Ottawa Senators for sale (upd: sold to Michael Andlauer)

[DaveMatthew]

Ottawa Senators Retain Galatioto Sports Partners for NHL Team Sale

An Ottawa Senators sale looms following the death of owner Eugene Melnyk. The team has retained Galatioto Sports Partners.

www.sportico.com

Click to read more...

 

[BKIslandersFan]

any local billionaires that we should know about?

 

[DaveMatthew]

any local billionaires that we should know about?

There've been rumors for years that Andre Desmarais (net worth $4.5B) and Guy Laliberte (net worth $1.2B) would put together a bid as part of a group if they team went up for sale. They both backed Devcore's proposal for Lebreton Flats in the original process back in 2016, and their bid included building an NHL arena for the Sens.

 

[StreetHawk]

The daughters are very young, one college kid the other recent graduate. Not surprised they opted to not run the franchise. Maybe if they didn’t need to build a new arena they would have kept the team. Much more to handle with a $600 mill new arena plus. CTC would be fine if it was located in the city but it’s not.

 

[Yukon Joe]

any local billionaires that we should know about?

It's kind of a shame that it's come to that - that when thinking of new sports team owners you have to start looking at lists of billionaires.


That being said, as I look at lists of Canadian billionaires trying to find any with ties to Ottawa, I have a contender: founder of Shopify Tobias Lutke. He's worth a reported $9.8 billion, and while I don't know where he lives exactly Shopify is based in Ottawa. Downside - he was born and raised in Germany although he now has dual citizenship, so no idea how much of a hockey fan he might be.

 

[Mike Jones]

The daughters are very young, one college kid the other recent graduate. Not surprised they opted to not run the franchise. Maybe if they didn’t need to build a new arena they would have kept the team. Much more to handle with a $600 mill new arena plus. CTC would be fine if it was located in the city but it’s not.

Fair enough but if they found the right people they could probably make it work and keep the team. Two relatively senior executives could run team and arena project and let 'the daughters' keep their distance and get on with their lives. I'm not saying that finding two people like this would be easy but it might be possible and one way of keeping the team in current hands.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

It's kind of a shame that it's come to that - that when thinking of new sports team owners you have to start looking at lists of billionaires.


That being said, as I look at lists of Canadian billionaires trying to find any with ties to Ottawa, I have a contender: founder of Shopify Tobias Lutke. He's worth a reported $9.8 billion, and while I don't know where he lives exactly Shopify is based in Ottawa. Downside - he was born and raised in Germany although he now has dual citizenship, so no idea how much of a hockey fan he might be.

Could also be a consortium of millionaires

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Could also be a consortium of millionaires

It's been speculated for months in Ottawa that it would be a group.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Could also be a consortium of millionaires

Yes and no.

Lots of teams have minority owners involved, but they still have one overall majority (or at least controlling) owner. A true consortium, with multiple minority owners becomes very unwieldy if there's no one person who can say "the buck stops here".

 

[StreetHawk]

Fair enough but if they found the right people they could probably make it work and keep the team. Two relatively senior executives could run team and arena project and let 'the daughters' keep their distance and get on with their lives. I'm not saying that finding two people like this would be easy but it might be possible and one way of keeping the team in current hands.

Factor in financing the arena as well. Majority of Melnyks wealth was tied to the sens. Might have been too much for the young women to tackle at their age. Maybe in a decade they could have.

 

[Kimota]

You Called?

 

[Mike Jones]

Factor in financing the arena as well. Majority of Melnyks wealth was tied to the sens. Might have been too much for the young women to tackle at their age. Maybe in a decade they could have.

Financing is a good point.

It's too bad there isn't somebody who could become a partner to the existing ownership group and not a buyer.

 

[discostu]

any local billionaires that we should know about?

The deal is going to be connected with the arena deal, so expect to see people coming from that industry as the key players.

I expect you'll see ownership groups step forward, with some people with local ties supported by individuals with deep pockets.

