Another Potential Buyer

[Frayed Knot]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/06/steve-cohen-is-making-another-big-push-to-buy-mets/He's Baaaaaaack!!



"Sources close to billionaire hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen told The Post he will bid on the Mets this week ..."

[Centerfield]

Frayed Knot wrote: https://nypost.com/2020/07/06/steve-cohen-is-making-another-big-push-to-buy-mets/He's Baaaaaaack!! "Sources close to billionaire hedge-fund manager Steve Cohen told The Post he will bid on the Mets this week ..."

Imagine. In 2021, we could have a vaccine, a new president, our jobs back, and Steve Cohen as owner of the NY Mets.

[Frayed Knot]

Or coal in our stockings ... still TBD

[Edgy MD]

Is there a reason Cohen is at the top of your wish list?

[Benjamin Grimm]

Deepest pockets, I guess.

[Lefty Specialist]

Any of these bidders will have billions of dollars at their disposal. Let the best team win, and make sure that SNY is part of the deal so that they can do a multi-part investigation of the Wilpons once the ink is dry. Sort of like 'The Last Dance' only featuring Bernie Madoff.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Let's put Trump in jail first before we start worrying about the Wilpons.

[Edgy MD]

Fuck and yes and fuck and yes.

[G-Fafif]

As long as he uses his powers for good, yay Cohen, I guess, but I cooled on him since reading about him in this deep dive into the not so moderate leanings of the fancier precincts of Greenwich.

The money physically redrew Greenwich, as financiers built estates on a scale once favored by Gilded Age railroad barons. The hedge-fund manager Steven A. Cohen paid $14.8 million in cash for a house, then added an ice rink, an indoor basketball court, putting greens, a fairway, and a massage room, ultimately swelling the building to thirty-six thousand square feet—larger than the Taj Mahal. In a final flourish, Cohen obtained special permission to surround his estate with a wall that exceeded the town's limits on height. It was nine feet tall.

When the votes were counted, Trump's greatest support in Greenwich was not in the middle-class sections of downtown. It was in two of the wealthiest precincts—the Tenth and Eleventh Districts, which sprawl across the lush northern backcountry, encompassing the Round Hill Club, where Prescott Bush once reigned, and the estate of Steven Cohen, the investor with the nine-foot wall. Cohen, whose hedge fund closed in 2014, after pleading guilty to insider trading, donated a million dollars to support the Inauguration. Peterffy chipped in a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Glazer joined the transition.

I don't begrudge him his garish indulgences, and I have no illusions about how billionaires become billionaires, but the dude really didn't have anything better to do with a million fucking dollars besides celebrate that travesty?



https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trumphttps://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/05/11/how-greenwich-republicans-learned-to-love-trump

[Edgy MD]

Pretty funny that the passage also invokes one of the team's founders.

[Centerfield]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: Deepest pockets, I guess.

Pretty much. All I ask of an owner is that they spend money and stay out of the way. Cohen seems the best bet for this.



The other groups don't have nearly as much money from what I hear. And of course J-Rod are not doing this so they can stay out of the spotlight.

[Frayed Knot]

Today (Thurs 7/9) is deadline day for the initial round of bidding. These are not binding bids but rather a way to gauge the level of interest and perhaps narrow the field.

The Mets will then show their 'financials' to any survivors of this round and ask for committed offers "within a few months" although it's also possible that a "too rich to

refuse" offer could preemptively end the process.





https://nypost.com/2020/07/08/mets-sale-first-round-bidding-deadline-is-here/https://nypost.com/2020/07/08/mets-sale-first-round-bidding-deadline-is-here/

[Centerfield]

I don't see why Cohen would bid here. As a part owner, I'm sure he'd get info on all bids. Doesn't it suit him to wait and see where the bids fall, then bid higher?

[Frayed Knot]

I don't see why Cohen would bid here.

Well he would and he has, a reported [by FOX Business] $2 Billion-flat one (previous bid = $2.6) which is enough to put him in the lead. The JRod group, who are said to

have "all the financing in place", and the one from the Harris/Blitzer--Sixers/Devils owners are both estimated to be in the $1.7 range, an amount which is likely enough

to keep those groups around moving forward. The Wilpons will decide "in the coming days" which and how many groups will move on to the next stage.

Cohen is also said to be willing to cough up an additional two billion to buy SNY.



https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/alex-rodriguez-and-jennifer-lopez-bid-has-proper-funding-to-buy-mets/https://nypost.com/2020/07/09/alex-rodriguez-and-jennifer-lopez-bid-has-proper-funding-to-buy-mets/

[MFS62]

One TV sports reporter (I think it was WABC) said that Cohen will bid another $2 billion for SNY.

That has to be very tempting to owners who throw nickels around like manhole covers while constantly pleading poverty.



