FanPost

"Top Lender to Rangers Has Warning for MLB" (NYT)


The top lender to the Texas Rangers has told Major League Baseball owners in a letter that the lengthy stalemate over the team’s sale could lead to the team’s bankruptcy or "costly, distracting and messy" litigation.

It would be a bad result for the Texas Rangers, M.L.B. and the banks," Andrew Herenstein, the managing principal of Monarch Alternative Capital, wrote in a letter to M.L.B. owners who met Wednesday and Thursday in Manhattan.

He said that the lenders would not agree to a sale to a group led by Chuck Greenberg, an owner of two minor league teams, and Nolan Ryan, the Hall of Fame pitcher and the Rangers’ president, "at a price below fair market value."

...In his letter, Herenstein said that the Greenberg-Ryan group had rejected "various modifications" in the sale agreement that would increase the proceeds to the lenders. Herenstein also said that the group had turned down different financing structures and a brief auction period to invite higher bids.

In the letter e-mailed to owners, Herenstein said that despite receiving no interest payments on loans to the Rangers and the Stars since early 2009, the lenders "have not taken and do not intend to take any actions that harm the value of the Texas Rangers." He added, "We hope that Major League Baseball exercises similar restraint."