he reportedly only owns 8-12% of the equity of the team).

It will be interesting to see how this shakes out.  TowerBrook is going to have an extremely difficult time selling a “minority” piece of the team that controls the largest portion of the equity, but does not come with controlling/governing rights of the team. That said, they are a private equity firm with a fixed time horizon, so they must indeed sell the piece.

Given the team’s rough valuation range of $350-450m, and assuming there is debt on the business, a prospective buyer would need to shell out $70-$100m in cash for the 31% stake.  Stillman is going to have to be willing to concede some rights (i.e. an alternating governorship and/or path to control of team) in order to get a deal done at a valuation that makes him happy, otherwise TowerBrook could sell their piece at a much lower price that will hurt Stillman. 

They have stated they prefer a St. Louis based investor, or someone with direct ties to the community.

- - 

My questions for the board:

1) Who in the community is willing and able write a ~$75m check to do this deal, and who would the community prefer?

2) How does, or could, this impact the sports ecosystem in St. Louis?

 

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2018/04/12/minority-stake-in-blues-is-for-sale.html

-the article linked does not paint the same picture as what you are indicating, do you have another source or perhaps just know what you wrote is the real case? 

-my understanding is part of the financial legacy of the Checket's group was their selling concession rights for several years in advance so the 'new' owners got nothing for concessions for several years or still might not get a full share

-the current group did get a nice payment with the expansion fee for Vegas and will get another when Seattle is admitted

-there are more folks than most, including me, are aware that could write such a check, willingness is another issue

-since we have our own building, dates are not the issue they once were when we played downtown, but there is certainly competition for the sports/discretionary spend dollar but hockey has priced out a lot of folks, I hope some of them like basketball and attend our games but I think our ticket pricing is messed up, too

 

[TheOne]

21 minutes ago, Cowboy said:

-the article linked does not paint the same picture as what you are indicating, do you have another source or perhaps just know what you wrote is the real case? 

-my understanding is part of the financial legacy of the Checket's group was their selling concession rights for several years in advance so the 'new' owners got nothing for concessions for several years or still might not get a full share

-the current group did get a nice payment with the expansion fee for Vegas and will get another when Seattle is admitted

-there are more folks than most, including me, are aware that could write such a check, willingness is another issue

-since we have our own building, dates are not the issue they once were when we played downtown, but there is certainly competition for the sports/discretionary spend dollar but hockey has priced out a lot of folks, I hope some of them like basketball and attend our games but I think our ticket pricing is messed up, too

 

If you are referring to the numbers in terms of equity stake held by investors, that’s not private information.  I dug that up out of curiously via articles by sources like Forbes, etc. when the team was previously told to Stillman’s group.

 

1 hour ago, Bills_06 said:

It seems most of the St. Louis money already is part of Stillman's ownership group with the Taylors, Maritz, Steward, Kavanaugh, Danforths all included in that.  They don't mention it but I don't know why they wouldn't look at purchasing the remaining minority stake. 

The DeWitts, especially the Bill DeWitt III, is a big Blues and hockey fan, I wouldn't be shocked if they were interested. It is hard to say how it impacts the sports ecosystem here without knowing who will buy it because any of the above and I don't see it changing much.  

That may be true, but the minority owners in this group are minority owners for a reason.  

It takes real money to write a $100m check in cold, hard cash.  You cant be just an average rich guy.  There are ~560 billionaires in the US, and in most cases the average “billionaire” couldn’t even do the deal.  Most billionaires have 85-90% of their net worth tied up in businesses and holdings that are mostly illiquid and/or can’t be readily sold.  This is a real check were talking about. Even if you had $300m of CASH sitting in an account, are you willing to tie up 1/3 of that for something you don’t have a “controlling” position in?

[dlarry]

Anybody on here wanna go halfsies with me? Shoot me a PM.

[billikenfan05]

Sorry my money’s tied up trying to purchase Humphrey’s from that sockcucker who is sitting on it now 

[Adman]

3 hours ago, Bills_06 said:

It seems most of the St. Louis money already is part of Stillman's ownership group with the Taylors, Maritz, Steward, Kavanaugh, Danforths all included in that.  They don't mention it but I don't know why they wouldn't look at purchasing the remaining minority stake. 

The DeWitts, especially the Bill DeWitt III, is a big Blues and hockey fan, I wouldn't be shocked if they were interested. It is hard to say how it impacts the sports ecosystem here without knowing who will buy it because any of the above and I don't see it changing much.  

Not sure if willing, but some of the names you mention in your first sentence can write checks of the size needed.

[NH]

I’m assuming the ownership knew that Towerbrook was only going to hold the investment for a set period of time and hopefully has been having informal discussions with interested parties over the past couple of years.

[Bills_06]

4 hours ago, TheOne said:

That may be true, but the minority owners in this group are minority owners for a reason.  

It takes real money to write a $100m check in cold, hard cash.  You cant be just an average rich guy.  There are ~560 billionaires in the US, and in most cases the average “billionaire” couldn’t even do the deal.  Most billionaires have 85-90% of their net worth tied up in businesses and holdings that are mostly illiquid and/or can’t be readily sold.  This is a real check were talking about. Even if you had $300m of CASH sitting in an account, are you willing to tie up 1/3 of that for something you don’t have a “controlling” position in?

Of course but I feel pretty confident that the group Stillman has could write a 100 million check.  The Taylor family donated close to 100 million to different St. Louis organizations a couple years ago.  Jack Taylors estimated net worth was about 7 billion before he passed so imagine his kids are doing well cash wise as Andrew is in charge of Enterprise now.  I could be wrong but I don't think the Taylors are minority owners for any reason other than they just don't want to be the majority owner.  Stillman has a passion for hockey and can be the face of the franchise.  The Taylors seem like they like to keep to themselves but are a very good family to St. Louis.  

David Steward is chairman of WWT and that is private company too so hard to tell total worth but his estimated net worth is over 3 billion.  How much cash I can't say but adding in some to what the Taylors could put up along with some of the other ones in the group I am sure could be done.  

[brianstl]

If members of the current ownership group were willing to buy out Towerbrook at the price Towerbrook wants, this article would have never been written.  The first article we would have read about this would have been the announcement that members of the current ownership group were buying out Towerbrook.

[cgeldmacher]

Wasn't Dr. Chaifetz wanting to get into the professional sports team ownership game?  I would think his connection to St. Louis may be considered "local" enough.

[JMM28]

24 minutes ago, cgeldmacher said:

Wasn't Dr. Chaifetz wanting to get into the professional sports team ownership game?  I would think his connection to St. Louis may be considered "local" enough.

I believe he’s been linked to MLB (Marlins) and NBA (Grizz, Bucks). I don’t know if the NHL is as popular of a purchase as the big 3 leagues. 

[willie]

16 minutes ago, JMM28 said:

I believe he’s been linked to MLB (Marlins) and NBA (Grizz, Bucks). I don’t know if the NHL is as popular of a purchase as the big 3 leagues. 

Unless someone thinks the NHL is going to get a much greater TV contract hockey is not a good investment.