The New York Mets have agreed to sell less than 49 percent of the club for approximately $200 million to David Einhorn, president of Greenlight Capital Inc. according to ESPN’s Karl Ravech.
The sale will not include a stake in SNY, the television network owned by the Mets, the sources said.
Bloomberg and Sports Illustrated have also confirmed this report.
Added to by Joe D.: We don’t know how much decision-making power would come wirh a sale like this, but it may not change the culture all that much or as much as we all would like.
Original Post 08:00 AM
According to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, the Mets have settled on a minority partner who will pay $200 million for less than 49% of the team and will not receive a portion of SNY, the team’s profitable cable network, a person briefed on the matter said. .
The article does not name the winner, but identifies David Einhorn as a name who has emerged. He is the president of Greenlight Capital, based in Manhattan.
Several bankers who heard Wednesday about a pending announcement by the Mets said they were still unsure who the prospective buyer or buyers were. One possible bidder whose name emerged Wednesday, according to two people familiar with the bidding process, was David Einhorn, a Manhattan hedge-fund manager; he grew up in New Jersey and Milwaukee and masqueraded one Halloween as the former Met Dave Kingman when he was a five or six-year-old, he told the Wall Street Journal.
Asked specifically about Einhorn as a prospective buyer by ESPNNewYork.com this week, the Mets issued this statement:
“Amidst the ongoing speculation related to our continued negotiations for a sale of a minority interest in the New York Mets, we will neither confirm nor deny the identity of any of the possible partners nor the details of any potential deal.”
