Tom Hicks: sell, sell, sell! Not just the Rangers, but your stake in LFC too
Liverpool are having a dreadful season, it’s true, but recent business news gives me a glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the Reds can buy their way out of trouble in January.
First up, Tom Hicks is moving closer to selling the Texas Rangers. The Texan has found several interested buyers, and a group led by Pittsburgh lawyer Chuck Greenberg were hand-picked last night to begin exclusive negotiations.
The two sides now have 30 days to agree a deal before submitting everything to MLB (and the banks currently shouldering all of Hicks’ debt) for approval.In the deal, Hicks will keep a small chunk of shares in the franchise, but the estimated sale price could be in the region of £300m. Not bad business, and certainly money that could help pay down LFC’s debt to a more manageable sum while also freeing up some cash for Benitez to spend in the transfer market (or, more ideally, for the Yanks to buy out Rafa’s contract and hire someone better).
A sale of the Rangers, coupled with Gillett’s recent sale of the NHL’s Montreal Canadiens, which sold for £333m, would be nice when stacked against estimated debts of £240m at Anfield. However, it’s worth noting that Gillett has yet to put a single penny of his Canadiens money into Liverpool yet, so there’s absolutely no guarantee that Hicks would put his cash down either.
With another story this morning that the pair are also close to securing new investors to purchase stakes in the club, my skepticism as to any financial commitment after the Rangers’ sale is clearly well-founded. I’m thinking that if they do secure new investors, the American pair will keep their cash in pocket and use new investment money to pay down debts and fuel the transfer kitty.
Does anyone know how much he has borrowed against the Rangers? I.e., how much of the £300M he would actually keep vs. paying of Rangers’ debt?
I’m pretty sure Hicks has already said that the Rangers or Stars sales would have no impact on LFC.
Outside investment or nothing at all is the way it’s looking. Banking on the latter really.
http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/story/1833566.html
“That agreement must be approved by baseball’s eight-man ownership committee; the 40 lenders who hold more than $500 million in HSG debt; and 23 of 30 baseball team owners.”
I doubt that much of the money from the sale is going to Hicks.
This last link is a great breakdown of the debt in the Rangers. Basically Hicks heavily leveraged debt of 100 million in order to buy Liverpool.
http://www.lonestarball.com/2009/12/1/1180700/tom-hicks-debt-to-value-and-the
How did this guy make any money in the first place? He’s constantly doubling down on risky debt-filled investments, that don’t work out, yet he keeps repeating the process anyway.
“How did this guy make any money in the first place? He’s constantly doubling down on risky debt-filled investments, that don’t work out, yet he keeps repeating the process anyway.”
Because it worked a few times so you keep going back to the well. This is why the financial markets collapsed: people didnt’ think abotu the ramifications if it failed. They assumed it would keep working and paying off huge dividends because it worked once. I don’t know much about Hicks or Gillette other than one of my brother-in-law’s pot buddies at UC-Boulder was one of the Gillette sons. He got some cush job @ liverpool after the sale eventhough he’d never watched football once in his life. According to my bil, he’s stopped talking about LFC completely.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Hicks
Not surprising at all, he made his money off founding an investment firm.
They’re going to do the deal on the Rangers in pounds? Weird.
From that Wikipedia link: “Gillett revealed that he and his family had received death threats from angry Liverpool fans.”
Stop that, JT.