John Ruddy was the guy who was supposed to be Melnyks partner on the last arena deal before it fell through and both sides tried to sue each other into oblivion. His name may resurface, particularly since his lawsuit is still active.

The Greenberg family will likely be in the mix. Long time developer family and operate the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, which operate the football and junior hockey teams locally.

I also think you may see some surprise names pop up. If there are any wealthy individuals that want the honor of owning a Canadian NHL franchise, there's not many options these days. It doesn't even take local ties.

We'll see how quickly it moves. I think things may take a while to sort out as prospective buyers due their due diligence. But, this sale has been rumored for a while, so, lots of people have probably started the groundwork.

 

[swiftwin]

The deal is going to be connected with the arena deal, so expect to see people coming from that industry as the key players.

I expect you'll see ownership groups step forward, with some people with local ties supported by individuals with deep pockets.

John Ruddy was the guy who was supposed to be Melnyks partner on the last arena deal before it fell through and both sides tried to sue each other into oblivion. His name may resurface, particularly since his lawsuit is still active.

The Greenberg family will likely be in the mix. Long time developer family and operate the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group, which operate the football and junior hockey teams locally.

I also think you may see some surprise names pop up. If there are any wealthy individuals that want the honor of owning a Canadian NHL franchise, there's not many options these days. It doesn't even take local ties.

We'll see how quickly it moves. I think things may take a while to sort out as prospective buyers due their due diligence. But, this sale has been rumored for a while, so, lots of people have probably started the groundwork.

Exactly this. Most of the value of the Sens right now comes from the fact that the city has awarded and set aside a piece of land (Lebreton Flats) in an excellent location close to downtown, right on a newly built LRT.

The problem was that Melnyk couldn't afford to build anything on it, and so vultures have been circling the Sens for a few years now, salivating at the opportunity to scoop up both the team and a real estate opportunity of a lifetime on the cheap since Melnyk was f***ed and couldn't afford to keep the team.

Basically, all I'm saying is that the Sens don't need some local billionaire to save them. The opportunity to build an arena downtown will have prospective owners lining up for the rights to build said arena. Getting an NHL team on top of the new arena is just a bonus.

 

[GordonGraham]

Best way for the Melnyk girls to maximise profits is to sell the team keep the arena and lock them out like the Trashers did opening up bidding to all North american major cities

 

[swiftwin]

Best way for the Melnyk girls to maximise profits it to sell the team keep the arena and lock them out like the Trashers did opening up bidding to all North american major cities

Uhhhhh... Care to elaborate on that? That's literally the worst thing they can do to the value of the team. The arena is old, in a poor location and will get replaced in the coming years. They gain absolutely nothing from doing that. That's basically the opposite of what happened in Atlanta, where ownership used the team to get a nice new arena in a great location, then kicked the team to the curb. Canadian Tire Center is completely worthless without the Sens.

Selling the Sens as a package deal with the rights to build the new arena in LeBreton, along with the existing arena as a placeholder will have investors drooling at a real estate opportunity of a lifetime.

 

[StreetHawk]

Uhhhhh... Care to elaborate on that? That's literally the worst thing they can do to the value of the team. The arena is old, in a poor location and will get replaced in the coming years. They gain absolutely nothing from doing that. That's basically the opposite of what happened in Atlanta, where ownership used the team to get a nice new arena in a great location, then kicked the team to the curb. Canadian Tire Center is completely worthless without the Sens.

Selling the Sens as a package deal with the rights to build the new arena in LeBreton, along with the existing arena as a placeholder will have investors drooling at a real estate opportunity of a lifetime.

And even without the thrashers the arena in Atl is like the 10rh busiest in the USA. So they are doing fine without them.

Even in a worst case temporary situation they’d just move back to the 67’s civic arena while the new arena is being built.

