Mark Cuban back in Rangers bid lead

Topdawg13 · Aug 5, 2010

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Just before midnight, the group led by team president Ryan and sports attorney Chuck Greenberg made a bid of $365 million in cash -- a portion of its total bid -- and dropped provisions worth $12 million.

Cuban's group countered with a $390 million cash offer, part of a $598 million bid and that's where things stood as the hearing stretched into Thursday, with no end in sight.

Both bids include more than $200 million of the team's debt -- including $24.9 million in deferred compensation owed to Alex Rodriguez six years after he was traded to the New York Yankees.

The latest Greenberg-Ryan offer showed that Major League Baseball's preferred owner was back in the game. The group had tried to stop the auction before a $355 million cash bid from Cuban and Houston businessman Jim Crane, with attorney Thomas Lauria questioning his competitor's financing and suggesting Major League Baseball might reject them in the end.

The Greenberg-Ryan group had the base bid -- about $520 million -- because it was named as the team's buyer months ago, before the deal was put in limbo by angry creditors and then by the team's May filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. If that group ultimately does not win, it will get a "breakup" fee of $10 million to $13 million.

Final approval of the Rangers sale rests with MLB, which has the option of choosing the second-highest bid instead. But if that happens, the league could face hefty fines or other sanctions if the judge determines it did not have a valid reason for rejecting the highest bidder.

The auction started Wednesday afternoon, six hours late, when Rangers attorney Martin Sosland said the bid by Cuban's group was about $25 million more than the bid submitted by the Greenberg-Ryan group. Later, Greenberg-Ryan offered $2 million more than Cuban's group, which then upped the ante by $15 million -- to about $335 million as the cash portion of the total offer.

After approximately 20 minutes of heated debate about the Cuban group's bid in the courtroom, Lou Strubeck, attorney for chief restructuring officer William Snyder, and Lauria exchanged profanities in the hall of the courthouse.
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