6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog: Local Groups Assemble To Buy Cubs, For As Much As $700M

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Thursday, November 16, 2006

Local Groups Assemble To Buy Cubs, For As Much As $700M

Tom Begel of TMB Industries is among a number of local Chicago investors building consortia to buy the Cubs from a Tribune Co. that may decide to sell the team later this year. In the AP article, Begel estimated the Cubbies could fetch as much as $600M at auction.

In an earlier ChicagoBusiness.com interview, Begel said he feared the Cubs could sell for as much as $700M. The interview also contains the names of some of the bidders and potential bidders; Begel's group includes William Marovitz, a former state senator now involved in the restaurant business, and hospitality industry executive Bud Cataldo. Marovitz is married to Playboy Enterprises, Inc. CEO Christy Hefner.

“I’m definitely intrigued with it, and I think there’s a reasonably good chance that a transaction happens there in the not-too-distant future,” says private-equity investor Bruce Rauner, chairman of GTCR Golder Rauner LLC.
Don Levin, owner of the Chicago Wolves hockey team, says he’s also interested. He hasn’t approached Tribune.
Former Cub Ernie Banks has said he would like to be part of a group.
Other names surfacing as potential buyers or partners: John Canning Jr., another local private-equity investor who owns part of the Milwaukee Brewers; William Wrigley Jr., whose family sold the team to Tribune for $20.5 million in 1981, and Howard Bernick, who retired Thursday as president and CEO of Alberto-Culver Co.

“You could put five groups together in the blink of an eye," said former Cub broadcaster Steve Stone, about the ease of assembling a consortium were the team to be put up for sale.

// posted by Rob @ 10:53 PM link // 0 comments