Rosered

Just heard on channel 8 news that Terry Porters group is ready to talk to Paul Allen about making an offer to buy the Blazers. This is great news. They have $180 milion dollars, which must mean they think that they are ready!

maxiep

$180MM is all they have? How do they plan to buy the arena? This is going to be one heavily leveraged deal if it's accepted. That means running the team on the cheap for years.

Rosered

I hope they have credit besides!!! Thats what they news said. That now they feel they can begin talks with Allen.

maxiep

They had $115MM lined up in debt, but I imagine that was to buy the RG. They were shooting for $75MM in equity with which they hoped to buy the team and lever that as well. By my math they have raised $65MM in equity, which is $10MM below their goal.

That's not good news.

barfo

And how does Allen feel about talking to them? Do they not have his phone number? Do they think he watches Channel 8?

This doesn't smell like a potential sale yet to me.

barfo

Utherhimo

unless that 180 is on top of the 110 which would be 290 but we will see

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Talkhard

It strikes me as kind of ironic and sad that a group of very affluent people would have a hard time scrounging up $180 million, but Paul Allen could fork over that much without batting an eyelash--and without even missing it.

Life is indeed strange.

hasoos

Maybe if they sweetened the deal by having the city throw in the Steel Bridge as part of the deal!

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maxiep

It shows you why we should be in favor of keeping Allen as an owner. I really hate to lose that kind of liquidity. Make no mistake, if Porter's group buys the Blazers (something I still think is unlikely to happen), this team will be run on the cheap. We'll be so levered, breaking even will be priority #1.

dwood615

well they will probably find 2 or 3 more investors soon but they are probably just starting talks as of now...which is good to hear..

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maxiep

It's a tried and true strategy. Get a seat at the table and then try to get the money to pay for the meal.

I think to run the team effectively, we need a minimum total investor net worth of $500MM. We really do need to fear debt overhang (where the debt payments overwhelm the cash flow of the enterprise) and additional capital calls.

Look at the mess that now exists in Seattle. It's bigger than Key Arena being a bad place to play. That could be our future, and we don't have someone even as rich as Howard Schultz. I love TP, but this could be a disaster.

Oldmangrouch

This sounds like a train wreck waiting to happen.

The people ranting about how they want Allen to sell are either clueless as to the financial realities, or want the team to fail.

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maxiep

Is this krf from O-Live?

Oldmangrouch

Nope. I stay as far away from O-Live as possible!

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Schilly

It could be that they are planning on contingencies in regards to purchaiding the RG. PAM may be more willing to talk about selling to someon other than PA.