Leipold's Secret Loan Helped Make Predators Sale Work
A copy of the confidential August 31, 2007, purchase agreement between then-Predators Owner Craig Leipold and current Predators Owner David Freeman “suggests that the deal to sell the team could have fallen apart if Leipold failed to keep $30[M] of his own money in the team for one year or failed to find an outside investor to put the money up,” according to the second part of a two-part look at the sale of the Predators by Brad Schrade of the Nashville TENNESSEAN. According to the document, if those conditions were not met, Freeman and his group “could have gotten their $10[M] deposit back.” Predators investor William “Boots” Del Biaggio III, along with his Forecheck Holdings partner Warren Woo, “brought $30[M] to the table in special preferred equity investment, bringing them a 31[%] stake in the team with little or no risk.” But “unbeknownst to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman or the local owners group," $17M of that money was from Leipold and Kings Owner AEG. Leipold lent $10M to Del Biaggio and an additional $10M to the Predators, while AEG lent $7M to Del Biaggio. Freeman said that he “learned of Leipold’s $10[M] loan to Del Biaggio the day before it became public in bankruptcy filings about two months ago.” Freeman said that he “doesn’t blame Leipold for not disclosing the loan earlier,” instead blaming Del Biaggio for "not telling his Nashville partners about the loan before the deal closed in December.” The reported purchase price of the Predators was $193M. But according to confidential documents, the deal “actually required $176[M] in cash and loans, after nearly $20[M] in purchase price adjustments were made.” It “isn’t clear how having a continued stake in the Predators would have affected Leipold’s ability to purchase the Wild.” Asked whether it would have affected Leipold’s ability to buy another NHL team, Bettman said, “Not necessarily. It’s something that would have had to be evaluated at the time” (Nashville TENNESSEAN, 7/31).
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