Rawlings Sports Goods has "spurned a sale offer that
would have nearly doubled the company's stock value, citing
incomplete finances," according to the AP's Jeffrey
McMurray. Bull Run Corp. President & CEO Robert Prather Jr.
said that his company offered $10 a share for Rawlings. But
Prather wrote in a "highly critical" December 15 letter to
Rawlings, "...(W)e believe that the process has been
unnecessarily adversarial and, as a result, we fear that our
proposed transaction may not have been adequately
considered." McMurray noted that Bull Run "already holds"
an 11% stake in Rawlings, whose shares were at $5.87 1/2 on
Friday, up $.12 1/2 (AP, 12/17). BRIDGE NEWS' Jennifer
Allen wrote that Rawlings' three-year turnaround plan
includes focusing on its MLB deals. To "get its focus on
baseball, Rawlings is likely to first jettison its hockey
business ... Hockey has been [a] big mistake as Rawlings
misjudged the efforts needed to become a dominant player."
Sales of the Vic and McMartin hockey brands "accounted for
only" 5% of the company's net revenue of $165.4M in FY '99,
while baseball "made up" 56%, basketball, football and
volleyball 19% and apparel 13% (BRIDGE NEWS, 12/17).
ANOTHER BULL RUN? The SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL's Daniel
Kaplan reports that Bull Run last week "was set to pay"
$158M to acquire Host Communications and Universal Sports
America, or 23% more than "was disclosed" in February. A
rise in Bull Run's stock price "fueled the increase," as
part of the original $128M purchase price was based on a $4
Bull Run share price, but as of last week, the stock was at
5 7/8 (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 12/20 issue).