 

[LadyStanley]

Insider updates

 

[AintLifeGrand]

Move Sens to Winnipeg, bring our Boys Back to Atlanta

 

[nhlfan79]

Move Sens to Winnipeg, bring our Boys Back to Atlanta

At this point, I'd much rather have the Sens roster than the Jets. And no, I'm not deluded enough to think that Atlanta is on anyone's radar.

 

[NorthCoast]

It's kind of a shame that it's come to that - that when thinking of new sports team owners you have to start looking at lists of billionaires.


That being said, as I look at lists of Canadian billionaires trying to find any with ties to Ottawa, I have a contender: founder of Shopify Tobias Lutke. He's worth a reported $9.8 billion, and while I don't know where he lives exactly Shopify is based in Ottawa. Downside - he was born and raised in Germany although he now has dual citizenship, so no idea how much of a hockey fan he might be.

Would be a great contender...unfortunately he has stated several times that he has zero interest in hockey, or owning a sports team, and will not be buying the sens.


Leading candidates will be Desmarais, Ruddy, Greenbergs, some unknown billionaire out of US that see's the potential for 20% YoY valuation increases as NHL rev goes up, Ottawa grows rapidly (porjected to be 1.5 mil metro within next 20 years), new downtown arena, what happened to Edmonton value after sale/arena, state of the roster, etc.

Garrioch estimates that 650 mil is the low end and they are looking more like 800 mil. That would seem a bit high considering they still have a decent amount of debt and it will cost at least 200 mil for the new stadium (assuming they can work out a similar deal to Edmonton).

However, NHL revenues continue to grow. NHL has the lowest rev to value multiple of all the major sports, very little risk as most revenue is not tied to gate anymore (sens is likely less than 30% gate rev at this point.) In short, it's one of the rare investment opportunities where demand continues to grow (both in fans and corp dollars) and supply (games/teams) is relatively capped. As crazy as it sounds, even small market NHL franchises could easily be worth well over 1 bil in the very near future.

No billionaire is buying this for vanity. This is an asset that legitimately has a chance to beat the market in return over the next 15-20 years.

 

[NorthCoast]

Best way for the Melnyk girls to maximise profits is to sell the team keep the arena and lock them out like the Trashers did opening up bidding to all North american major cities

Why it doesn't make sense to relocate.

So your a potential owner.

You can buy the team and keep them in Ottawa for lets say 700 mil plus 200 mil into new stadium. (City/Developers/Fans pick up the rest ala Edmonton). And over the next 10-20 year you see 10-20% returns in value and the team minimum breaks-even year to year.

OR

You can buy the team for 700 mil, pay the NHL another 700 mil in relocation fees, pay another 200 mil (maybe more depending on the city) for the arena, and maybe break-even as you build the fan base, and likely do not see the same return in value over the next 10-20 years even if the team is worth more because of the relocation fee.


Its just not a good investment to relocate. The NHL is not going to let you move a team from a small market to a big market without a huge relocation fee because the other owners would just vote to expand instead. Plus, all the other small markets would be impacted negatively because if you move a profitable Ottawa, then who is next? It's just not good for the NHL brand at this point.

 

[kaiser matias]

It's kind of a shame that it's come to that - that when thinking of new sports team owners you have to start looking at lists of billionaires.


That being said, as I look at lists of Canadian billionaires trying to find any with ties to Ottawa, I have a contender: founder of Shopify Tobias Lutke. He's worth a reported $9.8 billion, and while I don't know where he lives exactly Shopify is based in Ottawa. Downside - he was born and raised in Germany although he now has dual citizenship, so no idea how much of a hockey fan he might be.

Also worth noting Shopify's stock has gone down 70% the past year. Most of that is because it was overvalued, but still something that may keep Lutke out of the running at this time, if he was ever interested of course.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

 

[Micklebot]

Also worth noting Shopify's stock has gone down 70% the past year. Most of that is because it was overvalued, but still something that may keep Lutke out of the running at this time, if he was ever interested of course.

He isn't, he's already made that clear on the record.