[Warnica] Larry Tanenbaum’s deal selling 20% of his stake in the sports giant to OMERS pension plan just closed. The OMERS sale values MLSE at $8 billion (US).
In further MLSE news, Larry Tanenbaum's deal selling 20% of his stake in the sports giant to OMERS pension plan just closed https://t.co/3SHLlXRAGc
— Richard Warnica (@richardwarnica) November 6, 2023
by Scucker
6 Comments
Pocket change, I could afford that
Important clarification is that he sold 25% of his OWN company which owns his portion of the Raptors. Nothing should change significantly in terms of how everything is operated.
To clarify Larry still owns Veto power, OMERS is staying as a silent investor and their stake is actually only 20% of Larry’s 25% ownership, so really only 5% of MLSE.
Ed Rogers can’t form a coalition with them to do anything as Larry can nix any motions Ed brings forward. Also Larry still remains the chair of the MLSE board, so Shanny and Masai’s jobs are still safe from Ed (whether that’s a good or bad thing depends on who you ask). Preventing a Jim Dolan-esque level of interference on any MLSE teams like he does with the Rangers and especially the Knicks.
The investment is in Kilmer Sports Inc, which also has a bunch of real estate as well as Coca-Cola Bottling Canada. So the evaluation isn’t just for MLSE, hard to say what the breakdown is, but I would say this probably values MLSE around $5-6 billion, not 8.
Boys, we pension puppets again
MLSE also owns the Raptors and TFC so that $8B valuation is for the three franchises combined. Out of the 3 the Raptors are worth the most.