Derek Jeter loses investor on Marlins bid
For Miami Marlins fans planning a parade to celebrate new ownership, don’t splurge on confetti just yet. Things aren’t going swimmingly for the group led by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and future MLB Hall of Famer, Derek Jeter.
According to Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg, a major investor that the group had been courting has decided to swim the other way. If true, the news that Derek Jeter loses investor combined with the ambiguous comments of Bush and a statement from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred makes it appears that the group’s catch might be wiggling off the hook.
Soshnick states that the investor, who could have contributed $150 million toward the reported $1.3 billion minus team debt and losses winning bid, was Quogue capital founder Wayne Rothbaum. An impasse on the terms of the investment was the reason for his exit. Interestingly, Rothbaum is reportedly one of the individuals who submitted competing bids for the team.
This news comes in concert with what can only be described as a lack of comments on the situation from Bush himself. In a New York Post article, Bush simply stated that a lot of false information about the process has been circulating. He declined to state which reports were false, or provide the correct information. Bush did say that there at least two bidders still alive, and that both have submitted similar bids within current owner Jeffrey Loria’s asking price.
To further shed light on the situation, Manfred has said that he has yet to receive a bid from any source that has all the cash on hand to make good on its pledge. All this adds up to murky waters for the Bush/Jeter group.
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In the end, this could all be the difficulties of putting together a group of different people with varying interests to collect over a billion dollars in cash. There’s bound to be some tide to fight in such an endeavor. This could also be the beginning of the losing the catch altogether as well. Only the people involved know the true state of the negotiations, and fans may never learn everything that’s transpired along the way.