This doesn’t quite count as a firm fight, because it’s personal for Pepper Hamilton’s Chuck Greenberg (Tufts BA ’82, Michigan JD ’85).
Greenberg has had a nice little side business owning minor-league baseball teams, and recently has been trying to make it to the big show. His Greenberg Sports Group is trying to buy the Texas Rangers out of bankruptcy.
Milbank represents a group of creditors, and they think Rangers owner/private-equity stud Tom Hicks is too conflicted to lead the sale process.
Details on that and other allegations after the jump, plus the other firms involved in a growing fracas.
Milbank’s Andrew LeBlanc says that Hicks is biased toward a sale to Greenberg.
Hicks stands to gain $75 million from sale of land near the ballpark “only if Ryan-Greenberg succeeds in acquiring the team,” said Leblanc, a partner with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP.
That deal makes it unlikely that Hicks will seek out better offers for the Rangers, the lenders say. If the Rangers sell for more than the $575 million the Ryan-Greenberg group has offered, the addition funds would be available to Rangers owners – and ultimately lenders owed $525 million.
The issue of whether the Hicks team is seeking the best deal has been testy for a while, and they were just smacked down by a judge for confusing or disparaging the process the sellers had conducted.
“By taking out of context the negotiations that occurred after the conclusion of that auction process, they attack the justified and reasonable actions of the [Commissioner's Office].”
Basically, they showed a bunch of correspondence between Weil Gotshal’s Glenn West (Tarleton State BA ’75, Texas Tech JD ’78) from the period when Greenberg’s group had exclusivity, which didn’t make the judge too happy. They also didn’t make too many friends at the Commissioner’s Office, as the quote alludes, because they said Bud Selig didn’t have any power to get involved in the sale.
Weil is involved in this deal not because of their indomitable bankruptcy practice, but from the private-equity side, which ain’t too shabby, either. They’re long-time outside counsel to Hicks, Muse.
Foley & Lardner is working on the real-estate deal. Proskauer Rose and Latham & Watkins are also involved in the team deal.
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