Later

[Frayed Knot]

Why don't you tell me 'bout the mystery man

I wanna know about the mystery man.

I wanna know cuz I've cried and I've cried

but I'm still mystified

I can't take it anymore and I'm not satisfied







So it seems that, in addition to the J-Rod group, and the Sixers/Devils guys, and of course Cohen, a mystery man/group is getting buzz that could derail Mr. Cohen as presumptive winner.

It starts with 86 y/o multi-billionaire gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, and then includes private equity firm Silver Lake (worth $43 who are said to have interest in sports ownership.

Silver Lake denies that they are a candidate to buy the Mets but they and Adelson could be teaming up with Harris & Blitzer (Sixers/Devils), a group which would certainly have the ability

to challenge Cohen as top dog on the circuit.





https://nypost.com/2020/07/15/sheldon-adelson-is-the-mystery-bidder-who-could-shake-up-mets-sale/https://nypost.com/2020/07/15/sheldon-adelson-is-the-mystery-bidder-who-could-shake-up-mets-sale/

[Edgy MD]

Me: The only thing could make a potential Mets sale slimier is the introduction of the some high-end Vegas-money scumbag. Even moreso would be some high-end Vegas-money scumbag who is a major supporter of Donald Trump.



Sheldon Adelson: HEY-YO!!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Sheldon Adelson looks like the kind of guy who's going to fall off his yacht and drown in the Mediterranean within the next few years.

[LWFS]

Sheldon Adelson looks like the chest thing that leads the rebels in Total Recall. Kuatu? Kwata?



I mean, you think "anyone but the Wilpons," and you write "anyone but the Wilpons," and you actually say it once or twice, and it's Sheldon Fucking Gambling Troll Adelson. 2020!

[Frayed Knot]

I'm just shocked that a sleazy casino mogul knows Trump personally.

[nymr83]

Frayed Knot wrote: I'm just shocked that a sleazy casino mogul knows Trump personally.

Well, Trump did once own and operate a competing casino (into the ground)

[nymr83]

Arod today reminded us what a huge hypocrit he is, calling for revenue sharing/salary cap. Is he the highest paid player ever? But now he wants to be an owner so let's cap em!

[Benjamin Grimm]

Daily News reporting that the Alex Rodriguez-Jennifer Lopez group is out of the running. The group they've assembled doesn't have enough money to adequately run the team.

[Frayed Knot]

https://nypost.com/2020/07/21/alex-rodriguez-jennifer-lopez-could-lose-control-of-mets-bid/A NYP article today has J-Rod still very much in the running, although if that group has any chance of winning it's going to take more cash than their money men, Vincent Viola and Mike Repole, have so far

committed which is likely, should they win the bid, to take the lead chair away from Alex Rodriguez. All teams have a designated 'control person' in their ownership groups and that's usually the one with

the largest investment. So J-Rod could conceivably win the team but lose control of their own group.



Also: the Wilpons will start internal management meetings "by the end of July" with the four groups remaining in the buying process. And as no one group appears to want to make an offer which will blow

away the remaining field and end the process now, there will likely be at least one more round of bidding, one which the 'Pons hope will jack the price up back over $2B*













* Or not $2B ... that is the question.

Whether it is nobler for your mind to suffer the slings and arrows

of the Wilpons in order to hand them an outrageous fortune.

Or to take up arms against a sea of debt and, by opposing, end them.

To own, perchance to dream -- ay, there's the rub

For from that steep a debt what dreams may come.

[Ceetar]

=nymr83 post_id=40605 time=1594937317 user_id=54]
Arod today reminded us what a huge hypocrit he is, calling for revenue sharing/salary cap. Is he the highest paid player ever? But now he wants to be an owner so let's cap em!

[A Boy Named Seo]

Just saw A-Rod on Jake Tapper's show on CNN. Jake asked Alex if he thought the Braves and Indians should change their name. Alex said he doesn't have enough information on it (huh?) and that it's above his pay grade, then smiled the shit-eatingest politician smile I've ever seen. I don't like him.

[Frayed Knot]

Plus ARod says (on tonight's telecast) that he "Loves" the universal DH ... so his ownership candidacy is OVAH as far as I'm concerned.

[Frayed Knot]

https://nypost.com/2020/08/28/mets-sale-talks-havent-included-jeff-wilpon/https://nypost.com/2020/08/28/mets-sale-talks-havent-included-jeff-wilpon/



Jeffy is apparently being excluded from team sale talk after having a hand in torpedoing the earlier sales bid from Steve Cohen.

[G-Fafif]

[Frayed Knot]

Amazing how quickly things start to roll once Jeffy is banished to stand in the hall.





P.S. Bet they don't get $2.6 B out of him this time.