Steve Cohen To Buy Mets For $2.42 Billion, Within One Percent Of Forbes Valuation Of Team

Steve Cohen has come to terms with the owner of the New York Mets, Sterling Equities, which is controlled by the Wilpon and Katz families, to buy the baseball team for $2.42 billion. The price is within 1% of our $2.4 billion valuation of the Mets in April.

Cohen had an agreement to buy the Mets for $2.6 billion earlier this year, but the deal blew up over a disagreement between the hedge fund billionaire and the Wilpons over the timing of Cohen taking over the day-to-day operations of the team. We figured given the huge losses from having no fans in the ballparks this season Cohen would pay less for the team.

I was watching the Mets game this evening on SportsNet New York when the regional sports network, also controlled by Wilpon and Katz, had breaking news that a deal had been reached. Sportico, which reports that Cohen will own 95% of the team, with the Katz and Wilpon families retaining the other 5%, was the first to break the news online.

I confirmed with two sources with first hand knowledge of the sale that $2.42 billion is the actual enterprise value (equity plus net debt valuation for 100% of team). I wanted to make sure that the sale did not include the team’s operating losses for 2020, which my sources place at around $150 million. My sources say it is likely that Cohen and the current owners of the Mets split the losses and that the $2.42 billion price is indeed the enterprise value.

The Mets have almost $350 million of debt (excluding the PILOT bonds on Citi Field, which were downgraded earlier this year) and SNY, which was not part of this deal, has another $850 million or so of debt. It is unclear if, or when, Cohen will buy SNY. The RSN throws off about $150 million in cash flow, making worth, in my view, no more than $1 billion.

The sale to Cohen still has to be approved by three-quarters of MLB’s owners.

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