On the other side, some light morning reading you won't find on the Texas Rangers Baseball Partners Information Site -- eight of the myriad objections to the sale of Your Texas Rangers, which is set to go to the highest bidder on Wednesday. They were all filed yesterday in Fort Worth bankruptcy court, and as you can see from the headline, that's quite a choir singing "no, no, no."
Now, a couple of those filings are reserving the right to object at a later date -- like the city of Arlington, which isn't just a creditor here but also the keeper of several "several executory contracts and unexpired leases" with Hicks Sports Group and the Rangers. The city just wants to make sure the next owner can and will cover all debts and contracts. But Major League Baseball's limited objection is decidedly real: It's worried that the sale plan doesn't provide "adequate assurance" that it'll get back the $40 million baseball has loaned the Rangers to cover costs. And Alex Rodriguez, who sits atop the list of people to whom the Rangers owe exactly $24,892,007 in deferred compensation, is worried that the next owner won't pay him back -- because, says his attorney in court docs:
The collective bargaining agreement between the Major League Baseball Players Association and the 30 MLB Clubs requires that professional baseball clubs such as the Texas Rangers maintain a fund to secure deferred compensation obligations. On information and belief, no monies are currently being held in escrow by the Debtor for this purpose.
And then there are the first-lien lendors, who once more insist that an August 4 auction's way too soon to make guarantee enough enough squared-away and signed-off-on bidders to get the highest price possible:
The Greenberg Group's unwavering rush to a confirmation hearing -- like a shopper who grabs a mistakenly underpriced item and runs to the cash register before someone realizes the error -- makes it practically impossible to hold a fair auction of the Texas Rangers, and has the unfortunate consequence of harming the true stakeholders in this process: the Lenders, the Debtor's equity holders, and the Texas Rangers and their fans. Everyone is harmed, except for the Greenberg Group, who will either (a) succeed in buying the Texas Rangers for less than even it had been willing to pay, or (b) receive a windfall termination fee of at least $10 million to which it is not entitled under applicable lawAnd the U.S. Trustee just don't like the plan, period, due to the inclusion of several "provisions [that] encroach on federal and state agencies' ability to enforce statutes and regulations against the Debtors and others after confirmation." Eight objections follow, not including one from, oh, the elevator company that says it's owed more than the Rangers records show. Jump, lest you get tagged out at home.
ARod's Objection to Plan Arlingtons Objection to Plan Creditors Objection to Plan First Lien Lenders Objection Fox Sports Objection to Plan Fox Sports Objection to Plan US Trustees Objection to Plan MLBs Objection to Plan
