Photo: Steve Marcus
Daniel Kaplan of The Athletic spoke with multiple bankers that have direct knowledge of Fred and Jeff Wilpon’s attempts to sell the Mets and reports that possible bidders are concerned that Steve Cohen is waiting in the wings.
“I don’t want to be a stalking horse,” said one banker with regards to the possibility of setting someone up to buy the team just so Cohen can swoop in later.
Cohen very publicly was prepared to purchase 80% of the team for $2.6 billion in December that also came with a five-year window before he would actually gain full control.
According to Kaplan, Cohen tried to renegotiate the five-year window provision, which obviously made it more difficult to complete the deal. Meanwhile, another banker speculated that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred was not “a big fan of Cohen” at all.
In addition to the news about Cohen in that article, it was also reported that SNY is actually on the table for any person or group that wishes to purchase that along with the team. It previously was believed to not be the case, lowering the value of the organization to prospective buyers.
