HOUSTON (CelebrityAccess MediaWire) — Texas Rangers Baseball Partners, the company that owns the major league baseball team, The Texas Rangers, has filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in order to complete a planned sale to a group of investors headed up by Chuck Greenberg and former Astros hurler Nolan Ryan.
According to the Houston Business Journal, Texas Rangers Baseball Partners, owned by Tom Hicks and Hicks Sports, has been working to divest the team and the deal is reportedly worth $575 million. The Greenberg-Nolan group had signed off on the deal to acquire the team in January but the process has been hindered by disputes with the team's creditors. Included in the prepackaged bankruptcy sale plan is not only the team, but the lease to at The Ballpark in Arlington and surrounding property.
While the team's entry into bankruptcy was voluntary, the Dallas Morning News reports that a group of creditors, led by the hedge fund Monarch Alternative Capital, had been advocating for a bigger slice of the proceeds from the sale of the team and had been poised to force the team into involuntary bankruptcy.
"We ended up reaching a complete impasse," Hicks said at a press conference along with Greenberg and Ryan. "This was the only way we felt like we could move things forward in a timely fashion. This action is about ending that impasse and getting the club to the group we reached an agreement with and the group I feel is the right group."
Despite the support for the sale of MLB commissioner Bud Selig, Monarch could still tie up the sale of the team with litigation.
"Odds are, the creditors won't handle this well," The Dallas Morning News reported Greenberg as saying. "They may very well make a lot of noise. But the bottom line is the Rangers will satisfy all their obligations." – CelebrityAccess Staff Writers
