Nets sale on agenda of NBA owners 23/10/2009 |
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The proposed sale of a controlling stake in the Nets to a Russian billionaire will be put to a vote of N.B.A. owners by the end of the year, according to Commissioner David Stern, who spoke positively Thursday about the deal.
The billionaire, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, has an agreement with Bruce C. Ratner, the Nets’ principal owner, to pay $200 million for 80 percent of the team and 45 percent of a proposed arena in Brooklyn. The deal needs approval from 23 of the league’s 30 owners.
Prokhorov met with a subcommittee of owners Wednesday, during the league’s board of governors meeting in Midtown Manhattan. Stern described it as a “robust and lively discussion” that focused on Prokhorov’s rise from stevedore to blue-jeans salesman to banker to metals investor to billionaire.
It was Prokhorov’s first face-to-face meeting with his prospective future partners.
“I would say that he came off as a very intelligent businessman, with a good sense of humor, sort of an ability to get outside of himself and laugh a little bit,” Stern told a small gathering of reporters.
Stern made the deal sound almost like a given when he said, “We’re looking forward to the completion of that transaction.”
Although the league’s background check is continuing, “we haven’t surfaced anything that would cause us to have a negative opinion of him,” Stern said. “But we’re not finished.”
If approved, Prokhorov would become the N.B.A.’s first majority owner outside of North America. Stern addressed several other subjects, including the H1N1 virus. He said that if a team had fewer than eight healthy players — for any combination of reasons — he would have the authority to grant an emergency signing. That authority will apply only this season.
(Source: NYTimes.com)
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